Goldberg and Guthrie

Hmmm....

2006-11-07T23:22:00.000-08:00

Goldberg and Guthrie post on blog, Democrats lose elections.

Goldberg and Guthrie stop posting, Democrats win elections.

(Of course, by posting this, I've assured that Democrats will lose in Montana and will lose a recount in Virginia.)

(Also, anything that results in Joe Lieberman controlling the entire Senate can't be a complete victory.)

Anyway: good job, America.

Trials for Terrorists?

2006-09-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

If we could do this, and the Israelis could do this

then we can do the same for this guy:

In fact, it's not too complicated a principle to understand.

London Terror Plot

2006-08-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Besides providing someone the opportunity to make the incredibly awesome picture below,

it seems distinctly possible that this plot may end up not all its cracked up to be. Last week I pointed you to Patrick Smith's "Ask the Pilot" column in which he made it clear banning liquids on planes in no way makes us safer, and in fact this type of threat is by no means new. But now we're learning that not only was this general threat not new, the specific threat may not be all it's cracked up to be, either.

First, via Andrew Sullivan, we have this from Craig Murray, Tony Blair's former ambassador to Uzbekistan:

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth ...

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why?

Now Kevin Drum adds more skepticism:

THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING BOMB PLOT....The Associated Press provides the latest news on the airline bombing plot:
Home Secretary John Reid, Britain's chief law-and-order official, acknowledged that some of the suspects would likely not be charged with major criminal offenses, but said there was mounting evidence of a "substantial nature" to back the allegations.
"Mounting" evidence? Shouldn't we already have lots of evidence after over a year of intensive surveillance? WTF is going on here? And then there's this:
Two top Pakistani intelligence agents said Wednesday that the would-be bombers wanted to carry out an al-Qaida-style attack to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 strikes, but were too "inexperienced" to carry out the plot.

The two senior agents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if the terror cell members arrested in Pakistan and Britain had appropriate weapons and explosives training, they could have emulated massive attacks like those five years ago in New York and Washington as well as the July 7, 2005, London bombings.
Sure, and if I had an IQ of 200 and a PhD in oncology maybe I could find a cure for cancer. But since I don't, no one should stay up nights waiting for me to produce one. Likewise, there are lots of dimwit copycats who'd like to be the next Osama bin Laden, but they're not worth more than a routine roundup unless they have the serious operational capacity to do something about it. These guys, on the contrary, "had not attended terror-training camps in Pakistan or Afghanistan and had relied on information gleaned from text books on how to make bombs."

So: was this a serious conspiracy? Or was it like the plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge that turned out to be a mentally disturbed dude with a blowtorch? Or the financial district alert in New York City that turned out to be based on information more than three years old? Or the plot to blow up the Sears Tower that turned out to be "more aspirational than operational"? Or Jose Padilla? What news about this plot are we going to discover buried on page A13 a couple of weeks from now?

I won't pretend to know what to think about the way this has been handled. Was it about winning elections? Building public support for draconian security legislation? Plain old bureaucratic incompetence?

Or was it real?

Who knows? I assume there must have been some plot at some stage of development. But a legitimate threat? I guess time will tell as more information comes out.

Airport Security

2006-08-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

Patrick Smith, the best writer in America on issues of airplanes and airports, tells us why the new restrictions on carry-on items won't make us a lick safer. There was a nearly identical plot uncovered in the mid-90s, and we stopped that one without going crazy over shampoo bottles. But now authorities react as if this is a new idea:

Based on what we know thus far, government investigators ought to be commended for unraveling this deadly scheme in time. Predictably and tragically, however, airports have been thrown into chaos not seen since the days just after Sept. 11. European and American security agencies have slammed down a sudden gantlet of restrictions resulting in massive delays and grave inconvenience for millions of passengers. An already devastated airline industry, along with countless of its customers, are once again going to suffer mightily.

There is no reason it has to be this way -- though few of us who've been writing about airport security issues over the past few years are terribly surprised. Half a decade after Sept. 11, having spent billions to upgrade air security, we're still needlessly obsessed with hobby knives and silverware, trying to thwart an attack that already happened and is all but certain never to happen again.

Is it any wonder that the specter of liquid explosives, the possibilities of which have been known to authorities for many years, should inspire a whole new round of reactionary panic and waste? It's too early, maybe, to be so cynical, but some of us have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were, ever since Richard Reid's would-be sneaker bomb commenced the silly and apparently never-to-end X-raying of footwear at airports across America. I presume the new security paradigm will call for the permanent banning of toothpaste, shampoo and drinking water.

What we need to get through our terror-addled heads is this: It has been, and it will always be, relatively easy to smuggle a potentially deadly weapon onto an aircraft.

The easily concealable components of the Bojinka microbombs demonstrate the futility of trying to root out every possible terror tool. Knives can be improvised from almost anything. The same for bombs, flammable materials, and other instruments of destruction, large or small.

More than once in this magazine I've discussed the forgotten lessons of Bojinka. In laying out other fiendish scenarios, I once raised the possibility of terrorists sewing explosives into the living bodies of pets, which could then be shipped in a plane's cargo hold. The point was never to be gruesome but, rather, to illustrate the limitless tools saboteurs will always have at their disposal.

Ultimately, protecting commercial aircraft from terrorism is not the job of airport security, it's a job for police departments, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The apparent plot at Heathrow Airport was not unraveled by the keen eye of a concourse screener; it was unraveled through careful investigation behind the scenes. By the time any attacker makes it to the metal detector, chances are it's already too late. There are too many ways to outwit that final line of defense.

No matter, here we go initiating yet another absurd crackdown to the detriment of millions of innocent travelers. Just as confiscating corkscrews didn't make us safer after Sept. 11, so banning liquids isn't going to make us safer now. All the while, the true weapon of mass destruction is the imagination and resilience of those who wish to harm us -- a fact we continue to ignore at our own peril.

Wise Words

2006-08-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

...from Matt Y. on the Heathrow bombing plot:

ADDICTED TO FAILURE. Bush says today's plots serve as a "stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." If anything, it's a stark reminder of the reverse. A stark reminder that this isn't a "war" at all -- you don't foil a plot like this with armored personnel carriers and JDAMs. We're also not going to capture the capital city of "Islamic fascism" -- not Kabul, not Baghdad, not even Teheran and Damascus -- and force our adversaries to surrender.
It's not at all difficult to kill or capture terrorists. Instead, what makes them dangerous is that they're hard to identify. What makes them doubly dangerous is that because they're hard to identify, the temptation is to target them very broadly. And as we saw in the administration's desperately failed strategies in the "Sunni triangle" when you tar huge numbers of not-yet-opponents in your effort to find the bad guys, you wind up generating a much larger number of adversaries. The great challenge is to identify strategies for targeting terrorists narrowly enough so that the number of terrorists actually declines as a result of your counterterrorism operations.
Bush keeps on doing the reverse -- defining the enemy in very broad, very lazy ways; conflating issues that have little to do with each other; charging off half-cocked and pissing people off. Meanwhile, he hasn't managed to kill or capture Osama or Zawahiri and insists on reacting to everything that happens in the most-alarmist, most-partisan terms he can imagine. Worst of all, the continued failure of his policies to ameliorate the problem is then trotted out as a justification for continuing -- or even intensifying -- the same failed approach.

The fact that this isn't so obvious that it needn't even be said is sad.

Once again, The Blog

2006-08-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

After Mel Gibson's rant about Jews causing all the world's problems, it seemed to me that I was guilty of some of those, as, clearly, many of the world's most dire problems problems, such as Israel's war with Hizbollah/Lebanon, and America West's decision to show Annapolis on flights between Newark and Las Vegas, have occurred between May 30 (our last post) and today. And, since it is incontrovertible scientific fact that correlation=causation, this Jew apologizes to Mel and the world.

Relatedly, The Editors bring teh funny and answer all your Mel Gibson questions here.

So, hopefully we'll start blogging again. Maybe not until next week, as tomorrow is my birthday and Guthrie is getting married this weekend in Cincy. Who dey?

Summer in the City

2006-05-30T10:14:00.000-07:00

An odd thing about New York is that, once the weather gets nice, there's a add social norm that basically says that if you don't "summer" (as if it's a verb) in Fire Island or the Hamptons, you haven't made it in NYC. To that, I say, pish-posh. To prove my point, I had quite an enjoyable holiday weekend in which I did not venture outside the Five Boroughs. To wit:

On Saturday, played softball in Central Park. Weather was beautiful. Saturday night had a great dinner at Stanton Social on the Lower East Side. Great place for a group--great food and not nearly as expensive as I was fearing. Also, one of our group was the heiress to a large design fortune, which was interesting.
On Sunday, went to the Astoria Beer Garden. It was the weekend of the Czech/Slovac Festival. Heard some good music and saw a lot of fun traditional dances. And the beer garden, in general, is awesome.
On Monday, went to Orchard Beach in the Bronx and then had dinner on City Island. A friend who used to work for the Parks Dept. recommended Orchard Beach, and it was pretty great. Crowded, but not overly so. Great weather, nice sand, good times. City Island is an anachronism of sorts--a New England-style fishing village within New York City--on the easternmost part of the Bronx. Had great lobster and crab legs there.

Well, that's about it, but an eventful weekend in which we were able to enjoy the weather without feeling like we were trapped in the city. Beats renting a house in Fire Island, I say.

Ride the Clouds

2006-05-24T18:26:00.000-07:00

One of the many hilarious scenes in Get Shory is when John Travolta and Gene Hackman are discussing the best Marin Weir (Danny DeVito) movies:

CHILI: Martin Weir. He played the mob guy that turned snitch in The Cyclone.

HARRY: One of his best parts.

CHILI: No, his best part was the cripple gay guy that climbed Mt. Whitney.

HARRY: Ride the Clouds. Good picture.

This reminded me of that scene.

Open Thread

2006-05-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone watch Baghdad ER last night? Any comments?

More on the Possible War Crimes

2006-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have just another point to make about this story of possible war crimes committed by some U.S. Marines (and while I still say "possible," this story seems very nearly offically confirmed to me). In my post here, I mention that the question that hangs over all the death and maiming and injury in Baghdad ER is "Why?" or "For what purpose?". There's a corrolary here concerning war crimes and other war-time atrocities. Historically, the United States Armed Forces have been extremely disciplined and have adhered strictly to the laws of war (notwithstanding My Lai or Tiger Force). In fact, that "notwithstanding" parenthetic really is the whole game. Much like John Kerry asked "How can you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" We need to ask that question every day about Iraq. The corrollary I'm pointing out is, that while war crimes are always 100% unacceptable, they will happen. Even in WWII American forces engaged in atrocities.* So, we have to look again at the "Why?" question. And, again, Iraq does not pass that test. In a just war, a revelation such as this, while terrible and worthy of a full investigation and punishment of the guilty, would not take away from the justness of the war. But, in stupid, worthless, counterproductive war such as that we have in Iraq, it needs to be added to the reasons we need to stop the war.

*I'm not talking here about strategic actions that may or may not constitute war crimes such as the firebombing of Dresden or Japan or the nuclear strikes, but in-battle atrocities not part of the strategic plan.

Chain of Command

2006-05-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my review of Baghdad ER that one of the great things about the film is seeing the men and women of the armed forces act morally and professionally brave. It struck me as nearly incomprehensible that the same organization could contain the brave and proud soldiers and marines seen in the film and also the cretins and criminals who perpetrated Abu Ghraib. Of course, in any large organizations you'll have a few bad apples, but as Sy Hersh and others have reported, it wasn't a case of "a few bad apples," it was the case of pressure being brought to bear from on high for "actionable intelligence" bringing out the worst in poorly trained prison guards. Hersh in May 2004:

The solution [to the problem of poor intelligence in Iraq], endorsed by Rumsfeld and carried out by Stephen Cambone, was to get tough with those Iraqis in the Army prison system who were suspected of being insurgents. A key player was Major General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention and interrogation center at Guantanamo, who had been summoned to Baghdad in late August to review prison interrogation procedures. The internal Army report on the abuse charges, written by Major General Antonio Taguba in February, revealed that Miller urged that the commanders in Baghdad change policy and place military intelligence in charge of the prison. The report quoted Miller as recommending that "detention operations must act as an enabler for interrogation."

Miller's concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to "Gitmoize" the prison system in Iraq-to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba-methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in "stress positions" for agonizing lengths of time. (The Bush Administration had unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions.)

Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.

....

Cambone then made another crucial decision, the former intelligence official told me: not only would he bring the sap's rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap's* auspices. "So here are fundamentally good soldiers-military-intelligence guys-being told that no rules apply," the former official, who has extensive knowledge of the special-access programs, added. "And, as far as they're concerned, this is a covert operation, and it's to be kept within Defense Department channels."

The military-police prison guards, the former official said, included "recycled hillbillies from Cumberland, Maryland." He was referring to members of the 372nd Military Police Company. Seven members of the company are now facing charges for their role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib. "How are these guys from Cumberland going to know anything? The Army Reserve doesn't know what it's doing."

So, when MPs who don't know how to interrogate people are told "no rules apply," then, well, no rules fucking apply, right?

Anyway, this is in stark contract to the officers and men we see in Baghdad ER, who have the proper training, who know why they're doing what they are doing and who know how to do it. In fact, this dichotomy struck me so that I mentioned it after the film to my girlfriend. I basically made the above-mentioned point and then said that, well, even with good leadership at the LtC, Col. and General officer levels, if the officer on the ground is Lt. Calley, then you're still screwed. Well, it seems something like this may have happened recently in Iraq:

A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

...

Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.

One military official says it appears the civilians were deliberately killed by the Marines, who were outraged at the death of their fellow Marine.

“This one is ugly," one official told NBC News.

Three Marine officers — commanders in Haditha — have been relieved of duty, and at least 12 Marines in all are under investigation for what would be the worst single incident involving the deliberate killing of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq.

Digby says:

This war was waged for inexplicable reasons and in the course of waging it, the administration has presented a split version of reality that troops have to try to sort out. Liberating the "Iraqi people" and fighting "the terrorists" all of whom look alike to these marines. I don't excuse them for one minute for emptying guns into three year olds out of anger at their mate being killed. There is no excuse. But when you have the civilian leadership of the military publicly pondering the relative humanity of various enemies, you can see where the troops might just get a little bit addled.

What a mess. What a horrible, horrible mess. This stuff is sickening and wrong when it happens in a war of self-defense. When it happens in a war for Karl Rove's majority or a war for Halliburton or a war for whatever the hell they started this one for, then it is a moral failure of epic proportions.

We clearly don't know enough to say that the bolded language is correct in terms of cause-and-effect, but I stand behind Digby's last paragraph above 100%.

UPDATE: Billmon has more:

I don't know if it's better or worse that this atrocity seems to have been committed by a military unit completely out of control, instead of one that was following orders, as was clearly the case at Abu Ghraib. One one hand, you can argue that it's simply a reminder that Americans are as capable of being beasts as anyone else: Germans, Japanese, Russians, Serbs, Arabs, Afghans, Israelis, Somalians, Afrikaaners, Salvadorans -- the list goes on and on. There's nothing exceptional about us, even in our war crimes.

On the other hand, the fact that U.S. Marines -- the few, the proud, etc. -- were capable of such bestiality says something ominous about the psychological state of the American military after three years of being stretched to the limit. These weren't draftees or Guardsmen or pathetic losers like Calley. These were professionals, supposedly the best of the best, and yet they threw away their training, their code and their honor, and drenched themselves and their flag in the blood of innocents. They simply snapped, in other words, and it makes me wonder how many more like them are out there -- one IED or ambush away from going beserk.

*sap: special-access program. A "black-op" outside the normal chain of command and classification structure that reported directly to Rumsfield.

Army Says Baghdad ER Could Trigger PTSD

2006-05-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Army surgeon general is warning that the HBO documentary "Baghdad ER" is so graphic that military personnel watching it could experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

In a memo dated May 9 and obtained by CNN, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley said the film "shows the ravages and anguish of war."

"Those who view this documentary may experience many emotions," he said in the memo. "If they have been stationed in Iraq, they may re-experience some symptoms of post-traumatic stress, such as flashbacks or nightmares." (Watch what made a bloodied soldier in Baghdad plead for his life --3:33)

...

Kiley, who has watched the film with senior Army officials, said it is "an extremely graphic and moving look at how we care for severely wounded service members."

"This film will have a strong impact on viewers and may cause anxiety for some soldiers and family members."

He noted that "some may have strong reactions to the medical procedures such as the amputation of a limb."

Kiley said military medical treatment facilities should be ready to help troops and family members affected by the film. He suggested that mental health facilities should extend their treatment hours and reach out to the troops proactively.

Army officials said they fully support the film and note the Army gave the filmmakers access to the hospital. But privately they said it is so graphic that senior leaders do not want to turn Monday's premiere in Washington into a social occasion so many will not be attending, preferring to let the limelight fall on the military personnel.

After screening the film, officials said they are aware that some may use it to make an anti-war message.

This is probably true. And it's good that the Army recognizes this--and it's also good that they do not want the DC premiere to be a "social occasion." After the screening in NYC, people were mingling, but let me tell you it was not the right time for typical cocktail-party smalltalk. As for that final line, this movie may not be "anti-war", but it is, in fact, a strong statement against the Iraq war and occupation. You see what is happening, and can't help ask yourself "Why?" And there's no good answer to that question. None.

