Well, that's a bit troubling.

Immense ice shelf breaks off in Canadian Arctic...

... or it broke off over a year ago, but it took people a while to figure it out, so it's just making the news today.
I would add a rib about global warming deniers, but they've had it rough enough lately...

Our Ford: We could have done much worse (and we have.)

Season's Greetings, my modest but loyal readership (and if there are only two or three of you, you're all the more appreciated.)
Apologies for the brief interruption in my prolific blogging habits... I had been soaking up some sun and rain in the balmy subtropics (as long as it's balmy, I can deal with a little rain) with my shackmate and his family... we had a great time. Now it's back to the hustle and bustle of the chilly Mid-Atlantic Megapolis.
I heard the news of Gerald Ford's death from the condo yesterday.
The more I learn of the guy, the more likable he seems, despite having been, you know, a Republican, and making a coupla bad hiring decisions that will go unmentioned, despite their far-reaching consequences.
Referred to as an "accidental president" because of his appointments (rather than elections) to both the VP and the top post, he actually wasn't all that physically clumsy, although his face is probably less recognizable to citizens my age and younger than Chevy Chase's slapstick impersonation of him.
Here's Bob Woodward's write-up from the Washington Post.

Highly Recommended: Babel

Best new film I've seen in quite a while: good writing, good acting, good directing. The flaws were so few I could count them on one hand (and did) but I think, despite the thematic similarities to "Crash," this is (or should be, IMO) this year's "Brokeback Mountain" as far as a film to get excited about.

Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Main Entry: Ba·bel
Pronunciation: 'bA-b&l, 'ba-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Hebrew BAbhel, from Akkadian bAb-ilu gate of god
1 : a city in Shinar where the building of a tower is held in Genesis to have been halted by the confusion of tongues
2 often not capitalized a : a confusion of sounds or voices b : a scene of noise or confusion

Finally, a productive use of PowerPoint...

I wish somebody in the Pentagon would take a look at this.

Martha Raddatz Discusses Now-Deceased Army Captain's Stick-Figure Demonstration on How to Win Al Anbar

Senate History Lesson

Courtesy of Wonkette and the Washington Post, (in order of journalistic gravitas) on another time when the Senate majority hung in the balance...

Get well soon, Tim.

Goodbye (party of) Lincoln!

Per Jon Stewart's suggestion last night, an elephant whittled out of chocolate, in honor of outgoing Republican (to the extent that a Yankee can be either outgoing or, apparently, Republican) Senator Lincoln Chafee...

chocolate elephant sculpture
This CGI one is pretty cool, too...

The Kiesling letter

This is a bit dated, as John Kiesling turned in his resignation to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in February of 2003, but it was brought to my attention (I keep up with things more nowadays than I did three years ago) when quoted in this morning's National Press Club conference of the Council on American-Islamic Relations re: Arab and Muslim views of the Iraq Study Group report.

It definitely bears repeating.

Apparently Kiesling has a book out, published in August.

Here's where I part ways with Michael Weinstein...

I wouldn't give a single drop of blood to protect anyone's right to believe such a thing. But then I'm a pacifist. I'm fairly sure I'm grateful for those who would.

But of course, his main point is taken. There is scary stuff happening at the Pentagon, religious freedom-wise. I wish I had a reference link, but the Web is strangely silent on the matter Weinstein discussed in a news conference today.

"If they want to believe that Anne Frank, as I've been told by numerous people in the Air Force, is burning eternally in hell, that that little 13-year-old girl who walked into a hermetically sealed gas chamber when the Zyklon-B gas came out and turned her little 13-year-old body into a purple and blue polka-dotted corpse -- if they want to believe she's burning in hell, I would give my last drop of blood to support that view completely. That's their constitutional right..."

-- Michael Weinstein, president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Is this really the best we can do?

A chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who doesn't know that Al Qaeda is Sunni (y'know, Osama, Saudi Arabia?) and Hezbollah is Shiite (y'know, like Iran?)?!

But I guess the bar has already been set so low...

Holiday Wish List: Talking Dr. Laura Doll

Because it's not enough to listen to her show faithfully every day (yes, you do detect sarcasm.) I must carry around a beaming, Barbie-sized replica to enlighten my day with chestnuts like:

"[Don't] argue with me. It makes me testy."
"[Is] this the hill you want to die on?"
"I am my kid's mom."
and
"Now, go do the right thing."
Click to listen.

Be the first one in Washington to read it all the way through!

Heh heh... OK, I haven't read it yet, either, and it's very unlikely I'll ever read it cover to cover, although I definitely plan to pick up a copy (preferably from the library ;)
But hopefully some others (a key few in particular) are more ambitious (and don't have two books to read and critique by next Thursday for their lit class...)
The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward - A New Approach

Now it's personal.