Baghdad ER

2006-05-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Even though HBO already screened this film at the Pentagon, military types seem to be wary (unsurprising). See here (via Steve G.)

We're at a point in this war where we don't seem to be getting much news about the day-to-day situation on the ground, other than there seems to be some nebulous understanding that things are bad and getting worse. Rasmussen, for example, has a recent poll stating that 51% of Americans think that, in the long run, the U.S. mission in Iraq will be a failure, while only 34% think it will be a success. My personal belief is that these negative feelings are the result of a combination of (1) the drip-drip-drip quality of bad news out of Iraq itself (as in, each day it seems another bomb goes off killing dozens of civilians) and (2) the general feeling that, politically, the Bush administration, which hung its hat on Iraq, is a failure. A new poll has Bush at only 29% approval.

It is with this backdrop, and with my own feelings that this war has been a disaster on every level from the get-go, that I went to an advanced screening of Baghdad ER, the new HBO documentary I mentioned last week. Now, full disclosure, my girlfriend is one of the directors long-time close friends, and I am also friends with him. Nevertheless, I can say that in no way colors my opinion that this is an incredible, heartbreaking and horrific film. Matt O'Neill and Jon Alpert, the directors, were given seemingly full access to the Army's medical corps in Baghdad, including the medevac teams that go out in the field to bring the wounded soldiers and marines to the hospital in the Green Zone. The film, to say the least, is graphic in what it shows us. But, what is going on in Iraq is graphic and horrible, and to show it as otherwise would be little more than a lie.

Before I talk about the film specifically, I want to point out that, while I know the filmmakers will argue vociferously that this film is not a political film, I disagree. While the film is no way polemical, it is indeed political. We see soldiers and marines maimed, disfigured, traumatized and killed. We see this right before our eyes. The film goes out of its way not to comment or editorialize on any of this. However, in every scene, in every shot, there is a question that hangs in the air, a question that can't help but hang in the air. Of course, that question is simply "Why?" At brief instances, we hear doctors and other soldiers briefly mention "the mission", but in general that question is not addressed directly. However, we do see the chaplain, in many heartbreaking moments trying to deal with the pain and death around him, call the war and the violence "senseless." We see other doctors and soldiers lament their having to deal, day in and day out, with some of the most horrific situations one can imagine. But, in its essence, the film just shows what our men and women in the armed forces are doing to try to save the wounded. It shows heroism and bravery without comment, but again, the morality (or lack thereof) and the politics of the entire war hangs like a fog over the entire film.

In many ways, Baghdad ER is two films: One film about the soldiers and marines who are wounded or killed in action; another film about the medics and doctors and nurses who are trying to save the wounded. Both films are of equal import and equal emotional impact. The soldiers and marines, dealing with their own wounds, the wounds and deaths of their comrades, are fully humanized in the film; each individual deals with the trauma differently, and each individual commands our respect. The medical teams are incredibly professional, working under the most stressful of conditions, doing everything possible to help both U.S. servicemen and women and Iraqi civilians. The doctors and nurses and chaplains are also surprisingly engaging individuals who really act as the films narrators, as there is no voiceover (a wonderful act of restraint by the filmmakers).

One last point I want to make is about the command structure of our military. Sy Hersh has reported ad nauseum over the last few years how the prisoner mistreatment at torture that has occurred in places like Abu Ghraib has followed directly from the top--Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld to Gen. Geoffrey Miller to the soldiers on the ground. This is what happened, and indeed, the only way these abuses abuses can happen (well, lack of discipline from the chain-of-command can do it, too). But, you can see the soldiers and marines in this film and wonder how the same organization can produce the brave, professional, heroic men and women seen in this film and also the sadistic and criminal guards who committed the atrocities at Abu Ghraib. In any event, it was just something I noticed, because everyone in the film is what we want and expect every serviceman woman to be.

Well, I'm not a film critic, and a film like this doesn't necessarily lend itself to descriptions on paper (or screen). It is a visceral, difficult experience, and I highly encourage all Americans to watch it when it premiers on May 21 at 8pm EDT.

Baseball Blogging

2006-05-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

The Indians just got swept by the Royals. Good lord they need to get their act together.

I hope to have more Cobra II blogging by the end of the week.

The Franklin Kite

2006-05-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

Goat, frontman for Boston-based trio The Franklin Kite, reminds me here that TFK has their first New York show tomorrow night, at the Trash Bar in Brooklyn. Kite goes on promptly at 11pm. It will be a great show. Get there.

Radiohead

2006-05-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

I've had tremendous luck in the past with concert tickets. Last time Radiohead toured I got 2nd row tickets in the pavilion of Blossom Music Center through Radiohead's official presale. And, last time the Boss toured, I got sweet tix to the Rosemont Theater show through regular old ticketmaster.

Well, my luck ran out today, when neither I nor my friend could get fuck-all to Radiohead's two NYC shows in June through ticketmaster. So, I went to ebay, where, of course, people were already selling tickets for astronomical sums. And, despite my "no large, unexpected purchases in May" pledge to myself, I bid and won on some. So, at least I'm going--I'm sure it will be incredible. I think these tickets will be pretty good, too (probably not awesome, though). I'll do a concert review after I go.

All Bow Before My Legal Prowess

2006-05-04T14:40:00.000-07:00

From the New York State Board of Law Examiners:

NAME: GOLDBERG

Date of Birth: 08/78

The State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State bar examination held on February 21-22, 2006. Although every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this lookup screen, each applicant must rely on the official notification (via U.S. Mail) as to whether he or she has passed the examination.

All in all, not nearly as stressful an experience as in Chicago, but not something I recommend.

Colbert

2006-05-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Editors don't post much anymore, but when they do, they rock.

Update: Not that this is a story I care about too much, or even a "story" in the strictest sense, it's interesting in some ways. Lance Mannion has good stuff, and he quotes the Kung Fu Monkey:

As for Colbert crossing the line -- how? Did he make remarks about the President's wife? About his children? His sex life? His draft dodging, his drinking and drug use before he found the Lord? No. Every joke used a well-known fact of public-record. Does anyone deny the poll numbers cited? Does anyone deny that the government response to previous crisises have been deficient? Does anyone deny that Administration officials outed Valerie Plame (hell, even the Administration officials now have to rely on he idea it was accidental)? Does anyone deny that the Administration has actively opposed global warming discussions? Listen -- if the President could do a long routine about not finding WMD's and laughing about it, while US soldiers died in the resultant war ... then to be frank I think he set the bar. Oddly, I think that if Colbert had done the routine the President did a couple years ago, THAT would have been crossing the line for me.

If his sin was incivility, then what the audience/bookers were looking for wasn't comedy. Comedy is by its nature uncivil. Comedy is, in both linguistic structure and overall psychological impact, hostile. Sometimes overtly, often not. But there is no such thing as a joke structured like: "You know what makes me happy? Yeah, that same thing that makes everybody else happy. (sigh)" There is no laugh there.

AP sportswriter bring Teh Snark?

2006-05-04T05:47:00.000-07:00

From Janie McCauley's AP recap of the Indians' 14-3 victory over the A's, discussing Paul Byrd's incredible run support:

Byrd got all the offense he needed and then some.

He even received a call from Atlanta ace John Smoltz last week in which Smoltz admitted he envied all the run support Byrd was getting -- though both players are religious and being envious of anyone is not an accepted practice in their faith.

Hmm.

Sopranos/Wire blogging

2006-05-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

Recently, a few friends asked me why I thought The Wire was a stronger, better show than The Sopranos. Mind you, these individuals had not seen one episode of The Wire, so they weren't disagreeing with me, just wanted to know my reasons. It's kind of a strange questions, as I find it to be more entertaining that the Sopranos and don't really feel the need to defend myself on that count (full disclosure: I consider myself to be a fairly big Sopranos fan). But, I do think HBO has given the short-shrift to The Wire on the advertising/promotion level (why can HBO let everyone in the free world know that Entourage is returning for Season 3 in June, but many people who are HBO fans don't even know there is a show out there called "The Wire"?), and I want my friends to start watching the show. So, to be more specific, I think the greatest advantage The Wire has over The Sopranos is that the storylines, themes and characters are more relevant. Now, when I told the friends in question this, they looked at me incredulously and asked, "What do you mean 'relevant.'" Well, it was a difficult question to answer--they were not satisfied when I talked about how The Wire deals with legitimate issues of national concern such as urban decay/renewal, the drug war, unions, corruption and urban politics. Such an answer gave my friends the mistaken impression that the show is a "take your medicine" kind of show--like, you should watch it because it's good for you and will let you be a better citizen.

Now, I kind of believe watching The Wire will open your eyes to some serious issues in America today. But, that's not what all I meant by "relevant." It's simply the most compelling show on television, and it's "relevance" is one of those reasons. But, I think Sunday's episode of the Sopranos gives me the opportunity to elaborate. Specifically, I'm thinking of Tony's dilemma concerning the possiblity of (yet another) extramarital affair with Juliana Margulies and his dilemma from the previous episode about whether to kill Frankie Valli. Now, the median viewer, I would suspect, probably viewed these dilemmas equally, or, maybe even more likely, saw having the affair as the more serious moral dilemma. The direction of the show in fact pushed the viewer to think this--David Chase may have had us analyze, with Tony, the business reasons for taking out Frankie Valli, but we don't care one way or the other about the morality--it's the mob, after all. But, with the possible affair, we get Tony talking about it to Melfi, Tony and Carmela having sex and acting generally like a "happy couple," etc. And, really, this makes sense for David Chase to do because, after all, to the median viewer, dealing with something like adultery is a much more "relevant" topic than say, dealing with whether to hire some zips from Italy to kill a guy your New York rival wants taken out.

Roy Edroso at Alicublog has a post that touches some of these same issues. He writes:

From the beginning "The Sopranos" has had two major streams. On the one hand, there is the grotesque crudity – the source of many cheap laughs, which is what I think bothers Wolcott about the Kingsley/Bacall storyline [Roy is talking about a James Wolcott post about how he's off the Sopranos], and which also gains most of the water-cooler talking points and tabloid ooh-aahs. Hacked-off heads, surprise deaths, etc.

In opposition to this baseness, there is something larger and more dramatic -- operatic conflicts, behaviors, and emotions. The crude stuff is also outsized, in a grand guignol sort of way, but the latter is the meat of the dramatic interest, because even in this debased age we are still more interested in characters than in splatters, if only slightly so.

I pretty much agree with this, and while the cruder parts are entertaining, they are often not particulary compelling, and again, this gets back to relevance. Contrast this with The Wire, in which all the main themes are both incredibly entertaining from both a a cat-and-mouse standpoint (which can be loosely analogized to Roy's "cruder" parts of The Sopranos) and a character standpoint (the "operatic conflicts, behaviors, emotions")--there is no dictotomy between these two sections in The Wire. Add that to the fact that, indeed, if you watch The Wire you may actually think of different ways to address our nation's urban problems, and, viola, you have a superior television show.

Also, The Wire has Omar and Bubbles, and if you can find me two better pairings of actor and character (in supporting roles), I'll give you a dollar.

UPDATE: I should have noted that, several months ago, my girlfriend and I were discussing the general awesomeness of The Wire, and she is the one who came up with the idea that one of the reasons we like it so much is because it is, in fact, relevant. "Credit where credit is due" is the Goldberg and Guthrie motto after all!*

*Well, after the real motto, which is: "Guthrie doesn't post here anymore."

Cobra II

2006-05-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

I bought Cobra II yesterday, and let me tell you, it is chock full o' bloggy goodness. I just read the first two chapters, but there are already some things I want to blog about. First off is why we went to war in Iraq, and then I'll bring it around to the current issues with Iran. Atrios still thinks we don't know. I disagree (although Atrios may be saying that we've never been given a official answer that makes sense, which is true). The real reason for invading Iraq was, ironically*, the Tom Friedman reason--we decided we had to kill us some Arabs. Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor lay this out pretty clearly on page 18-19 of Cobra II, when discussing a Pentagon meeting with Libby, Chalabi, Perle and other terrible people in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (the meeting in question was September 19 and 20, 2001):

Rumsfeld showed up toward the end of the session and made a broader point. Yes, it was important to topple the Taliban as quickly as the U.S. could, but that would not be enough. The United States needed to do more to demostrate that there were serious consequences for mounting an attack on the U.S. and to show it would not suffer unsavory governments that were affiliated with terrorists. There was no flowery talk of inculcating democracy in the heart of the Middle East. Rumsfeld was advocating a demostration of American power. It was a reprise of the brainstorming sessions the defense secretary had carried out with Feith and his aides soon after the 9/11 attacks. Rumsfeld had not proclaimed Iraq to be the next target, but he had made it clear that he felt there needed to be a Phase 2. [Emphasis added]

So, it was because we needed to show strength. That, in all seriousness, is stupid enough to not really warrant further comment. But, even more warped is that the bolded passage above assumes we correctly answered the question of "Consequences for whom?" Obviously, much was said before and after the start of the war that it was stupid to attack Saddam to avenge something done by Bin Laden. So, as with a lot of the press over Cobra II, this is really not new news, but just newly confirmed news. Now we have real documentation that Rumsfeld decided Iraq was attacked not for weapons, not for democracy, but for retribution for something they didn't do. You may draw your own conclusions concerning the role of race.

In any event, why does this matter w/r/t Iran? Here I link to Matt Yglesias:

It's hardly a secret at this point, but one of the things reading Cobra II drives home is the extent to which the fix was already in during the final months of hand-wringing and diplomacy over Iraq. The administration had decided to invade, and the purpose of the diplomacy was to try and create a political environment -- both domestic and international -- that was maximally favorable to the invasion plan. Even Saint Colin Powell regarded the possibility that Saddam would back down and cooperate with inspectors as a threat to be avoided because was was the desired outcome. You can't think straight about the Iran situation unless you appreciate this reality and it's significance.

It's worth saying at the get-go that this doesn't merely reflect some kind of cynicism on the part of Karl Rove or an eccentricity of George W. Bush. It's part of a considered, and wrongheaded, view of America's foreign policy which holds that reaching diplomatic agreements with "evil" regimes is always a bad thing. The preferred method is the use of force and intimidation. The problem is that neither the American people nor the international community is prepared to endorse fighting wars for no reason at all. Thus, when the Iranians approach us with peace feelers, the offers must be rejected out of hand. Iranian intransigence at the IAEA isn't a problem, but an opportunity for war. I don't say that everyone in the administration thinks this way, but many of them do, and they're joined by many conservatives outside the administration. It's no secret, for example, that lots of folks have been pushing for action against Iran since long before the current iteration of the nuclear crisis broke out.

Matt's point is that, prospectively, we shouldn't get into an argument about how to best to pressure Tehran to avoid war and whatnot, because the pro-war factions will just use those arguments to bring about the very war we're trying to avoid (and that the administration claims they are trying to avoid). Therefore, in such a fucked-up environment such as this, the key is simply to be against a war with Iran. (Read the rest of the Yglesias piece to get a clearer picture of this dynamic.)

This makes sense, as, in retrospect, Bush got his UN resolution (well, the first one), got his inspectors on the ground, the inspectors, after some initial "hide the ball" by Saddam, were getting nearly unfettered access to the suspected WMD sites, and what did Bush do? He pulled the inspectors and started the war. Why did he pull them? Well, obviously because he wanted to go to war, but specifically because the more they had full access in Iraq, and the more they didn't find anything, the weaker the case for war. And the inspectors weren't there to enforce a weapons ban, but, in Bush's mind, they were there to set conditions favorable to war. I'll conclude with more from that Matt Y. post:

I'm by no means opposed to the idea of more aggressive diplomatic and economic pressure and what have you. But I most certainly am opposed to starting a war. And insofar as twists and turns in policy are likely to be just smoke and mirrors -- as we saw before Iraq -- designed to smooth the path to war, I don't think people should waste their time talking about this stuff. The President has it within his power to alter this dynamic any time he wants. All he needs to do is say that, no, he's not going to start a war with Iran, but he does want to deal with the nuclear issue. With war taken "off the table," then we can have a conversation about diplomacy, the UN, sanctions, isolation, etc., etc., etc. But as long as war is on the table, then war -- not diplomacy -- is the issue, and the "military option" is a terrible one.

Hopefully I'll be doing much more on these issues as I make my way through this important book.

Quick Lt. of Inishmore Update

2006-05-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

I forgot to note the seemingly-superfluous-but-in-reality-crucial fact that I did, indeed, urinate right next to Jeff Goldblum during intermission. Unfortunately for all, there were large barriers between urinals so there was no change to satisfy my (and, admit it, your) curiosity on certain matters anatomical.

Baghdad ER

2006-05-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Bob Herbert (behind the NYTimes Select Firewall, so I can't link to it) has a column today about Baghdad ER, a new documentary from HBO. One of the directors is a friend of mine (in fact, I was at his wedding yesterday--congrats!) and from what he's told me it should be an incredible film. Here's an excerpt of what Bob Herbert wrote about it:

In the first few moments of the documentary film "Baghdad ER," we see a man dressed in hospital scrubs carrying a bloodied arm that has been amputated above the elbow. He deposits it in a large red plastic bag.

This HBO production is reality television with a vengeance — warfare as it really is. And while it is frightening, harrowing and deeply painful to watch, it should be required viewing for all but the youngest Americans. It will premiere May 21.

For two months in 2005, the directors Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill were given unprecedented access by the Army to the 86th Combat Support Hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad. Working 12-hour shifts, they watched — and taped — the heroic struggle of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to salvage as many lives as possible from what amounted to a nonstop conveyor belt of bloodied, broken and burned G.I.'s.

At one point in the film, a specialist who survived a roadside bomb attack murmurs from a stretcher, "It was the worst thing I ever saw in my life, sir."

"What was that?" he is asked.

Recalling his last view of a buddy who was killed in the attack, he says, "My friend didn't have a face.

Now, I think they didn't just film in the Green Zone hospital, but also filmed Medivac crews, military hospitals in Germany and also at Walter Reed in Maryland (I'm not 100% sure of that, but I think that's right). In any event, I'll be going to an advance screening next week and blog about it after I see it.* Based on my discussions with the director, I'm convinced the film will treat the subject matter with both frankness and feeling.

*I'll have to see if they give us guidelines or prohibitions in terms of writing about the film, as it's not a press screening or anything like that.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

2006-05-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

I saw this play Friday night, and it was the funniest, most interesting and brilliant piece of stage work I've ever seen. It's written by Martin McDonagh, who just won the Oscar for best short film. I went in not knowing anything about it, and I think that's the best way to see it, so I won't go into any of the plot. I can promise you that you will love it, though. (Full Disclosure: A high school friend is a producer, but I can assure you that's not why you should see this play). An added bonus is that it stars Homicide and The Wire star Peter Geherty.

Below is info on how to get discount tickets and some blurbs from reviews during its off-Broadway run:

THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE by Martin McDonagh ("The Pillowman"), opened Off-Broadway earlier this year to the best reviews of the season. We're offering YOU the opportunity to purchase discounted tickets to the show in its new home, the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway: tickets as low as $36.25* (balcony) and $49.25* (orchestra & mezzanine). A savings of up to 45% (normally $91.25)!

Here are a sampling of just SOME of the reviews:
"Gleeful, Gruesome, Criminally Funny and Appallingly Entertaining."
Ben Brantley, The New York Times

"The Best Bloody Play I Ever Saw."
John Heilpern, The New York Observer

"The Most Ripsnorting Hilarious Comedy In New York."
David Cote, Time Out New York

"Play Going Doesn't Get Any Better Than This."
Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

"4 STARS [out of 4]! Brilliant Comedy, Wildly Entertaining!"
Elysa Gardner, USA Today

"A Marvelous and All-Too-Current Comedy."
Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly

HOW TO GET YOUR DISCOUNTED TICKETS:
ONLINE: www.BroadwayOffers.com and enter code IN4DMX7
BY PHONE: Call (212) 947-8844 and mention code IN4DMX7
IN PERSON: Print this email and bring it to the Lyceum Theatre box office, 149 West 45th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). Mon - Sat 10:00 AM - 8:30 PM, SUN 12:00 Â 6:00 PM

CHECK OUT: www.LieutenantOfInishmore.com

I am not exaggerating when I say that this play is, in fact, worth a trip to NYC just to see.

Once Again, the Triumphant Return of G&G

2006-04-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

Been a while, no? I think we'll start things back off with a little The Wire blogging. Repeats of Season 3 begin on Tuesday, May 9th, at 11pm EDT/10pm CDT on HBO-Zone (which probably comes up as "HBO-Z" on your channel guide. Set your Tivos accordingly. Right now, HBO-Z is replaying Season 2, which I have decided is the best season. I was always partial to Season 1, but this being my second viewing of Season 2 (I've watched Season 1 three times now), I am changing my tune. Then again, considering Seasons 1-3 are really just one 36-episode story (more or less), what's really the point in arguing which season is better. That said, I've only seen Season 3 once, and, much like Season 2, they throw so many new characters and storylines at you, it takes a while to get into it (this is why I think Season 2 is even better on second viewing--you already have the necessary frame of reference and can catch the subtleties that you miss the first time). So, maybe after I watch Season 3 again I'll think that is the best season.

Oh, and one last Wire point. Watching Season 2 now after having seen Season 3, there are a couple of scenes with Bunny Colvin, which, I assure you, are much more powerful when put in the context of what happens in Season 3. Anyway...for those of you who have seen Seasons 1 and 2 but not 3, enjoy!

Now, on to blog business--since I've moved to New York, this blog has clearly gone down hill. Now, I think Guth and I are equally to blame. He claims he has no time, but considering he told me that he read all seven (or however many there are) Harry Potter books in 1 week, I think he can find time to blog. That said, I've not been saying much, either. I think maybe this is partly because the sheer pathetic-ness of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party makes blogging about said pathetic-ness as kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. That said, I'm going to try to blog more regularly. Also, I'm thinking of trying to make this a bit more of a group blog, assuming I can rope anyone else into joining us. Reader/Commenter jk, I'm looking at you. I think that might be good both because it should lead to more posts and also because new perspectives are always good.

That's about it--hopefully this will be the start of a new, improved (as in, "active") blog.

Forced Pregnancy

2006-04-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Via Atrios, here.

Al Franken

2006-04-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

I'm quite convinced Al Franken will run for Senate in 2008. I have a friend who lived in the Twin Cities for 4 years after college. He's a committed Democrat, but feels Minnesota voters would balk at a Franken run. After reading this, I can say I disagree 100%. The guy is smart, funny and, at least based on this speech, quite charismatic. Check it out. He also eviscerates Ann Coulter, which is fun.

It's About Who Gets What Share of the Pie

2006-04-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money (what a great name--if this blog were focused on Middle East issues, I think I'd call it Mohammed's Radio) has a great post about competitive balance and salary caps in pro sports. His post has actual facts, so maybe it will make Guthrie understand that the reason the Reds suck is not really because the Yankees don't suck:

It's actually quite amazing the extent to which progressives who know better repeat the argument--which is pure management propaganda--that if players aren't exploited only a few teams will be competitive. Consider this from Malcolm Gladwell, speaking in June 2002:
If there is a work stoppage this fall -- as I hope there is -- and if the players come to their senses and we get a cap and revenue sharing, I'll come back to the game. In the meantime I'll spend my time watching the NBA where, I'd like to point out, a team from a minor, regional metropolitan area just gave a team from Los Angeles a run for its money. Imagine that!
Of course, what's ludicrous about this is that in MLB 2001 a team from New York was given all it could handle by small-market Oakland (you remember, when Derek Jeter made the Greatest Play Ever (TM) by flipping the ball toward the catcher, and then willing Giambi not to slide, and then willing the umpire to blow the call, in the key game that prevented the invincible Yankees from getting swept.) This is the perfect example of the tautological nature of these arguments; somehow, the Lakers winning yet again can be spun as a tribute to the highly competitive NBA, but if the Yankees barely beat a better team in the postseason this proves nobody can possibly compete with them (although--and I make no judgment about whether this is better--it's obvious that far fewer teams can plausibly win an NBA championship at the beginning of the year than a World Series. The less "teamy" nature of baseball is far outweighed by the fact that a star player has vastly greater impact on an NBA team than an MLB one.) Gladwell's rare moment of idiocy does give us a hint, however, about why this nonsense became strongly entrenched: the big Yankee run of the late 90s and early 00s. The thing is, though, that while the '98 Yankees were an authentically great team, the 2000/1 Yankees weren't. The 2001 A's were a better team than the Yankees, their narrow loss in a 5-game series notwithstanding, and of course that year the Mariners won 116 games. Now that their luck in post-season has run out, it's becoming harder to believe that the Yankees are unbeatable, and in fact in most of these years they weren't (and, of course, their '98 team was not primarily built around expensive free agents in any case.)

Read Scott's whole post--it's very good. And it's why I say that NFL players are vastly, vastly underpaid. As Scott implies later in the post, there's no reason you can't have revenue sharing without a salary cap.

Also--Go Tribe! Way to start the season! CC--get better!

Awesomely Lame

2006-03-30T07:44:00.000-08:00

Reader JK can rest easy, while I will pine for Vince McMahon to come back to pro football.

I Left Chicago for New York to Enlist in the War on Terror

2006-03-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

Via everybody, right-wing blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt interviewed Time chief Baghdad correspondent:

Read the transcript of Hewitt's conversation with Michael Ware. There's this interesting discussion of how Ware came close to having his head sawed off:
By the same token, trying to film them secretly in Baghdad, I was kidnapped by them, dragged out of my car, and a group of Syrian fighters for Zarqawi were preparing to execute me on the street here in Baghdad. So I've been with Zarqawi's people in a number of different forms....And eventually, the al Qaeda Syrians decided it wasn't worth it, and through very gritted teeth, after having said a Westerner comes in here and you expect us to let him leave alive, they finally relented and set me free. It was not a pleasant experience.
Then, some time after this discussion--that is, after we've been made aware of the fact that Ware's been in some serious shit--he says
I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.
and Hugh responds, hilariously, with this:
I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.
Ok. I just wanted to note the larger context. Nothing more to say, really.

Now, if my office moves to the new New York Times building, which is about a 50/50 proposition right now, I'll be the on the central front in two wars on terror--the Al-Queda one and the Ann Coulter one!

But I Want My Pony NOW!!!

2006-03-29T09:12:00.000-08:00

We have the Democratic Party's position on Iraq:

Ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country and with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces.

Atrios, through the miracle of time travel possible when you're a super-duper blogger in control of the Internets, gives us the 2010 Democratic Party platform for Iraq:

Ensure 2010 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country and with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces, and a pony.

Atrios blames this on having to keep Joe Lieberman on board, which may be partly true, but I'd say it's as much the fault of the Biden/Clinton "Incompetence Dodge" wing as Lieberman.

Off-Season NFL Blogging

2006-03-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

No, not important commentary on the new collective bargaining agreement or the Browns' many attractive free agent signings. I just want to tell you all I agree with Peter King's reader and Peter King himself on this issue 100%.

THE NO FUN LEAGUE. From Scott of Moncton, New Brunswick: "Once again the NFL wants to rein in the celebrations that in many ways are harmless and, more often than not, outright funny. In a world full of pressure and stress, these few moments of creative humor each Sunday are what the NFL should be promoting rather than banning. Kudos to Chad Johnson, Steve Smith and T.J. Duckett (his "start the car " routine from last year was an all-time classic). The NFL needs to realize that they are an entertainment product and they shouldn't take themselves so seriously all the time."

I couldn't agree with you more. I only hope the members of the competition committee read this, because it would be a shame if they legislate some harmless fun out of football. Next.

I hereby proclaim all opposed to be fuddy-duddies.

How is this Legal?

2006-03-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Via Rep. Slaughter writing on Kos, we find out she's introducing a bill to prevent Capitol Hill aides from day-trading based on inside information:

Amid broad congressional concern about ethics scandals, some lawmakers are poised to expand the battle for reform: They want to enact legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their aides from trading stocks based on nonpublic information gathered on Capitol Hill.

Two Democrat lawmakers plan to introduce today a bill that would block trading on such inside information. Current securities law and congressional ethics rules don't prohibit lawmakers or their staff members from buying and selling securities based on information learned in the halls of Congress.

It isn't clear yet what kind of support the bill will garner from Republicans. But its prospects are enhanced by the current charged environment in Congress; lawmakers from both parties in both houses have placed a high priority on passing ethics and lobbying-reform legislation. Such legislation would provide a vehicle to which proponents could attach a measure on stock trades.

In addition to banning trading on inside information, the proposal would require that lawmakers and their top aides disclose within 30 days any stock trades. Congressional rules now require lawmakers to disclose their trades once a year. The bill also would require that companies register with Congress if they sell information about congressional activity to Wall Street investors.

Unlike members of Congress, executive-branch employees already are banned from trading on inside information. Employees of several federal agencies are prohibited from investing in companies that have business before them. In 1934, for example, Congress banned Federal Communications Commission employees from owning stocks or bonds in telecommunications or broadcast companies.[Emphasis G&G]

Now, I ~~am not~~ am a securities lawyer, and I cannot believe that this is legal under current law. Is there some exemption to the insider trading law that exempts congressional aides? Now, time to sue my awesomely powerful lawyer skills (warning: Do Not Attempt Without J.D.): Rule 10b-5 (specifically, 10b5-1) under the Exchange Act covers insider trading. It reads in part:

a. General. The "manipulative and deceptive devices" prohibited by Section 10(b) of the Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder include, among other things, the purchase or sale of a security of any issuer, on the basis of material nonpublic information about that security or issuer, in breach of a duty of trust or confidence that is owed directly, indirectly, or derivatively, to the issuer of that security or the shareholders of that issuer, or to any other person who is the source of the material nonpublic information.

b. Definition of "on the basis of." Subject to the affirmative defenses in paragraph (c) of this section, a purchase or sale of a security of an issuer is "on the basis of" material nonpublic information about that security or issuer if the person making the purchase or sale was aware of the material nonpublic information when the person made the purchase or sale.

Now, I am not up on the caselaw, but I can't imagine Congressional aides are not found to owe a duty of trust to the issuer, at least indirectly. But maybe caselaw states otherwise. Rep. Slaughter say:

The bottom line is, at the very least, individuals with access to non-public government information should be held to the same standards as any other American. There is a gaping hole in the law and it needs to be closed. People should come work in Congress to serve their country, not to enrich themselves.

So, I guess we have to just assume that insider trading is, in fact, legal for these people? So my question is: What is this loophole and how does it work? Anyone?

Role Reversal

2006-03-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

This blog rarely comments on gender issues in Hollywood, but this caught my eye, in an article announcing that they will make Ocean's 13:

However, the sultryEllen Barkin will keep the estrogen quotient in check this time around and, as Weintraub told Variety, she'll be heating up the screen with Damon's character, Linus.

Ellen Barkin will turn 52 on April 16; Matt Damon is 36. I have to applaud the studio and producers for reversing the normal Hollywood gender roles. I think more likely would be paring Carl Reiner's character with Mischa Barton, so this is some refreshing thinking. Good for them.

A Golden Age of Television

2006-03-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

Three of the best shows ever are running right now, and they are all pretty close to the top of their game. The Sopranos, 24 and Lost are good week in and week out, and for the next few months they will be on every week (although Lostwill skip a few weeks). And apparently I'm not even watching the best show on television, which Goldberg insists is The Wire.

It's a pretty exciting time to be alive.

Concert Review

2006-03-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

[Updated below]

Last night I went to the Bring Em Home Now at the Hammerstein Ballroom to commemorate the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and to benefit various veterans groups (viz., Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace). It was a fun time, with all kinds of guests and acts. I'll run through some of them now:

Steve Earle was first up, and many of you know I'm a huge fan of his. He played with only an accoustic guitar and no backing band (I've seen him several times, but always with The Dukes). It was great, although he only played two songs: "F the CC" and "Rich Man's War." "F the CC" is no great musical feat, but it has a point that, while obvious, needs to be said. "Rich Man's War" was dedicated to Cindy Sheehan and was very, very good as an accoustic number
Margaret Cho came on next, while they were changing the stage, and did a little polemical standup routine. It started out slow, but got going and actually was very funny.
FischerSpooner (I think) was next, and, well, I'd never heard of them, and, uh, they were somewhat interesting. The All Music Guide says they are "electro-pop/new wave", which I guess is right. They certainly had a certain Devo-like look going in a way. But, I'd say it was more like rock meets house music (kind of like The Killers but, well, more gay). Anyway, there were a lot of FS fans in the crowd, of which I was not one. And, they had all kinds of dancers and theatrical elements, which didn't quite work. If you're going to have bad dancers move to bad choreography, you need to have a strong sense of humor about it, and do it tongue-in-cheek (for a good example of this, see The Flaming Lips). In general, this was an act that just isn't aimed at me, for various reasons.
I think that Susan Sarandon and Cindy Sheehan came out next. Both were good, and Cindy Sheehan--it's just amazing how she's really given her life to anti-war activism. I didn't agree with 100% of what she said, but still, she's worthy of our admiration.
Peaches and Devendra Barnhart came out during the next bits. All Music Guide calls Peaches a "vile Canadian temptress" and that about sums it up. Devendra Barnhart was the least impressive act of the show.
Rufus Wainright was next, and he was as awesome as I'd expect. Just incredible.
Bright Eyes, another band I'd never heard of was next. I liked them--they didn't blow me away with any real virtuosity, but they're songs were quite pleasing.
Then came Michael Stipe, who played with a backing band I can't remember the name of. He was, well, Michael Stipe--his voice was incredible and it didn't even look like he was trying. He impressed me very much.

Well, that about it. Overall, very fun with some quality music. Although, the combination of FischerSpooner, Margaret Cho, Peaches, Rufus Wainright and Michael Stipe, it was probably the gayest thing I've been to.* Nevertheless, fun and a good cause.

UPDATE: Robert Farley of Lawyers, Guns and Money (one of my new favorites, and not just because it's named after a Zevon song) posts about anti-war protests in general. I'm virtually certain Guthrie would agree with his post, and I agree with most of it. Check it out.

*other than summer camp, of course. But that doesn't count, right?

Otterbein

2006-03-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Great to see my alma mater in the news.

Miami, Florida (AP) -- A growing scandal over teachers who paid to get credit for courses they never took has cost nearly three dozen educators their jobs, and hundreds of others are being investigated...

The Miami-Dade County School Board in Florida voted 5-4 on Wednesday to fire six teachers and accept the resignations of 26 others.

The punishments stem from a scam run by former high school teacher William McCoggle, who claimed to offer continuing-education classes through a private company. McCoggle pleaded guilty to fraud in November, admitting he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work.

On Wednesday, dozens of students and parents defended the teachers who lost their jobs, saying that removing them in the middle of the school year would be too disruptive.

Board member Evelyn Greer, who voted against the firings, agreed. "It baffles me, just baffles me, to have disruptions at the class level," Greer said.

Florida law requires teachers in public schools to take the equivalent of six education credits every five years to maintain their licenses. The credits can also get teachers raises and let them teach other courses.

McCoggle, who had taught in Miami-Dade County schools since 1983 before retiring last summer, agreed to serve two years in prison in a deal with prosecutors and must pay up to $100,000 in restitution.

Hundreds of teachers who never took classes are being investigated for buying continuing education transcripts.

Last fall, Ohio's Otterbein College, which has about 3,000 students, revoked nearly 10,000 credits given to 657 teachers. It was one of five schools that prosecutors say provided the course credits through McCoggle's company, Move On Toward Education and Training.

Of course, what do you expect from a "college" that censors performances of that edgy, "controversial" playwright David Mamet. Sad.

(For some reason I just got angry about that again. For those who know me, I've probably told that tale 1,000,000 times. For those who don't, see here.

Actually, I just realized that article is only available on Google's cache. I'll repost here in full, to save it from cyber-obscurity:

This article was originally obtained from http://www.dispatch.com/panarchive/1998-9-16/features/ottfea.html. It is also available in the Friday, October 16, 1998 edition of the Columbus Dispatch.

Otterbein College Theatre, responding to student complaints about racial stereotypes in an upcoming David Mamet drama, will shift the show's venue to a more private classroom audience.

Originally planned as a workshop presentation Nov. 5-7 in the Campus Center Theatre, Mamet's Edmond will be performed instead as a classroom project in response to "real concerns" that a campus protest "could result in violence," Artistic Director Dennis Romer said.

"As a classroom project, it is protected by rules of academic freedom," he said.

Mamet's episodic 90-minute piece, produced in Chicago in 1983 and off-Broadway later, is a dark portrait of an unhappy white man whose frustrations are expressed through self-hatred, misogyny and bigotry.

Eric Dysart, a 24-year-old senior in Otterbein's theater program, was the first to complain "because I found (the play) offensive, I didn't consider it art and I felt, as an African-American, that it exploited African-Americans."

Dysart -- who most recently played the Emcee in Otterbein's Cabaret and a college student in Moonchildren, Otterbein's coproduction with Contemporary American Theatre Company -- asked to be excused from the requirement to audition for all college productions.

Dysart and two other black actors were excused under a department policy allowing students to disassociate themselves from plays that offend them, Romer said.

But Dysart said he wasn't satisfied, and took steps to "stop the play from being done."

Among them: contacting a family attorney, sending a script to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and communicating his concerns to the African American Student Union, an Otterbein student group.

Dysart's actions led to a reportedly contentious campus meeting last week with about 50 people, including cast and crew members, student union members, Dysart and Darryl Peal, a student-union adviser and college staff member.

"We live in a society where people see stereotypes about African- American characters constantly," Dysart said. "They said we were censoring art, and that they had a right to do this no matter who it affected. But on the other side, if you're going to open a wound like racism up, you have to be more responsible.

"Edmond curses, spits on and kicks a pimp who tries to rob him, and a black prisoner rapes and sodomizes him... The title character comes out in the end smelling like a rose when he discovers his own spirituality, but at what cost?... I want (plays) to be a positive representation of my community."

Mamet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Glengarry Glen Ross), is known for his frequent use of profanity and his stylized portraits of seriously flawed characters, especially modern American white men.

Otterbein's Edmond was conceived as a workshop, rather than a full production within the regular subscription series, because the Theater Department recognized that its disturbing subject matter and profanity would "not appeal to a mainstream audience," Romer said.

At the same time, "We believe strongly that the play also contains a journey of individual redemption and a spiritual awakening that includes... the subsequent shedding of past narrow-minded belief systems," Romer said.

The initial production was planned with "talkbacks" after each performance to encourage discussion of the play's issues, he added.

Professor Ed Vaughan, the workshop's announced director, will lead the classroom project for a "private audience" at a time and location to be announced, Romer said.

Copyright Â© 1998, The Columbus Dispatch.

Go freedom! Actually, another reason that article makes me mad is because it reminds me how I once had ideals.)

Montana

2006-03-16T13:37:00.000-08:00

As I promised here, I'm going to post a couple of pictures from my recent trip to Big Sky and Yellowstone. This first picture is from our snowmobile tour in Yellowstone. It needs no caption.
Hmm, this is interesting--Blogger has made some strides in how you can post pictures since I last did this. Cool. So, yeah, this first pic to your left is of a Buffalo that passed us right on the road. This second picture isn't actually one I took, but one my little sister took a couple of weeks after I was out skiing. She's a Fine Arts major who concentrates in photography, so her pics are always good. This is a picture of her skiing the First Gully off the top of Lone Mountain.

And here's a very cool picture she took of the view from the top.

Anyway, great stuff. Enjoy.

Best. Idea. Ever.

2006-03-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

This has been batted around for a few years, but I have a question. Would painting my ski helmet like a Cleveland Browns helmet be the Best Idea Ever or the Worst Idea Ever? My buddy the Goat (everyone's favorite astrophysicist) has been hounding me to do this for years.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!

2006-03-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

Today is my mom's some-not-too-large-number birthday! Of course, since I'm a terrible person, I called her on an unrelated matter, and eventually she said, "Do you know what day is today." I said, "Uh...March fif-oh....oh, fuck." Yeah, nice job me. But, I figure a shout-out on a blog read by ~~thousands~~ ~~hundreds~~ tens of people (on a good day) will more than make up for my poor showing, right? Hmm.

Feingold's Censure Resolution

2006-03-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Here is Senator Feingold's statement introducing the resolution.

UPDATE 2: Here's a WaPo article on how Dems are running and hiding from this. Barack--your response is pathetic.

I, for one, support it, and urge you to as well. What's interesting, though, is the reaction it's getting--Democracts, perhaps (and unfortunately) not surprisingly, are trying to distance themselves from this resolution. Feingold has the correct response to that here:

"I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide…too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004. In the face of this, they’ll say we’d better just focus on domestic issues…[Democrats shouldn’t] cower to the argument, that whatever you do, if you question administration, you’re helping the terrorists."

I think that's pretty obvious. In fact, it's so obvious that even Donna Brazille, historically one of the absolute lamest "Dem Strategists," thinks we should support it:

For those who worry that this issue will create more tension between the progressive "net-roots" types and the party's base, I say fear not. Let's use this resolution to talk about what's really troubling so many Democrats and other astute Americans: the lack of Congressional oversight and accountability. No sooner had Feingold made his announcement than Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" urging caution. In other words, hold your powder -- wait until the investigation, if any occurs, is completed before urging action.

As a Beltway insider, I am convinced that we cannot continue to tell those who have loyally supported our Democratic leaders to wait. Wait for what? Wait until our pollsters give us the green light to speak up? Should we continue to wait, hoping that the Republicans will finally invite Democrats into the room when important decisions affecting our national security are made? All I know is that people outside the Beltway have grown deeply impatient with our focus-group style of politics. They want to see some bold changes and some new leadership.

It's time to break with the same-old, same-old and use the Feingold resolution to force the Republican-controlled Congress to commit to serious oversight of the controversial, but increasingly popular, surveillance program. The message from the left-leaning blogosphere is clear: Democrats should understand the real issue. The point is not censure or impeachment; it is Congress' lack of oversight and its failure to hold anyone accountable for major mistakes or missteps. And especially, it's about clearly misleading the American public...While the Feingold resolution is not going anywhere given the full Republican control of Washington, D.C., a change in leadership in the fall would make this a ripe item for conversation and action in 2007 and beyond.

Yet, Bill Frist is probably right when he says he has 85 votes against this resolution. That's pathetic. We have a President who, quite explicitly, claims he can ignore any law or constitutional provision if he feels like it. And what's our recourse? We simply have to trust him. This is totally at odds with our entire structure of government, yet most Democratic senators either don't think it's a big deal or do but are afraid to rock the boat. Pathetic.

Read this Digby post. He points out not only that the usual GOP suspects are calling Feingold a traitor, but also why, using examples from the recent past, this type of executive power grab is dangerous. The sheer lack of historical knowledge is maybe what's most infuriating to me.

Cool Runnings

2006-03-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

The movie Cool Runnings seems to suggest that people are ignorant and bigoted for being skeptical about the bobsledding prowess. Is it really racist to think that people from a small country where it never snows would be bad at bobsledding?

More Abortion

2006-03-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

Atrios:

Poor Men Shouldn't Have Sex

It's a frequent comment by both anti-choicers and busybodies who think it's their right to judge "good" and "bad" abortions largely based on the perceived morality of the women getting the abortion that women who can't afford children shouldn't have sex.

Of course a lot of these poor-women-getting-abortions are married women with children who don't have the economic resources to support another child, and not the caricature of the "irresponsible slut" that the busybodies are conjuring in their heads. If these people really believe that anyone who doesn't have the economic resources to support (another) child should simply stop having sex then that applies to the men as well.

Fortunately, with the twin joys of DNA testing and forced pregnancy more and more men may rationally decide to do just that. Congratulations, fellas!

Atrios' mention of males and men is not because that's what he cares about, but because he's trying to rhetorically turn the tables a bit. The point remains that this anti-abortion activism is clear mysogyny and also a clear indication that, at its heart, this movement just thinks that The Sex is bad and icky and you should be punished for having it.

New York Review Review

2006-03-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

I believe that The New York Review of Books is the best periodical in this country--at the least, it provides me with the most consistent supply of thought-provoking and educational historical and political essays each week. And, this week's issue is no different. I haven't read all of it (and there are some promising essay's I've yet to read), but I want to comment quickly on two that I have read, both of which are available online.

First is Paul Krugman and Robin Wells essay on health care in America. Nothing in the essay is particularly new, and many of you may find it like preaching to the choir, but I think it's a very good one-stop-shop type deal for learning about the problems and possible solutions to our health care nightmare. And, it's always good to actually be armed with facts when debating healthcare, right? So, read it and get your learn on.

Second is Tony Judt's review of John Lewis Gaddis new Cold War book. Now, I haven't read this book, but I have read his "We Know Now" book and I also had Gaddis as an undergrad in a class on the Cold War that he team-taught with Kenneth Branagh.* For full disclosure, I should also tell you that I despise John Gaddis both as a teacher and as person, for as far as I know** he was more responsible for railroading my mentor out of the Yale history deparment as anyone back in 2000.

So, I have some biases here against him. But, I would like to note that this Judt review makes me think that I am 100% correct in my biases. If I could have guessed what the problems with a new Gaddis-penned Cold War history would be, they'd be a laundry list of everything Judt states: overreliance on "Great Powers" giving the short-shrift to the Third World, Eastern Europe, and internal conflicts in Communist societies; an overall view of the Cold War as a not much more than a game of Risk; an overly American-centric view; etc. So, it's good to see that sometimes you CAN judge a book by its cover! In any event, the essay is extremely interesting, whatever you think of John Lewis Gaddis and the Cold War, so check it out.

*As my mentor said in his "Revolution in Europe, 1789-1917" class, we actually had to read for that class, as CNN had yet to produce a miniseries of the same name

**I should note in fairness that, obviously, I was not privy to any intradepartmental meetings in which the history department rejected the subcommittee's recommendation to retain my mentor--so my blaming Gaddis is based only on second-hand knowledge and circumstantial evidence. But, I'm pretty sure it's an accurate impression.

Fuck pro-lifers

2006-03-02T18:15:00.000-08:00

and then let them live with the consequences.

Snowmobiling in Yellowstone

2006-03-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned the other day, last week I spent a day on a snowmobile tour of Yellowstone National Park. Our tour started in West Yellowstone, Montana and went from there to Old Faithful and back again (via Madison Junction; see this map). In all, it's 60 miles roundtrip. The vast, vast majority of winter visitors to Yellowstone take this route--Old Faithful is the main winter destination in the park.

The New York Times had an article* about snowmobiling in the park this past Tuesday. In general, this article is pretty terrible. It purports to describe a new battle between environmentalists and West Yellowstone businesses, with Montana's Democractic governor, Brian Schweitzer, recently siding with the businesses.

First, some background. Since the end of the Clinton administration (I believe it was one of the last executive orders he signed), new rules have been put into place that (1) ban "two-stroke" snowmobiles from Yellowstone and only allow the much cleaner-burning "four stroke" sleds, (2) ban solo riders from entering the park--you now must be with a tour guide and (3) limit the number of sleds allowed in the park on any given day. These rules do a very good job of balancing the interests of businesses, tourists and the Yellowstone environment.

Ok, so back to the article. Basically, the article really has no point, other than trying to gin up a controversy that doesn't seem to exist. Schweitzer does not want to see two-stroke snowmobiles in the park--he merely wants a few more permits to be allowed each day. As I see it, this is probably a bad idea, unless the permits are issued to allow for additional sleds to turn north to the Canyon from Madison instead of going south to Old Faithful (again, check out the map). The Times article makes is seem like the park is nearly deserted in winter. Let me assure you this is not the case. If anything, there were too many snowmobile tours going in the park last Saturday--it seemed crowded and fairly jam-packed to me. Now, let me tell you that I've also been in the park prior to the new rules taking effect. Unfortunately, I did so on a day in 1998 when the high was minus-18, so on that day there was not much of a crowd and, clearly, that is a not a good day to use as an ex ante frame of reference. Nonetheless, there were PLENTY of snowmobiles rushing to Old Faithful last weekend.

And, the point is that, while Schweitzer does want to change the rules, what he's suggesting is very much at the margin and won't have a great effect on anything overall. Allowing 700 permits instead of 450 is not going to cause the bison to leave (although, as I said, I think this increase would be a bad idea). I guess the point is that I believe the current rules are indeed doing a good job. It would be terrible to ban snowmobiles outright, as Yellowstone is a national treasure that's worth seeing in the beauty of winter. Oh, and I still want to post some pictures up, but I haven't downloaded them from my camera yet.

In other Yellowstone news, this article is interesting.

*unfortunately, I couldn't generate a permalink for this article, so the link will die in a few days

Health Care

2006-03-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sure the vast majority of the readers here believe in universal healthcare. Nonetheless, via his blog, I just read an article by Malcolm Gladwell that probably makes this point better than anyone else (not a surprise, given the author). His point is that the idea that moral hazard causes Americans to over-consume health care (the "problem" that Bush's Health Savings Accounts will supposedly "solve") is ludicrous.

The U. S. health-care system, according to "Uninsured in America," has created a group of people who increasingly look different from others and suffer in ways that others do not. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies. Children without health insurance are less likely to receive medical attention for serious injuries, for recurrent ear infections, or for asthma. Lung-cancer patients without insurance are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment. Heart-attack victims without health insurance are less likely to receive angioplasty. People with pneumonia who don't have health insurance are less likely to receive X rays or consultations. The death rate in any given year for someone without health insurance is twenty-five per cent higher than for someone with insurance. Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can't get better jobs, and because they can't get better jobs they can't afford health insurance, and because they can't afford health insurance they get even sicker. John, the manager of a bar in Idaho, tells Sered and Fernandopulle that as a result of various workplace injuries over the years he takes eight ibuprofen, waits two hours, then takes eight more--and tries to cadge as much prescription pain medication as he can from friends. "There are times when I should've gone to the doctor, but I couldn't afford to go because I don't have insurance," he says. "Like when my back messed up, I should've gone. If I had insurance, I would've went, because I know I could get treatment, but when you can't afford it you don't go. Because the harder the hole you get into in terms of bills, then you'll never get out. So you just say, 'I can deal with the pain.'"

You should read the whole thing, as we say in blogland. Excerpts don't really do it justice.

Robert Reich and Matt Yglesias on Ports

2006-03-01T10:18:00.000-08:00

Robert Reich, on PRI's Marketplace this morning. His basic point is that the key is port security, not who runs the ports.

Reich: I don't mean to minimize the real danger that a terrorist might sneak into an American port, or plant a nuclear bomb in a container heading toward an American port...but if this happens, it won't be because of the nationality of the company that has the contract to run the ports, or the nationality of its managers or even the workers on the ground. It will be because this nation didn't want to pay for the gamma ray monitors and radiation scanners and inspectors necessary to oversee more than a tiny percent of containers heading into America. Because we didn't want to bother with security checks and special ID cards and fingerprints and other biometrics for workers at the ports and other border crossings. Because all of this would cost about $7 billion a year, out of a defense and homeland security budget of hundreds of billions; and might slow down commerce through our borders just a bit and reduce some corporate profits. See, the real issue here is not about nationality. It's about what we're prepared to pay for our security. It's about whether we pay mostly for a war in Iraq or we finally get serious about security here at home.

This is a good point, and I think Democrats would be wise to get in front of this story by making it about the Bush Administrations total failure to secure our ports, not just about the Dubai company deal. That said, Matt Yglesias has a good counterpoint

Friedman quotes Steven Flynn, saying that, "Among the many problems at American ports, who owns the management contract ranks near the very bottom." And, indeed, the Bush administration has screwed up port security in myriad ways. This is hardly a reason to give them a free pass for screwing it up in this particular way. Rather, the president's sorry record of nonchalance on the general subject is reason to doubt assurances that he's performed due diligence in this matter.

...And...We're Back!

2006-03-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Not sure what Guthrie's excuse is, besides being a worthless sack of shit, but I took the NY bar exam last week and was in Montana over the weekend.

Basically, taking a second bar exam is just about as unpleasant as you'd expect, but, since you know what to expect, it's not nearly as unpleasant as taking that first exam. I was much more of a stress case in Chicago in the Summer of 2003 than I was in New York this past February. Regardless, I am very, very glad it is over with. Now I just have to wait until May to learn if I passed.

So, that was last Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday my girlfriend and I flew out to Big Sky, Montana for three nights. We skiied Friday and Sunday, and on Saturday we did a snowmobile tour in Yellowstone. Pretty much the whole trip was amazing, and I'll post some pictures if I find some that are decent. I think winter is the time to go to Yellowstone--the juxtaposition of the snow and cold air against the thermal springs and steam is breathtaking, and in the summer you don't get that nearly as much b/c of the warmer air. Plus, having a group of bison walk 3 feet away from your sled is very cool, too.

As for the skiing--wow, the best I've ever had. Friday afternoon I was skiing in powder that, at worst, was knee-deep and at best was chest-deep. For those of you who know the mountain, chest-deep in the gullies is about as cool as it sounds. The other great skiing news is that my girlfriend, in a near-miraculous show of improved skill and improved confidence, skiied Liberty Bowl off the Tram (skiing off the tram ain't no joke, boys and girls) twice. Well, I won't bore you with any additional details...let's get to blogging proper.

So, some of you may have seen that South Dakota has once again passed an unconstitutional abortion ban. The only thing is that this time, they think the law might give the Supreme Court the chance to use it to overturn Roe. For my money, the best blogging on this topic, and abortion rights in general, is at Lawyers, Guns and Money, specifically this post. Read it. In that post, Scott Lemieux takes issue with the oft-seen "progressive" argument that "that because I believe that most people advocating other restrictions are arguing in bad faith doesn't mean that I can't see the point in certain restrictions." He says that you cannot just debate these issues in the abstract, and he's right. He points out that any progressive analysis must deal with the practical effects of these regulations, which amount to a de facto abortion ban for non-urban, non-affluent women. PZ Myers lays this out in a narrative:

We’re all Dakotans

Just a thought…but you know, my town isn’t far from the South Dakota border, and there really isn’t that much difference between my neighborhood and that of some small South Dakota town 50 miles away. I think the piggish prigs who are pushing the legislation to criminalize abortion are contemptible, but does that mean we people of the progressive state of Minnesota are any better? That got me wondering—I’m a fully entitled, blissfully unaware, card-carrying member of the Patriarchy, after all, so I’ve never had to consider what it would be like to be female, 17, and worried that I might be pregnant.

I tried to imagine it.

I can get a pregnancy test kit from the Pamida down the road. I’d feel a bit weird about it, though: this is a small town. We know everyone and they know us, and those are high school and college kids working the cash registers there. Everyone is going to know about it if I buy one…I suppose I could try shoplifting it, but jeez, if I got caught shoplifting a pregnancy test, I might as well just die.

If I somehow got the test and it were positive, the next step would be difficult. There is a sign on the edge of town here that purports to be helpful— it says “Pregnant? Need advice?” with a phone number on it—but it’s put up by some of the local religious wackos, and all they’ll do is tell you to keep the baby and slap you upside the head with a Bible, so they certainly aren’t to be trusted.

The phone book isn’t much help. I wouldn’t trust the Morris hospital either…locals again, and they have a reputation for being very conservative. They don’t do abortions anyway. The
nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is 45 minutes away, they don’t do abortions either, but they do provide emergency contraception…except that they’re only open on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. WTF? Do a lot of people get knocked up on Monday and Tuesday nights or something?

As it turns out, the only abortion providers in Minnesota are all in Minneapolis. Three hours away, by car; to get there by bus requires a shuttle to Alexandria, then taking Greyhound the rest of the way. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap. Once there, though, there’s more. Minnesota has a parental notification law, so at least one parent has to come along, and the other has to send along a notarized letter granting permission. Then there is a state-mandated 24 hour waiting period: at the first appointment, they have to counsel the person against getting an abortion, and can only do the procedure the following day…as if a young lady who has had to struggle that much just to get there hasn’t already thought things through thoroughly. Spending a night in the Big City is going to cost.

Did I mention that the procedure itself is going to cost $500+?

I’m beginning to realize that the only young women who will be able to get abortions in my part of the state are the ones with a supportive family, or who are old enough and prosperous enough that they can afford the rigamarole and hassle. The ones who are going to be most distressed by a pregnancy, who are least able to cope with it, are the ones who are going to be excluded.

I’m feeling a bit ashamed of being a male and not having thought much about this before. That little Y chromosome does confer some privilege in this regard, and it seems petty and cruel that we should so unthinkingly impose a greater pain on those who have already had more than their share.

Right now, a few scrofulous boars in South Dakota have raised their snouts and squealed loudly, asserting their selfish rule over women, and it’s easy to condemn them. But there are only about 750,000 South Dakotans, so most of us don’t live there anyway; it seems to me that maybe what we ought to be doing is also looking to our own states’ laws on abortion. Our pigs might be a little more muted, but they’ve been busy for years, planting a lot of little restrictions that add up to a substantial hurdle.
"I think the stars are aligned," said House Speaker Matthew Michels, a Republican. "Simply put, now is the time."
Maybe he’s right. Maybe now is the time to wake up and do something about this everywhere, not just South Dakota.

Well, there you are.

Snow

2006-02-13T17:20:00.000-08:00

So, i just got an email from a long-suffering reader asking how I could move to New York and not blog about the biggest snow storm in the city's history. Well, I guess because he hit on a weekend, and then today I didn't go to work* (although even when I do, I walk), so I guess the storm just didn't affect me that much. Yesterday I left home only to get a sandwich around the corner. Today, I did more, and I have to say I was glad I didn't have to drive anywhere--most streets, especially intersections, were still pretty bad, but besides negotiating crosswalks, it wasn't so bad. And the subway today worked fine for me (1 to 42nd, then N to Union Sq and back again to get a pound of coffee at 71 Irving Place).

So, yeah, mainly the snow didn't really affect me that much--but to be sure, there is a LOT of it. For much better blogging on this subject, including pics, see Steve Gilliard today and yesterday.

*I'm off this week studying for the bar exam so I can get rid of the stupid "Admitted in Illinois" disclaimer on my business card

More Olympics Blogging

2006-02-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

[Updated below]

That's right--more of the insightful analysis of the Winter Olympics you've come to expect from G&G. I just watched the Men's Downhill--in general, it was not compelling television, but Anoine Deneriaz, a Frenchman, had a pretty exciting run to win, I guess. But, more interesting is a couple of great technological developments NBC employed. First was showing static images of the skier coming off the first jump superimposed on one another--you saw 10 or so shots of the skier coming down, with the effect of being able to see his exact trajectory in a way you can't just by watching live. The second was some sort of simul-cast thing of two skiers at once, so you could see how Deneriaz won the race of that first jump--he came into the jump even with the silver medalist, but when the landed, he was a good body-length ahead. Good stuff.

Now watching short-rack speed skating. Pretty good stuff, but I can't say I know a thing about the strategy and whatnot.

UPDATE: King Kaufman touches on these topics and then some in Monday's column. First, he has a suggestion so seemingly obvious concerning the simulcast I'm pretty embarrassed that I didn't think to mention it below:

SimulCam is the result of a partnership between Sportvision -- the company that brought you the yellow first-down line, among other things -- and a sports video analysis company called Dartfish.
Here's a technical innovation that would make downhill skiing a lot more fun to watch: Live SimulCam.

You know how the TV graphic shows the leader's time at each split and compares the current racer's time to it instantly? That's helpful, because to the layperson, a great run down the hill looks exactly the same as one that's only pretty good. So you find yourself watching the clock, not the skier, to find out how he's doing.

Clearly, a great idea. Now, on to luge:

Luge: The ultimate Winter Olympics sport

So the luge is on and I'm thinking out loud: "Who invented this sport, anyway?" The wife says, "I think drunken college students."

A little online research, not that you can trust this Internet thing, reveals it was really 19th century Alpine loggers, who'd race each other home down the logging roads.

Same difference.

To me, the luge is the ultimate Winter Olympics sport. Not only does every run look exactly alike, with tenths of a second separating winners from also-rans in a three-minute-plus race, but the athletes don't even move.

"Look how flat and relaxed he is on the sled!" the announcers will say as a luger zooms down the course on his back, motionless. All around the world, kids burst into kitchens shouting, "Hey, Mom and Dad! I saw a guy today and he was flat, relaxed and immobile!"

"So did I," says Dad, an undertaker.

The worst thing about luge is that the crashes aren't even spectacular. A crash means the guy slides down the run next to his sled instead of on top of it.

Luge couldn't have been invented by drunken college students. They'd have thought of a few interesting twists.

I'd like to see the "ghost image" of the leader's run on the screen with the live skier as he goes down the mountain, so it looks like the two are racing down the hill. That would look like a real competition, instead of like a race against the clock.

Pretty much.

Luge

2006-02-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

1. Vodka shots out of an ice luge when you're 19---cool.

2. Luge, the olympic sport--uncool.

Btw, it occurs to me that if we named all our sports like we name luge and bobsled, auto racing would be "car." Then again, baseball is named "baseball," so maybe this point isn't as humorous and worthwhile as I first thought. Doesn't change the fact that i can't imagine why in holy fuck* you'd want to watch luge on TV.

*unnecessary profanity added due to make up for lack of it b/c Guth isn't posting.

The Post-9/11 World

2006-02-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

I've become a big fan of Patrick Smith's weekly Salon column, "Ask the Pilot." This week's is especially good in talking about our country's insane reaction to 9/11. As they say in the blogging industry, read the whole thing, but here's the upshot (background: he's talking about taking pictures at airports):

Finally I'm asked to open my camera and scroll through each of its stored photographs, presumably to ensure I haven't snapped any shots of those shadowy forbidden items. When that checks out, and the news comes crackling back that I'm not a wanted fugitive, the officer thanks me for cooperating and lets me go. He makes sure to remind me, just as his colleague in New Hampshire had done, that next time I'd benefit from advance permission, and that "we live in a different world now."

Not to put undue weight on the cheap prose of patriotic convenience, but few things are more repellant than that oft-repeated catchphrase. There's something so pathetically submissive about it -- a sound bite of such defeat and capitulation. It's also untrue; indeed we find ourselves in an altered way of life, though not for the reasons our protectors would have us think. We weren't forced into this by terrorists, we've chosen it. When it comes to flying, we tend to hold the events of Sept. 11 as the be-all and end-all of air crimes, conveniently purging our memories of several decades' worth of bombings and hijackings. The threats and challenges faced by airports aren't terribly different from what they've always been. What's different, or "too bad," to quote the New Hampshire deputy, is our paranoid, overzealous reaction to those threats, and our amped-up obeisance to authority. [Emphasis added]

I encourage you to skim through his archives--he has a lot of interesting things to say about airport security.

Wire Blogging

2006-02-08T17:58:00.000-08:00

so, finally...finally, I've seen all three seasons of The Wire. I still think Season One is the best season, but, holy shit, that was some three-season arc they put together. I'm as excited as anyone for season four, but I can't imagine where they go from here (although, apparently they're going to take on urban schools, which, if this were any other show, I'd laugh outloud).

Anyway, the point of this post is that you need to go and see all three seasons right now. If you haven't, I frankly don't even want to talk to you anymore.

oh, and happy 60th birthday dad!

Stupid Discovery Channel

2006-02-03T13:21:00.000-08:00

Notwithstanding the fact that a friend of mine is newly employed by The Discovery Channel (after some Time-Warner infighting prevented an HBO landing, according to my source), they are pissing me off. I see that Grizzly Man is going to debut on Discovery--cool, right? WRONG. It's not being broadcast on their HD channel, as far as I can tell. What the fuck? You have a documentary widely considered one of the best of the year, and you don't show it in HD? screw that.

Now, Ted Koppel--I have to say it's probably just as well if they don't put him on in HD.

UPDATE: I considered saying this in the original post, and probably should have. Considering that Grizzly Man is mostly this guy's home movie footage (right?), maybe the film quality is such that any upconversion to HD makes no sense. I'm not sure that's true, but it seems it could be true. Also, for clarity, the "source" in the above paragraph and my friend at Discovery are not the same person.

The General Writes a Letter

2006-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

Here. The best thing is that he actually sends every letter he writes (he often posts responses, if he gets a response).

Racist Much?

2006-02-02T14:05:00.000-08:00

It seems the University of Chicago's law school faculty blog attracts the same upstanding types that infest, say, little green footballs or free republic. Check out the comments. wow.

SOTU Blogging

2006-02-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

I watched the State of the Union for the first time since the run-up to the Iraq war. It was a pretty lame speech, all things considered. Even Fred Barnes only thought it was "more than adequate." The most striking thing to me was the continuation of the War on Straw. (For an early victories in the War on Straw, see here, here and here; for the huge victory Bush had last night in said war, see here.)

Also, via Brad DeLong, we get, really, the definitive word on Bush's SOTU:

The main reason why I didn't watch the speech to hear what Bush would say about science policy is that it doesn't matter what he says. This administration doesn't do policy, they do politics. If Bush says something in a speech, it's because they think it will sound good in a speech, period. That doesn't mean there's a concrete proposal in the works-- if the line in he speech is poorly received, odds are it will disappear without a trace. And even if the line sounds good, that doesn't mean there will be any follow-through-- ask the people of New York, Afghanistan, Iraq, and New Orleans about that.

So, yeah, "double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years" sounds great. So does "If we reverse the polarity on the flux capacitor, we can generate an infinite amount of free energy, and a pony." I'll believe it when I see the pony.

Now, Max has the best, real commentary on the speech I've found:

I'M AFRAID THIS ONE'S GOT AWAY FROM US
The president said if the U.S. left Iraq, it would be taken over by Al Queda. Not the Shi'a or the Saddamists. If he doesn't really believe this, he's a flaming liar; if he does, he's a bloomin idiot. We report, you decide.

I was struck by the effort to force democracy (equals elections) and peace into one box. Hamas won an election, so now for some reason they are obliged to make peace with Israel. Free elections in Egypt would allow the emergence of liberal, secular forces. Oh really? Instead of the fundies? Like in Iran?

I thought Tim Kaine did fine, though I was waiting for his left eyebrow to go flying away. "I'm free!" it would cry in a tiny, fuzzy voice. He punted on the war, but there's no unified Democratic position of the war, so there wasn't much else he could do.

I'm tired of the competence meme. Doesn't anybody remember Michael Dukakis? "What matters is not ideology, but competence." Anybody can claim to be competent ex ante and shift blame ex post. The MaxSpeak Competence Theorem states that both parties are more or less equally competent to govern; what matters is their ideology. By ideology I mean broad principles for governing. People who think they have transcended ideology are in the grip of . . . ideology. They just may not be aware of which ideology.

The oil addiction thing was funny. No doubt somebody could switch on the wayback machine and find Republicans heaping scorn on anyone who bemoaned the nation's dependence on petroleum. I was hoping he would get into methane production, wherein the Nation could harness the mighty wind of Bovino-Americans. Overall I liked this part, even though he still can't pronounce "nuclear."

I've already commented on the jobs thing. I'm glad GB made the standard clear: U.S. performance is great because it's better than Europe and Japan.

Where was the big health care blitz? A sentence or two about Health Savings Accounts, also known as Yet Another Tax Cut, also known as a second IRA for healthy, well-off people.

Commissions. Hey kids, let's put on a commission! Remember those movies? A Baby Boom Commission, or BBC for short. There was the Greenspan Commission in the '80s; they fixed Social Security for all time. I sat through the proceedings of the Bob Kerrey/Danforth Commission on Entitlements in the 90s. Clinton had a Social Security/Entitlements Commission. GB had a Social Security Commission and a Tax Reform Commission. Maybe we need a commission to study commissions.

That was a lot of ctrl-c/ctrl-v.

Ashcroft and Gonzalez

2006-01-31T13:37:00.000-08:00

So, both Attorneys General under Bush committed perjury (and probably Contempt of Congress and maybe some other criminal acts) during their confirmation hearings. Great.

Brief Post

2006-01-31T09:06:00.000-08:00

(1) Exxon. Maybe this makes me a bad Democrat, but why are we supposed to be upset that they are making a huge profit? They have something that everyone wants, and people are willing to pay them a shit load of money for it. What's the problem?

(2) Alito. Nice work America. I don't blame the Democrats for this - what could they do? Some on the left are mad they didn't filibuster, but the Republicans have already announced how they would use the nuclear option. I don't get what good a filibuster would have done, but that's just me.

America chose a President who promised to appoint radical conservatives "like Scalia and Thomas" to the court. I believe he has now done so. So, enjoy the new America where when women are raped they have to be kept in prison or supervised by the police until they give birth to a baby they don't want. That is apparently what Americans want, so I guess we can't complain.

Also, reading news reports on this reminded me how a Democratic majority confirmed Clarence Thomas. Nice work, Democrats.

(3) Without knowing the facts, this post by Kos (who I think has been terrible lately) strikes me as right on. It's long, so I just linked to it. I do not understand why we would ever listen to or trust the Democratic establishment, since for 11 years they have presided over the complete disintegration of the Democratic party.

Dumbest Thing Ever Posted on The Corner?

2006-01-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

This might be the dumbest thing ever posted on The Corner, and that's saying something. Corner Poster and According to Jim writer Warren Bell makes the following observation:

HOLLYWOOD, "24" AND THE WAR ON TERROR
K-Lo suggests that Kiefer Sutherland's win in the SAG awards might be a case of Hollywood finally catching up on the war on terror. In fact, "24" co-creator Joel Surnow is openly conservative and part of the reason that the show has a more realistic view of the world than, say, "The West Wing."

As someone who started watching "24" again this year, I can assure you that this just might be the dumbest thing that has ever been written in the history of the world. It's dumb on so many levels that it might even loop back around to smart, but then loop BACK around to dumb again. Amazing.

Drugs for Radiation Poisoning and Other Adventures in Intellectual Property Law

2006-01-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Last night on 60 Minutes there was a story on Hollis-Eden, a California biotech company whose most-developed product is Neumune, a drug to combat radiation poisoning that victims would take in the aftermath of nuclear/radiological incident. According to the Department of Defense, the drug is best option currently available for preventing the lethal bleedings and infections caused by radiation poisoning.

The point of the 60 Minutes piece was that the government, which should be purchasing possibly millions of doses of this drug and helping to finance the clinical trials, which are currently in Phase I,* is only purchasing 100,000 doses--not nearly enough. 60 Minutes put the blame on HHS and the head of Project Bioshield, Stewart Simonson, the Mike Brown of terrorist threats.

Overall, I think its hard to disagree with the general thrust of this story--assuming this drug is our best current hope, we should be trying to develop it and get it to the major population centers that will be most likely the target of a radiological terrorist attack. My problem lies in how the piece assumed the government should be funding and purchasing this drug from Hollis-Eden. The argument over how much the DoD or HHS will pay to develop this drug is important, but the larger issue is how the government can ensure that drugs like this are developed and stockpiled.

Dean Baker, hero of the Social Security debates of last year, has a post on Maxspeak explaining how patent law distorts drug prices. The post in general is accessible to lay readers, and you all should read it--it is about Tamiflu, but many of same issues arise with Neumune. Baker's conclusion is that we should publicly finance all drugs:

Just for the record, the U.S. government already spends $30 billion a year on biomedical research, primarily through the National Institutes of Health. Everyone (including the pharmaceutical industry) claims that this is money very well spent and the appropriation always enjoys deep bi-partisan support. Why shouldn’t we believe that if we doubled this appropriation, to replace the $25 billion that the drug industry claims to spend on drug research (two-thirds of which goes to research copycat drugs) that we would end up with at least as good progress in developing drugs as what we have at present?

And, if the research funding all took place upfront, then the patents could be placed in the public domain. This would allow all drugs to be sold as generics. It would reduce drug prices by approximately 70 percent, saving approximately $150 billion a year. Half of these savings would go to the government (mostly through paying less for the Medicare prescription drug benefit), which would more than recoup its additional spending on drug research.

I've not thought about this enough to say it should be the case overall, but it certainly has appeal for drugs with major public-health implications, such as Tamiflu or Neumune. So, why is 60 Minutes doing a piece that states that Hollis-Eden is the good guy and the government is the myopic bad guy? The upshot of the piece is that we need Neumune, not that we need Hollis-Eden stockholders to get a solid IRR on their investment. The government shouldn't pay Hollis-Eden to develop and manufacture Neumune, it should pay Hollis-Eden for Neumune, straight up. It should even use its power of eminent domain. There is no reason the government should be paying Hollis-Eden monopoly rents for this drug (it should be noted that, like most drugs, this drug was not developed by Hollis-Eden--according to their SEC filings, H-E licensed it in 1999 from a doctor at Virginia Commenwealth University. This is not to say H-E doesn't have significant R&D expenditures--they do (about $19MM in 2004)

This is really just one of many areas where our intellectual property regime is just not up to snuff. Matthew Yglesias has said the following about copyright law, but it applies to all IP:

Record companies and their movie studio allies have managed to convince a shockingly large swathe of opinion that the purpose of intellectual property law is to prevent copyright infringement. In fact, the purpose is to advance the general welfare of society.

This is important--we needn't be too deferential to the IP rights of either Hollis-Eden or Roche (company that owns Tamiflu). The point of IP law is to promote the general welfare, not to protect the holders of IP rights. And I'd say ensuring that millions don't die from Bird Flu or radiation poisoning is trump here.

Another place where IP law gets in the way is in the copyright of performances. The New York Times has an article from Saturday about the rights a director may or may not have in the performance of a play. Lots of interesting issues, all of which I think are ill-suited in one way or another to be solved by copyright law as we know it.

*note for FDA-semi-literate readers: Because of the ethical problems involved in dosing humans with radiation to test the efficacy of the drug, Neumune is being developed under a rule which can give marketing approval based on safety on humans and efficacy on animals--efficacy on humans need not be demonstrated.

It seems I owe Jack Goldsmith an Apology

2006-01-29T17:38:00.000-08:00

Not that he knows who I am, as I never had him in class. Nonetheless, I always grouped him with John ~~Woo~~ Yoo as one of those people responsible in no small way for our current lawless executive branch. It seems that's not the case.

Goldsmith was actually the opposite of what his detractors imagined. For nine months, from October 2003 to June 2004, he had been the central figure in a secret but intense rebellion of a small coterie of Bush administration lawyers. Their insurrection, described to NEWSWEEK by current and former administration officials who did not wish to be identified discussing confidential deliberations, is one of the most significant and intriguing untold stories of the war on terror.

This Newsweek article is worth a read--I myself have only skimmed it so far. And, it seems Goldsmith and Deputy AG James Comey both declined to comment for this article. So, a quick comment here is that, at least now that this article is out, let's hope both these individuals start commenting--if John ~~Woo~~ Yoo can write op-eds defending his view of delicious fascism and authoritarianism, Comey and Goldsmith should publicize their side. Hopefully I'll comment more after I read the whole article.

UPDATE: Corrected, as I don't believe the OLC ever advocated a theory of film involving increasing the number of bullets in each successive action sequence by a set ratio; nor has it ever taken a position pro or con on the use of slow-motion images of doves flying.

5-Second Movie Blogging

2006-01-24T12:49:00.000-08:00

While both the 40-Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers are funny, Wedding Crashers is clearly more funny.

Teh Funny

2006-01-24T11:09:00.000-08:00

The Buffalo Beast gives us the 50 Worst People of 2005. Some fairly random excerpts:

48. Larry the Cable Guy

Charges: The absolute nadir of the American South’s baffling cultural hegemony. A middle-class Nebraskan, raised in Palm Beach, whose parents sent him to private school, masquerading as an Appalachian mutant and making millions off the nine-toed cyclopes in his audience by calling his material “blue collar,” when it’s really just a celebration of proud ignorance. The latest in a long line of “entertainers” propagating the lie that real talent is elitist. The South has risen again—just long enough to grab the rest of the nation by the legs and pull it back down to its Lovecraftian depths. Isn’t even “bad funny.” Makes Jeff Foxworthy look like Chris Rock.

Exhibit A: Ostensibly ‘humorous’ catchphrase translates into “complete the task.”

Sentence: Sent back in time for the sole purpose of having Mark Twain’s cigars extinguished on his face.

....

41. Charles Krauthammer

Charges: Considered an intellectual authority among neocons, Krauthammer, like his colleagues George Will and Tony Blankley, really only presents a passable facsimile of gravitas, substituting vocabulary for intelligence, mischaracterization for argument, and intolerable haughtiness for authority. The fact that this wanton fascist’s opinions are not only considered fit for mainstream consumption, but among the cream of the conservative crop, is a maddening indictment of both the media and conservative movement.

Exhibit A: Posed a hypothetical scenario involving 9/11 ‘architect’ Kalid Sheikh Mohammed to advocate legalizing torture, when the actual Kalid Sheikh Mohammed was actually tortured without any such legislation.

Sentence: Lockheed-designed bionic exoskeleton he receives from Dick Cheney in exchange for opposing stem cell research goes berserk, ignoring Krauthammer’s excited protestations as it uses its powerful titanium arms to pulverize his loved ones and donate his life savings to Hamas.

...

17. William A. Donohue

Charges: If Jesus Christ were alive today, Catholic League president Bill Donohue would regularly call him a faggot in casual conversation. Purports to somehow defend Christianity by attacking nearly everybody on the planet in a perpetual frenzy of hateful, red-faced rage. As far as Donohue is concerned, the main focus of Catholicism is to stamp out homosexuality and Hollywood Jews who “like anal sex.”

Exhibit A: When a liberal blogger posted an “O’Reilly Factor” parody transcript wherein Donohue launches a campaign against responding to sneezes by saying “gesundheit” instead of “God bless you,” many failed to get the joke, because, well, it’s just plain realistic.

Sentence: Actually judged by true Christian god.

As they say in bloggerworld, read the whole thing.

Steelers

2006-01-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

I do not have time to post now, but I cannot have my good name associated with a blog that says positive things about the Steelers without adding my two cents. I hate the Steelers right now more than I hate myself.

I cannot agree with Goldberg's comments that they would be good teammates.

Exception: Ignoring recent developments, I have never really hated Cowher and he does seem like someone I would want coaching my team. I hate Bettis, but it's mostly hate out of respect, because he has always CRUSHED the Bengals. That said, if his career had ended on a devastating fumble, it would have been the highlight of the year for me.

However, the other people Goldberg names below are scum, are worse than Hitler, etc. Ben Fatlisburgerpieceofshit or whatever his name is: actually, I have thought for over a year that he is an awesome, very underrated QB. However, he is the epitome of a whiny little bitch. He complains about EVERYTHING, regardless of whether his team wins or loses, and according to my sister he was not a good guy in college - so there.

Porter is an asshole, and he says things that are beyond stupid.

Hines Ward is just a piece of human feces. If I was as big and strong as NFL players, I don't know how I could resist punching him in the face. God, I hate him. I'm not even going to say why, he doesn't deserve it. If Hines Ward was starving to death, and all I had to do was wipe my ass to give him a loaf of bread, I would go without wiping my ass for a year just to screw him over.

I don't have time to edit this. Busy at work. I may delete it later, so you probably want to save it for your records.

UPDATE: HA HA HA. I just read (I won't link, it might not be true) that someone vandalized the house of the referee who made that interception call. That's TWO houses vandalized in one season by Steelers fans. GOOD LORD! Even Browns fans have the decency to keep their throwing of things at the stadium.

Porter should have to go clean it up, in lieu of paying a fine.

Hamell on Trial

2006-01-18T12:10:00.000-08:00

I believe I've posted on Hamell on Trial in the past, although I'm to lazy right now to search and find out. He was supposed to play a residency at a place here in New York City in October and I was all jazzed up to go, until I got the following email from a friend:

But I just called the club, and they cancelled his residency 40 minutes into his first gig because "he was saying very rude things in the microphone and harrassing one of the waitresses from the stage."

Anyway, it seems Hamell has made the blogospheric BIGTIME, as his song about Ann Coulter has been linked to by Atrios. It's a decent song. More importantly, Hamell will be back in New York City in February and March, not just doing concerts, but performing a one-man theatrical show (including music) called "An Evening of Politics, Polemics and Pills" and done in connection with his new album produced by Ani DiFranco, "Songs for Parents Who Enjoy Drugs." Should be great. I'll be here at one of the March dates.

Oh, and going around his website, I found this interview, which, besides being generally good and interesting, had this great quote: "Anyone whose favorite band is Wilco should really listen to more music."

Football Blogging--Post-Divisional Edition

2006-01-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

First thing I'll do is, I think, probably piss off the Bears fan readers. All year this was 2001 repeated, in only a slightly different form. In 2001, the Bears went 13-3, but, as you will recall, there were a couple miraculous victories in that bunch--some hail marys, some improbably Mike Brown interception returns. Like this year, that division had two teams with 5 or fewer victories. And like this team, that team had a great defense, surrendering 203 points (the 2005 Bears gave up 202 points). And, both teams gave up serious points in their playoff losses--33 to Philly in 2002, and 29 to Carolina in 2006.

All this by way of saying that both teams, in my opinion, were paper tigers. Now, I don't remember the Chicago-Philly playoff game in 2002, but I do remember this weekend's Carolina game, and, well, that Bears defense was no Ravens 2000 defense (or Bears 1985 defense, but I don't remember that, either). So, there you go.

Now, on to the other Sunday game, Pittsburgh at Indy. This game has pretty much been analyzed to death (and for good reason!), so I'm not going to waste your time. I do want to link to King Kaufman in Salon yesterday, as he talked about something I was screaming about Sunday--namely, that a catch is a catch if the guy catches it, and we needn't spend time worrying about "football moves" and all that bullshit. Similarly, "down by contact" really just means "tackled", so I don't understand why annoucners and officials harp on those magic words, either. And, in general, instant replay has somehow begun sucking royally, and either needs to be fixed or just done away with.

This weekend, we have Pitt at Denver and Carolina at Seattle. All of sudden, after hearing for weeks how great the home teams have fared thoughout playoff history, it's now cool to pick the road teams, especially these two road teams. To be sure, these teams seem to have figured something out about playing on the road, but to win in Denver in January--that's a pretty tough task.

Anyway, on a more personal note, a weird thing that's happened is that I have some sort of real rooting interest in the Steelers, and, well, that just shouldn't be. I'm a true-blue Browns fan, and therefore should hate the Steelers. I think there are three reasons for this, though: (1) I like the Steelers at the individual level--Bettis, Roethlisberger, Ward, Porter, Cower--I mean, those are guys I'd like to have on my team; (2) for three years in college Cleveland had no team and the guy I watched football with almost every Sunday was a Steelers fan, and unlike, say, watching Bears games with my Bears fans friends, doing this didn't make me like the team less; and (3) with Cleveland so bad all these years, how can I really get all that worked up about a divisional rivalry?

Predictions: I really have no idea. Maybe everyone is right and both road teams will win. Or maybe not.

Football Blogging, Trick Play Edition

2006-01-13T11:20:00.000-08:00

Why did Pittsburgh use that awesome direct-snap-to-randle-el-across-field-lateral-to-big-ben-deep-pass play against Cincy, in a game they were in the process of putting away, instead of save it for use against the Colts?

Abramoff Story is Corruption, Not Lobbying

2006-01-11T07:24:00.000-08:00

Lobbying is a pretty slimy area, at least a lot of the time. It is, however, legal. Corruption and bribery, of course, is not. That's really the story here. All this "lobbying reform" talk is bullshit--it's the politicians, not the lobbyists, who are the real bad actors here. Mark Schmitt makes the case:

Please, Don't Say "Lobbying Reform"

Democrats and Republicans are falling over each other to introduce "lobbying reform" bills -- requiring lobbyists to disclose contacts with legislators, banning trips, etc. By the end of next week, we will have between two and four lobbying reform packages, and will enter a ridiculous debate about which bill would leave fewer loopholes.

Can I take this Sunday evening calm to plead with Democrats not to go down this road. Where’s George Lakoff when we need him??? Please don’t reinforce the frame that this is a "lobbying scandal" and the villain a "lobbyist" named Jack Abramoff. That’s the other side’s frame. This is not a lobbying scandal. It’s a betrayal-of-public-trust scandal. Lobbyists have no power, no influence, until a public servant gives them power. That’s what DeLay and the K Street Project was all about. What they did was to set up a system by which lobbyists who proved their loyalty in various ways, such as taking DeLay and Ney on golf trips to Scotland, could be transformed from supplicants to full partners in government.

Abramoff did lots of terrible things and should go to jail, but never forget that every single criminal and unethical act of his was made possible by a public official. On his own, Abramoff had no power. At another time -- say, 1993 -- he would have been a joke.

But every time we say "lobbying reform," we reinforce the idea that it is the lobbyist who is the wrongdoer. Sure, many lobbyists are slimy and aggressive. (Others, in my experience, can be helpful and informative, as long as you understand that they represent only one side of an argument.) But no one forces any legislator or staffer to accept lunches, trips, or favors from a lobbyist. And the reason not to do that is that the legislator risks surrendering some of her power, which is a public trust, to these private interests.

I’ll have more to say on specific proposals for reform in a day or two (hint: the best way to prevent these scandals is to put a watchdog on every member of Congress, in the form of an adequately funded challenger), but I just want to get this plea in immediately, to avoid the language that reinforces the idea that congressional leaders are helpless pawns of malevolent lobbyists.

Exactly. Here's a specific example provided by a commenter on Digby's Blog:

I think the simplest story that reveals the difference between what people perceive as 'big-business influence through lobbying" (which they relate to both parties) and the Culture of Corruption swirling around the Republicans is the one involving the Magazine Publishers of America.

Back in 2000 the magazine industry hired Abramoff as a lobbyist (he was then at Preston Gates Ellis) to help stem a proposed rise in postal rates. Now, most people can understand why the magazine industry would not want higher postal rates: it affects the bottom line of their business. Aside from printing, postage is one of their biggest costs. No one, of course, likes higher postal rates (and no one particularly wants magazine subscription rates to rise). But sometimes they are necessary to keep the postal system running. Nonetheless, it would seem perfectly legitimate for the MPA to hire a lobbyist to try to put their case before congressional members. One would assume the USPS would similarly be trying to jawbone legislators to present their side of the story, arguing FOR the need to raise postal rates. Senators and representatives should then duly consider the arguments from both sides and come to a decision about whether rates should rise or not.

This is not what happened. Mr. Abramoff was paid $525,000 by the MPA to seek a postal rate reduction in Congress. Did he make a heckuva case for them? Not exactly: he asked the MPA to give an additional $25,000 to a Seattle-based charity (slush fund) he'd helped found--and then he used that money (as well as another $25K from elottery) to help pay the salary for the wife of Tom Delay staff member Tony Rudy. It's called money laundering and bribery.

It's okay for lobbyists to collect money from clients to argue their cases before legislators. It's even okay (though problematic) for businesses or interests who have a stake in congressional legislation to try to elect the people they think can help them by donating to their campaigns, within the law. (Though I'd like to see changes in those laws.) What's not okay is money laundering and bribery. That is what a number of Republican Congressmen and their staffers are involved in here .... but no Democrats, to our knowledge.

The Democrats may be too tied to corporate contributions, and it's a problem that needs to be addressed. But we have thus far not seen any widespread shakedown, extortion, bribery, money-laundering schemes to which high-level Democrats or their staffers were party.

It's an easier story to understand than the baroque Indian tribe one (though smaller in scale). But it's been going on a long time, and DeLay and his staffers were at the very heart of it.

And yeah.... the Republicans are famous for defending their own until the fire gets too hot. The Democrats let go of Trafficante the moment his shenanigans hit the fan (it might even have been before), disavowing him. The Republicans have been trying to defend DeLay even AFTER his indictment. They got him to relinquish his leadership role, but they have in no way repudiated him formally.

The Traficant comment is a good one, too. That guy was ridiculously corrupt.

UPDATE: More fun Traficant info. Of course, it should be noted he was a lone wolf, and not emblematic of any systemic failures, unlike the current scandal vis-a-vis the Republican House.

NFL Prediction

2006-01-09T23:43:00.000-08:00

I am basing this partly on an overreaction, partly on some internet rumors (that I fear are well founded but that I will not link to), and partly on an educated guess based on reading basically every media report on the Bengals available on the internet during the last few years (and hence having some knowledge of the personalities involved).

Chad Johnson has played his last game for the Bengals.

I put my confidence level in this prediction at around 60%.

I'd write more, but I think I am now going to go vomit.

UPDATE:

Although they are really only reporting on the existence of the rumor, and although the Cincinnati Enquirer is probably no better than a random web site, part of the reason for my prediction is reported here.

Football Blogging

2006-01-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

Just some quick blogging before I head over to barbri (yes, it sucks as much or more the second time around, btw [and no, I never failed a bar exam--I'm taking it in a new state]). First and foremost, let's sympathize with Guthrie and also hope that Carson Palmer is healthy for the 2006 opener. His getting injured was certainly no fun to watch and took away greatly from the game.

Other thoughts on that game: Should or should not, especially in the second half playing with a lead, Jerome Bettis be Pittsburgh's feature back in these playoffs? I say yes. I also say it's fairly unlikely they'll get the kind of grind-the-clock game where that can happen with the Colts, so who knows. That said, I don't count the Steelers out of that game.

New England vs. Denver certainly looks on paper to be the game of next week. I think I may have some social engagements Friday night--I just hope wherever I have to go will have a TV. I haven't seen Denver play in a long time, but I do recall thinking that they were the real deal at the time. Then again, if anyone can make Jake Plummer revert to being Jake Plummer before he acquired the Mustache of Football Understanding, it's Bill Belichick. That game may or may not depend on what Corey Dillon can do (because, whenever you think NE needs to run to win, they win without running). Also, back to Jake Plummer: mustachioed or not, it's Plummer vs. Tom Brady.

NFC games: I think Carolina has a great shot against Chicago; Washington, not so much. Maybe if Moss runs back a punt or something.

Bengals

2006-01-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Playoffs. I haven't posted about the Bengals that much, because there hasn't been that much to complain about. That might change Sunday. But, for now, we are in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. In other words, the last time the Bengals were in the playoffs, the internet didn't even exist as something that everyday people could use, George Bush was President and I was 13 years old. It's been a long time coming.

Everyone in the Bengals organization deserves congratulations, with the exception of the Brown family. I do not forgive Mike Brown, and he and his ilk deserve nothing. Since he stole fifteen years of my football life, he will only be forgiven AFTER the Bengals are competitive for fifteen straight years. (We will allow one or two 7-9 or 8-8 seasons to be thrown into that mix, to make up for similar seasons the Bengals teased us with during the Dark Ages.)

Because I am the better person, I am also going to allow Mike Brown the opportunity to shave years off the fifteen year probationary period. First, a full five years will be removed if the Bengals ever win a Super Bowl. If the Bengals win consecutive Super Bowls, an additional two years will be removed (for a total of twelve years). [Note, this only applies to forgiving Mike Brown. Obviously, the Sports Guy's five year rule - i.e., that you cannot complain about your team within five years of winning a championship - would still apply.] These two are non-negotiable - if the Bengals win the allotted Super Bowls and are reasonably competitive for a few years, Mike Brown will be forgiven.

There are other opportunities to lower the probationary period, but they are more discretionary. One half of a year will be removed if the Bengals play in an AFC Championship game but lose. Two full years will be removed if the Bengals win an AFC Championship Game but lose the Super Bowl. However, these years will not be removed if the Bengals lose the Championship Game or Super Bowl in a way that (1) is extremely depressing and/or (2) can be directly tied to Mike Brown's cheapness. (Example: we lose the game because Carson Palmer gets hurt on a practice field that would have been in better condition but for the Bengals' cheapness.)

In general, years can be added at my discretion even if the Bengals are competitive if Mike Brown does anything cheap or miserly or Republican-like that makes rooting for the Bengals miserable (e.g., starts owning slaves). However, this rule does NOT apply if the Bengals win a Super Bowl or Bowls. In other words, Mike Brown can cheat, lie and screw people over all he wants IF it leads to a Bengals Super Bowl. However, if he does these things and the Bengals fall short, I can and will at my discretion add years to the probabtionary period.

Note that the entire clock can be reset if the Bengals flat out suck for a year (and it's not clear that they're just rebuilding for a year or suffered catastrophic injuries).

Also note that this is a long term probationary period. In no way am I suggesting that THIS YEAR'S Bengals team must or will win any playoff games. That is highly unlikely. I'm actually counting this as year two of just competitive football - the two 8-8 Marvin Lewis seasons shall count as one year. Therefore, at this rate, Mike Brown would be forgiven at the end of the 2018 NFL regular season.

Until then, Mike Brown Sucks. If it's Brown, flush it down. Mike Brown, Step Down.

I strongly suggest that all Bengals fans follow this advice.

Finally, go Bengals. WHO DEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing Going On Here!

2006-01-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

Random headline on CNN:

NSA: Amanpour, other CNN reporters not targeted for surveillance

OK, it's not that random: you can see what the hubbub is about here (scroll down). But when an obscure blogosphere allegation is suddenly denied very publicly by the NSA, I can only draw one conclusion: Amanpour and other CNN reporters were targeted for surveillance.

This is the same reason that I am pretty sure Mike Piazza is gay. I had never thought about Mr. Piazza's sexuality one way or the other, then one day I saw a headline on ESPN that said something like "Piazza Statement: I Am Not Gay." Well, that pretty much convinced me that he was gay.

Interesting...

2005-12-28T09:24:00.000-08:00

It's interesting and telling that Jonah Goldberg thinks of Martin Luther King as a "liberal" icon. See this post:

So which leftwing martyr/icon is left? Sacco & Vanzetti were guilty. The Rosenbergs: guilty. Hiss: guilty. Margaret mead: liar. Rigoberta Menchu: liar. Duranty: liar. Kinsey: liar. Upton Sinclair: liar. I.F. Stone isn't looking too hot (lied about America often, loved totalitarians, might have taken KGB money).

Martin Luther King Jr. -- small flaws aside -- is still looking good. But Bobby Kennedy is only a useful leftwing hero if you don't look too closely. Ditto JFK. Jesse Jackson's going to look awful to historians.

Who's left?

I guess ideas such as, you know, "black children shouldn't have to attend separate, inferior schools" or "lynching people is bad" are "liberal" ideas.

I seriously thought Martin Luther King had sort of achieved American Hero status, but I guess I was wrong: to some conservatives, he still represents the other side of the political divide.

Munich

2005-12-27T11:20:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Goldberg.

POSSIBLE MUNICH SPOILERS IN THIS POST

I saw Munich as well. I guess it is a well made movie - some of the scenes are as exciting as Spielberg's work in the Indiana Jones films or Jurassic Park (by far, in my opinion, his best movie).

(As an aside - Goldberg. I find it best to leave unspoken the point that I don't differentiate between his "serious" and "popcorn" movies. There is really no difference - outside of his project of filming survivors telling their stories which actually is very important and will possibly make up for the harm done to the world by Jurassic Park 2 - and people should figure that out on their own.)

However, as a "prayer for peace" or a somehow interesting political statement, I have qualms. Before I saw Munich, I imagined the Munich terrorists as insane madmen, with no concern for human life and no real ideology outside of a homicidal religious philosophy. I figured Israeli soldiers were generally good people, probably pretty smart, and probably occasionally wonder whether they are doing the right thing. While I imagine those stereotypes are probably closer to accurate than most stereotypes, I also know that a lot of racism and cultural bias on my part went into forming them in my head. So, maybe a prayer for peace between Israel and its enemies (which I think Spielberg thinks this is) should maybe try to challenge that stereotype and bridge that gap? Maybe that's an impossible thing to do, but then why call this movie a "prayer for peace"? Regardless, this movie didn't even try.

I don't think Spielberg did anything to humanize anyone except the team of Israeli agents who were supposed to kill 11 men who probably had something to do with Munich. There are many scenes of Israelis feeling guilty about killing people, but not one scene (unless I'm missing something) of anyone feeling guilty about killing Israelis. The Israelis spend the whole movie desperately trying to avoid killing civilians; the only Palestinian characters that have significant screen time slaughter 10 helpless athletes. Seriously, how is that a "prayer for peace?" I just don't get it.

I say this knowing virtually nothing about what happened after Munich, outside of a general knowledge of the history of Israel during the time period. And I don't even know why this film was supposedly controversial or important - and I intend to read more and let you know if I'm missing something important. But apparently (according to this movie) Israel immediately bombed some camps after Munich - leaving something like 60 Arabs dead (again, according to the movie). Why didn't we see that? Yes, it wouldn't have had anything to do with the plot, but then neither did the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Were children killed? Seeing that on screen, rather than just hearing it referred to, may have made me pause and think about how much blood was on both sides' hands. That's doesn't mean that both sides are equally at fault - but the first step, I think, in a prayer to peach has to be a realization of just how terrible war is.

In the end, I don't understand why this story is especially relevant today, I don't understand why this movie was a prayer for peace and, although I don't really know what Spielberg was trying to say by ending with a shot of the World Trade Center, I'm pretty sure I don't like it.

But I still have an open mind about this, so try to talk me out of it if you disagree.

Also, Eric Bana was really quite good, as was the rest of the cast.

Maddenism

2005-12-26T18:43:00.000-08:00

This might be the strangest color commentary moment I've ever heard:

Al Michaels: Bollinger, he and his wife are going to have their first child in May, and, John, they didn't want to know what the sex was gonna be until Christmas day, so they had the doctor put it in an envelope and they opened it up yesterday, and it'll be a boy

Huh. That's nice. A nice little anecdote about Brooks Bollinger. A nice story that Al Michaels could relate to us during the game. Nothing weird or untoward about that. But, immediately after that, here's John Madden's response:

That was the thing...you know, they didn't know, "Should we find out? should we not find out? Let's just wait and open it on Christmas" and they opened it yesterday morning.

Wha? Huh? Fleh? Madden just repeated the exact same thing Al Michaels told us, but in his "talkin' 'bout a big ole' lineman voice. You know what voice I'm talking about. Madden talked about it as if it's a "thing." "Yeah, that's just the old wait and open the envelope with the sex of your unborn child on Christmas day thing." Again, huh? And he just exactly repeated what Al Michaels said.

Well, I thought it was weird.

Merry Christmas...

2005-12-25T16:29:00.000-08:00

...and Happy Hannukah! All I want for Christmas is Guthrie to post!

So, I went to see Munich today. It was very, very good. Hard to know where it ranks in the Spielberg pantheon--probably better than Minority Report (only because the ending of that film was so bad), almost as good as AI** and Jurassaic Park, if not as good as those, and not as good as Schindler's List, Jaws, or Raiders.*

Bonus First Night of Hannukah Football Blogging--when can we say that Bret Farve has started to suck? Tonight? Last year? 2001?

*As you probably can tell, I don't differentiate between Spielberg's so-called popcorn fare and is "more serious" works--they're all films, and can all be compared against one another.

**A great movie with maybe the best, most natural use of special effects ever. If you are one of the multitude who thinks this movie sucks, watch it again. Also, if you think it's just a sad attempt of Spielberg doing Kubrick, well, you're right, but it's really exactly how such a project should look.

Progress?!?!

2005-12-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

The TWU and MTA went back to the table this morning, and now 1010wins is reporting that it's expected that Toussaint will recomend calling off the strike to the board.

Breaking news here.

Maxspeak Brings Us a Maxspeak Moral Clarity Moment

2005-12-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

Max speak, you listen:

A MaxSpeak moral clarity moment. There is huge moral outrage directed at workers for demanding the opportunity to live somewhere in the same quadrant of the universe where they work, and many crocodile tears for the collateral damage to subway riders. Our MaxSpeak Bile-o-meter detects proportionately less outrage over 30,000 innocents in Iraq, and 2,156 U.S. soldiers, who died so Iranian theocrats could rule the country. Of course, we are fighting for freedom -- so Americans can have the privilege of being jailed for going on strike. Maybe we should call in Lech Walesa.

Again, whose fault is the strike?

2005-12-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

The TWU says that the pension issue, the one the MTA changed at the last minute, is the issue:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The union that called New York's crippling transit strike said on Wednesday that if transit authorities take back a contentious proposal on pensions, that could resolve the strike.

"If the pension demands ... come off the table, that would go a long way to us resuming the negotiations and resolving the strike," Transport Workers Union Local 100 head Roger Toussaint said in a news conference, adding that he was in discussions with state mediators aiming to end the stalemate in talks.

Again, upping the pension contribution to 6% saves the MTA all of $20 million (much less than the state and city is paying in strike-contingency costs such as NYPD overtime) while it amounts to a 4% pay cut for workers.

*This post has been altered after the Riz pointed out an embarrassing grammatical.

Today's Shocking News

2005-12-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

Richard Epstein hates unions and Richard Posner hates individual rights. Just shocking!

Labor Market Trends

2005-12-21T13:34:00.000-08:00

Most the people against the TWU strike state their complaints something like this: I pay x for health care, I get a y% raise, I don't have a pension, and therefore the transit workers shouldn't get any more than me.

The thing about this is that it shows how much employers in this country have destroyed worker expectations. Instead of thinking "the transit workers get good healthcare, so should I", they think "I get shitty healthcare, so should the transit workers." Employers have fundamentally changed the dynamic in this country, I think, to a point where employment really is a race-to-the-bottom in terms of pay and benefits. As Daniel Gross says, it's Cramdown Nation, get used to it.

Another issue worth pointing out is that study after study has shown that having unions actually raises non-union wages, but putting general upward pressure on all wages.

Greedy Union?

2005-12-21T07:30:00.000-08:00

It's day 2 of the Transit Strike. I don't see this coming to an end until the end of the week at the earliest.

Lots of people here are mad at the union, but look what just came out today:

On the final day of intense negotiations, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, it turns out, greatly altered what it had called its final offer, to address many of the objections of the transit workers' union. The authority improved its earlier wage proposals, dropped its demand for concessions on health benefits and stopped calling for an increase in the retirement age, to 62 from 55.

But then, just hours before the strike deadline, the authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, put forward a surprise demand that stunned the union. Seeking to rein in the authority's soaring pension costs, he asked that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions, up from the 2 percent that current workers pay. The union balked, then shut down the nation's largest transit system for the first time in a quarter-century.

Yet for all the rage and bluster that followed, this war was declared over a pension proposal that would have saved the transit authority less than $20 million over the next three years.

It seemed a small figure, considering that the city says that every day of the strike will cost its businesses $440 million to $660 million in lost revenues. But the authority contends that it must act now to prevent a "tidal wave" of pension outlays if costs are not brought under control.

Roger Toussaint, the president of the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, said the pension proposal, made Monday night just before the 12:01 a.m. strike deadline, would effectively cut the wages of new workers by 4 percent.

"What they'd be saving on pensions is a pittance," Mr. Toussaint said.

Indeed, not just Mr. Toussaint but some other New Yorkers are questioning whether it was worth it for the authority to go to war over the issue when the authority's pension demands would apparently save less over the next three years than what the New York City Police Department will spend on extra overtime during the first two days of the strike.

Robert Linn, a former New York City Labor Commissioner, questioned the transportation authority's decision - with the backing of the mayor and governor - to go to the mat over pensions with a union that can exact huge pain on the city in a year when the authority had a $1 billion surplus.

So, we have the MTA forcing a strike over something that, in terms of state and city costs, is absolutely nothing, but in terms of union members, is a substantial pay cut. Do you still want to tell me this is not about the city and state trying to break one of the most historically powerful unions in New York?

Sisyphus Shrugged read that and says this:

The irony of Mr. Bloomberg talking about thuggery after he paid a sizeable bribe out of his own pocket to bring the Republican convention to a city that overwhelmingly didn't want it and then carried out mass arrest sweeps which caught up people who weren't breaking any laws and put them in mass holding cells without medical care or access to their lawyers is probably too obvious to comment on, but I did anyway.

Parenthetically, despite Mr. Bloomberg excusing the utter inappropriateness of the Convention being held here by saying it would help the economy, the city lost a lot of money that week, since the delegates (who appeared, from on the ground, to be deathly afraid of catching New Yorker cooties) never left the endless round of catered events that supplicants to the party in power paid for over the course of the week.

You'd also want to keep in mind that Mr. Bloomberg was very active in tossing out a bid for the MTA-owned land he (and no-one else) wanted used for his pet stadium that would have paid the "cash-strapped" MTA five hundred million dollars more than the bid which "won" when Mayor Bloomberg's and Governor Pataki's appointees voted for it.

Of course, you'd want to keep in mind that Republicans, while disastrous for New York, are really very useful for Mike Bloomberg, multi-billionaire owner of a media company. Useful enough that it was worth close to a hundred million dollars out of his pocket to keep himself in City Hall doing them favors.

I say that for the rest of you, because it's hard for us New Yorkers to forget it.

Concert Review--The Changes

2005-12-19T11:29:00.000-08:00

Saw indie rock Chicago band The Changes at the Mercury Lounge on Saturday Night. I had tried to see them back before I left Chicago, but was never able to make a show.

Anyway, I went with some friends (including the Goat of The Franklin Kite, another band worth seeing if you're up in Boston), and it was a very, very good show. Jonny Basofin, their drummer, was a co-worker of mine in Chicago, and I'm pleased to say that, while he was a highly competent paralegal, he's even a better drummer. He was, by consensus, the best part of the band easily the most interesting part of the show, and not just during the drum solo (well, really more a drum feature set or something) during the last song. He showed real timing chops and had an audience-friendly kinetic energy. And, as the Goat remarked, he sported a pretty solid indie-rock beard. This praise is not to denigrate the others--guitarist Dave Rothblatt clearly knows his way around his instrument, and his vocals were surprisingly strong, too. And bassist Rob Kallick, while fairly stoic, got a good workout moving up and down his fretboard.

I think the best number of the night was the one where frontman Darren Spitzer went behind the drum set and Jonny B. went over the to the glockenspiel and wailed on that for a while (I'd never seen anyone play that instrument so hard before). That was the only song where Spitzer really put some body into his voice, lending a real sense of urgency to that song. UPDATE: I've been told this song was "On a String." According to the website, it doesn't seem to be on any CD yet released.

On that point, I think I have to say that a shortcoming of the band's performance involves Spitzer. I like his vocals, but he seems to lack a stage presence. He never said a word to the audience; indeed, I don't think he even looked at the audience once during the show--his eyes were usually on the ceiling. He sort of was able to pull off a Morissey-type thing, but even a little attempt to connect with the crowd would have resulting in the audience eating out of their fucking hands--the songs and musicianship was certainly more than good enough.

Ok, enough with the criticisms, because, all in all, it was a really great show, and now I'm convinced that (a) the Changes deserve the indie-rock buzz they get as a new Chicago breakout band and (b) Jonny B. certainly made the right choice in leaving the world of corporate paralegals.

Unfortunately, because I'm just not that familiar with the individual songs, it's hard to get terribly specific because I don't have a set list nor did I take any notes. But, it was a great show, and all of us who went had a great time.

I was also very pleased that the best songs were, in general, not the ones I've been able to download off the band's website. So, at least as far as I was concerned, it was great to hear good new stuff. Hopefully they'll release those and put them up in mp3 format, too.

Oh, and they're doing a New Year's show at Schuba's in Chicago--so check that out if you're so inclined.

This post has been updated to correct for mixing up Rothblatt and Spitzer.

American Stasi

2005-12-16T07:21:00.000-08:00

Ari Fleischer was right. Americans need to watch what they say.

Strike update

2005-12-16T06:54:00.000-08:00

So, thankfully, the union has not ordered a system-wide strike. Some union members who work for private lines (and are thus exempt from the Taylor Law) have been ordered to strike, but the disruption is minimal (and non-existent in Manhattan--although the disruption from some stupid-ass Howard Stern rally did f up my walk to work.

The union seems to wisely realize that, regardless of who is right and wrong, a strike would really be terrible for the city. But I do imagine they will ratchet up the strikes as time goes on. We'll see.

Yesterday, I emailed many friends to get their take on the strike situation. I think, to a one, they seemed to be much more on the side of the MTA than the TWU. I, on the whole, think this is mistaken (this is not to say that, on each and every negotiating point, the union is right and the MTA is wrong). I just think it's dangerous and wrongheaded to think "oh, these people don't deserve a raise, don't deserve what they fought for over the years, don't know how good they have it," etc. Don't be fooled by some op-ed written in the Times by someone from the radical right-wing (and racist--just go read some of their stuff on Katrina and racial profiling) Manhattan Institute, an op-ed that skews overall city salaries down and TWU salaries up.

Now, Steve G. posted yesterday about this, after he and I had a little back and forth via email. His statement that white, liberal office workers are against the union comes from my emails--as I was telling him that my friends (who, in general, are in that category) seem to be mostly if not uniformly on the side of the MTA. Read his post and the comments. Now, he sees racism where I don't, but I think his viewpoint is still worthwhile. I do want to specifically point to a comment made to his post, about what these workers really have to go through. Then you tell me whether they should be doing this at age 65.

As to the issue of the cleaners in particular, I have a bias--one of my very best friends works for the MTA as a cleaning supervisor. Which ain't as cushy as it seems because in spite of his supervisor title, he still has to clean...and I mean clean EVERYTHING.

They empty the rat-filled garbage cans which they are trained to kick several times before unlatching, to scare the foot-long vermin out. Larger, older rats tend to be haughtier and simply lay in the bag, continuing to feast--until they get agitated from the cleaner jostling it too much and leap from the bag's mouth. Lots of fun if you're the poor f*ck of a cleaner looking into one after hearing a suspicious "clang" or hard something else hit the floor within the bag.

They pick up the LARGE rat droppings that accumulate near drainpipes and large
cracks. Bet ya didn't know that extended exposure to mouse and rat droppings can lead to people contracting Hantavirus, a nasty viral condition that is like a cross between a cold and meningitis and can leave you floored for weeks. Cleaners come down with this more often than even garbagemen in NYC--but only get 13 sick days a year--and the MTA wants them to give one of those back as a concession this go 'round.

They scoop up the human sh*t, and hose down the p*ss that uncaring straphangers deposit at the extreme front ends of stations (harder to be seen by fellow riders and personnel) since the demise of in-station bathrooms in the 80's. Combine all of that exposure to rats, their leavings and people's waste leavings with the lovely effects of the inhalation of the fine steel dust that comes off every wheel of every train that screeches to a halt in a station. Mmm-mmm! Healthy! Throw in the exposure to sewage which runs through certain stations unfettered as the lines often sit on or just below trackbed level. The Spring St. station on the 6 Line is notable for this. What a bouquet.

Finally, there is the additional debilitation of the sheer physical nature of the job itself. Up and down steps, lugging cans, bags, solvents and cleaners (toxic too!). My friend who is my age, looks 15 years older thanks to the backbreaking nature of his thankless job. Working down there ages you prematurely, brings on adult onset asthma and is hell on the knees and back. Plus, teams of cleaners are not assigned to stations--it is often A cleaner who is given a row of stations to clean (i.e. Parsons, Sutphin, Van Wyck in Queens) or one "Monster" (their term) to do (ala' the dangerous and massive Broadway-Lafayette station in SoHo). That cleaner has to clean that station from stem to stern with at most, a second cleaner to help--but oft-tmes not even that. The only time larger (more than one or the rarer still, two cleaners) teams are used is if a particular station gets written up in the news as filthy or the MWUs (Mobile Wash Units) that do the nighttime hosedowns of a week's worth of gunk.

They often wear "rat-proof" pants (actually "snake-proof", but are purchased for MTA workers from game warden catalogs) especially when traversing the "sea of rats"--a grate with a teeming multitude of leaping vermin below it at the 63rd St. station on the IND line. They throw sticks, sawed off mop handles and softballs into "Maint of Way" rooms, converted bathrooms and utility closets inhabited from floor to ceiling by rats--and often disturbed, angry homeless people stealing a moment's privacy.

I tell my friend "Man...I couldn't work down here!", and he simply says "Well...we can't all think like that, because somebody's got to." I stopped telling him what I make about ten years ago, because I knew it would p*ss him off, knowing what he was (or more honestly, was not) making in relation to what we do for a living respectively.

I'm not saying give the union the 24% over the three years--that's too damn much--but fer chrissakes, can they at least acknowledge the difficulty of the work, be a tad generous with the surpluses and own up to the rather unfair givebacks of the last few previous deals by paying these people something at least comfortable that keeps up with the cost of living? 12-15% over the next three years or something? With some minor, non-dignity robbing givebacks? (Like ditchng the sweep-up fare clerk idea and phasing out the MTA "Dicks" who are sent to check up on sick-at-home workers?)

Is ther any f*cking harm in giving 'em something decent? Really????
LowerManhattanite | 12.15.05 - 7:52 pm

I think that speaks for itself. Another issue I want to highlight, specifically as it relates to healthcare, is the idea of what unions fight for and why. Unions are a way for working people to enter the middle class. It's as simple as that. Without a union, these workers would be making $18-20k/year, not $50. They wouldn't have health care. They'd be on public assistance, and, frankly, they wouldn't be able to afford to raise a family in the city they worked in--and in this case, the city they make work. This union fought to get their healthcare, and to say that new workers need to pay 2% of their salary to premiums is an insult to those previous generations of workers who fought to get that right to healthcare. And this year, in a year of surpluses, the MTA asks for 2%. You better believe that, if there's a recession the next time the contract comes up, the MTA will be asking that 2% to become 5 or 8%. A union can't just give back something it fought for, or pretty soon that union will be forced to take whatever management shoves down its throat.

I think today, we can be happy that a strike was temporarily averted, or at least postponed. And please think about why unions exist, why we need to support them, and, lastly, why they are an integral part of any progressive agenda moving forward, including much-needed reform on the minimum wage and health care.

Shaker Heights

2005-12-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

The Times visits my alma mater, Shaker Heights High School. Bob Somerby promises to talk about the article tomorrow. I'll hold off on commenting until Somerby does.

NYC Transit Strike

2005-12-14T07:54:00.000-08:00

As you readers not from New York may not know, there is a distinct possibility that the Transit Workers (Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union) will go on strike at 12:01am Friday morning. Needless to say, a transit strike would be a disaster in Chicago, so you can imagine what it would be like in New York. As far as I can tell, the main sticking points are (a) sick days and (b) retirement age/pension contributions. Regular raises are also an issue, but I don't think that's as big an issue as these other two.

The MTA, the state agency which runs the subways (and other stuff) here, is the legal entity which negotiates the TWU's contracts. However, today, I see in the Times that Bloomberg is injecting the city into this process on the side of the MTA. This, frankly, is bullshit. As Steve G. has pointed out repeatedly, the MTA is sitting on a pile of cash and Bloomberg should be leaning on the MTA, not the union. This is a Republican mayor who got elected, after all, by saying he wasn't really a Republican and was pro-union in this oh-so-unionized city (not sure if it's as unionized as Chicago, but it's gotta be close).

The key in any strike like this, which affects so many people in such fundamental and terrible ways, is which side public opinion is on. While Steve G. is certain that it lies with the union, I'm not so sure, at least with respect to the moneyed Midtown and Wall Street professionals who have such undue influence in the city. And, the MTA has been slashing fares this ~~Christmas~~ holiday season in a move that I thought was just good governance but now think was merely a PR stunt to get public opinion on management's side.

In any event, this is all by way of the fact that the city's interest, and therefore Bloomberg's interest, should be in keeping the transit system up and running (meaning the city should act as an honest broker at most), not in trying to force a bad deal down the union's throat.

Btw, all you so-called Democrats who voted for Bloomberg--nice job.

UPDATE: Besides altering the first sentence because it made no sense, I should note, in fairness, that it apparently is illegal for transit workers to go on strike, based on a 1967 law references in that Times article. This doesn't really affect the policy aspects of the debate, but it does explain why Spitzer (at the state level, of course) is seeking an injunction against a strike. That said, if you take away a union's ability to strike on all occasions, it kind of weakens that union to a huge and most likely unfair degree, of course.

The Wire

2005-12-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Many of you know that I think The Wire is not just the best show in TV, but probably the best show that's ever been on TV. Although, as per my usual Johnny-come-lately self, I never watched them on HBO, only seeing Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. And, since I watched those two seasons (over about 5 days last spring), I've been clamoring for Season 3 to be released on DVD, which, apparently, is even better than the first two seasons. HBO has not complied with my requests. However, it looks like they will begin replaying the third season on HBO Zone, which I assume is one of those HBO channels I never watch but do get on my cable. The first episode of the third season is episode 26, being aired on December 29. Set your Tivos.

The War on Christmas

2005-12-12T16:15:00.000-08:00

This is pretty great.

New Blog Email

2005-12-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Due to the fact we're getting a million spams a day, we're changing our contact email here. It is now goldbergandguthrieblog at gmail dot com. I think the reason we got so much spam was because we had a direct link to the address, so now we're just spelling it out for you. I think this prevents spambots from getting it (not that I really know).

Guthrie--our password is the same as with our old account.

Health Care Query

2005-12-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

i have a question regarding health care policy in this country. You hear a lot about companies that are refusing to offer health care to their employees, citing cost concerns. I understand that health care costs (overall costs and insurance premiums) are rising at an alarming rate. I also understand how, for some corporations such as GM and others with highly unionized workforces, the companies themselves are paying these premiums. But, for most companies, isn't it the employees themselves paying the premiums? I know I pay my premiums, because I see them taken out of my paycheck on a pre-tax basis (the tax savings regime being the reason health care is tethered to jobs in this country). So, if most companies, like the one I work for, don't pay the premiums themselves, where is their burden coming from? Why is it so expensive to offer healthcare when it's just passed on to the employee?

Why am I so ignorant I can't seem to answer this question?

UPDATE: In comments, Kate Steadman, who has a health policy blog, writes:

Goldberg,

You are missing a key part in the way we pay for health insurance. When you get insurance through your employer, you split the premium cost. You will pay about half and your employer pays the other half. The premium amount you're seeing is only half the equation.

That's why people in the individual insurance market have trouble. Because their employer isn't paying, they have to pay both parts, which can be prohibitively costly. That, and the policies tend to be thinner than an 80 year old man's hair.

So, I think this makes sense. And, while I think that employers probably pass on their half to employees in terms of lower wages, there are probably several other market forces that prevent employers from shifting 100% of that cost onto employees. And, as you'll see if you ever need to elect COBRA, you're premium would be about double what you see out of your paycheck (and sans preferential tax treatment, too). So, it stands to reason that many employers do balk at providing health coverage.

Anyway, I encourage you to check out Kate's blog if you want to bone up on health care policy.

Health Care

2005-12-09T09:16:00.000-08:00

Read - linked to by Atrios.

In the end, I think I'm more embarrassed and ashamed that we don't have Universal Health Care than I am about all of these torture issues.

More Schuler

2005-12-09T07:36:00.000-08:00

Via Josh Marshall, from the Hill:

As the political climate has turned sour for Republicans, Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.) finds himself trailing his Democratic challenger by tens of thousands of dollars, dogged by ethics charges and running in an increasingly Democratic district.
Former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler (D) is challenging Taylor, in the 11st District, in rural, western North Carolina.

At the end of the third quarter, Shuler had $248,957 in the bank while Taylor had just $19,369, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

During the same period, Shuler raised $263,642; Taylor took in $134,791.

All right!

U Chicago Law Blog

2005-12-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

Under the subject heading "Bloggy B. Blog," here is a link to the blog run by the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School. Haven't looked at it much yet, but I assume it's of interest to much of our readership.

Howard Dean 4, "Hawks" 0

2005-12-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

How many times does this guy have to be right before people refrain from dismissing him out of hand?

War on Christmas Much?

2005-12-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

Seems like Steve Gilliard is using our War on Christmas idea.

Syriana--Quick Review

2005-12-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

I have to say, I pretty much agree 100% with what Atrios says about it:

I appreciate what the movie was aiming for, and that the ambgiuities in the movie were part of the point. But for that to work the audience has to be really drawn into the movie, almost feel a part of it, to feel those ambiguities. I found the movie really distanced itself from the audience and so people were just left scratching their heads instead of feeling as if they were part of the insanity.

I think that's right, especially in terms of not really ever feeling emotionally involved with either the story lines or the characters (for example, I don't think they got enough into the Clooney character to really feel like he was the "hero" of sorts at the end--which is clearly what we were supposed to feel). I think these problems arose because the filmmakers bit off more than they could chew--they tried to show way too many of the facets of America's entanglements with the Middle East, and therefore didn't have the time to really nail down any of them with authority--all breadth and no depth, if you will.

That said, it was an entertaining enough movie, and certainly better than most. And great little performances by people like William Hurt and Christopher Plummer and Tim Blake Nelson (and many others). Way too much stylized hand-held camera action, though.

Chicago Bans Smoking

2005-12-07T10:49:00.000-08:00

I'm a little confused about this "compromise" and also the "permanent exception", but here it is.