Maybe congressional oversight is overrated after all.
Sure, I was a bit giddy the day the Dems took back both houses, hoping for a Congress that did something different next year, a "do-something" Congress, if you will. Be careful what you wish for.
For I, like the gaggle Steny Hoyer briefed today about the upcoming schedule for the 110th Congress, being in the communications/media industry, and one who deals in particular with Things Political, am personally affected by his admirable decision to upgrade Congress to a 5-day work week.
I know, Tuesday through Thursday is a "do-nothing" schedule. But darn it, I liked those slow-news-day Mondays.
Finally, something I can agree with House 'pubs about.

Red wine update: yep, it's the tannins.

I had a feeling that's what it was. Not being a huge fan of tannic wines, I'd been pessimistically suspecting that was probably where the major health benefits come from.
But I can adapt. It will be a bit more of a challenge to locate a bottle made from Tannat grapes from the Gers region of France or the Nuoro province of Sardinia than a bottle of pinot from upstate New York, but I like a wine-shopping challenge, and once I locate some, maybe it will be an excuse to buy a case.

Iraq likes Iran way more than us, it seems...

... if pictures don't lie, and based on today's notorious snub of Bush by al-Maliki, which may have something to do with this, as well as that leaked national security adviser memo.

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, new book by my favorite living U.S. president

Sorry, Bill; it was close.

Jimmy Carter was interviewed on The NewsHour tonight discussing the book, which is available now, apparently:

Palestine Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter

Its arguments are as provocative as the title. I love Jimmy, and not just because he was the first president I remember as a kid, or because he writes poetry. He's gotten so darn impish in his twilight years.

Beware of false centrists and low-hanging floats...

First of all, happy Thanksgiving! Hope yours is better than the poor folks covering the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, who seem to each be suffering in their own cold, wet hell of chipperness as they remark on the giant Sponge Bob SquarePants nearly scraping the ground due to wind restrictions and the latest teen singing sensations wrapped in ponchos.

And now, there's a new thing to dread in '08: Neo-neocons emerging from the failed centrist movement, e.g. a McCain-Lieberman ticket.

Another reason not to be cynical: O.J. book/ special nixed

What a lovely surprise. We're not so far gone as I feared, Western civilization.

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," said Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns both Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins. "We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson."

Of course, no one seems to know whether or not Simpson was already paid for the deal, but that's a secondary issue; he's living well off his NFL pension, anyway; the main point is that we don't have to see a "hypothetical," gloating double-murder confession on top of the bestseller lists.

Brief Respite from Cynicism: Secret Santa Reveals Identity

For 26 years, (Larry) Stewart, known only as Secret Santa has roamed the streets quietly giving people money. So far he has anonymously given out about $1.3 million. It's been a long-held holiday mystery. Who is Secret Santa? But now, weak from chemotherapy and armed with a desire to pass on his belief in random kindness, Secret Santa has decided it's time to say who he is and at least semi-retire.

Quote du Jour: Bob Schieffer on the O.J. book/TV special

From his final thoughts on "Face the Nation" today:

And finally today, I thought the congressional page scandal would surely win the most disgusting story of the year award.
But who knew that O.J. Simpson would write a how-to manual describing the way he would have killed his wife, had he chosen to commit the crime, or so he says. Or that he would get two prime-time hours on Fox Television to promote his book.
In our country, the law says a citizen who is found not guilty can't be tried again for the same crime. So along came a publisher named Judith Regan, who found a way to funnel millions of dollars to O.J. to write this trash. And get this. She says one reason she did it was because she was once an abused wife.
I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet another reason, maybe she gets a cut of the profits. She will personally conduct the two one-hour interviews that will air later this month on Fox Television, which, like Ms. Regan's company, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I've never been one to criticize competitors. It always sounds cheesy to me. But may I congratulate the Fox affiliate station owners and managers who have not decided -- or who have decided not to broadcast this dreadful thing being sent out by their network.
Someone -- I think it was William F. Buckley -- once said, something doesn't have to be against the law to be wrong. This one is more than wrong. It is just awful.

From Fox's Web site. (And we thought Western civilization had hit a low point back when we all crowded around the television to watch that white Bronco cruise down the highway; if we'd only imagined...)

Bush: See, look, Vietnam turned out all right.

At least he's begun to accept the analogy.

Quote du Jour: Soon-to-be-former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)

"The people have spoken all across America. They want the Democrats and Republicans to work together. I think the president now is going to have to talk to the Democrats. I think that's going to be good for America."

Two days after losing a bid for a second term, Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he was unsure whether he would remain a Republican.

Although I wouldn't cry to see him go Dem, I think it would be more interesting to see him bring up the Senate's growing tally of independents (albeit in six years at best.) All in all, I'm rather fond of the guy. I think a state can be judged in part by the quality of its loyal opposition, and in that respect, he'd make Rhode Island look inviting whether or not one swung left, notwithstanding the climate.

Quote du Jour: Jon Meacham of Newsweek

"The re-emergence of Iraq Study Group voices such as Baker, Gates and Alan Simpson—all longtime friends of Bush Senior—is not unlike the entrance of Fortinbras at the conclusion of Hamlet."

Wonkette's headline for the Newsweek story:

George H. W. Bush: “I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.” [Newsweek]

We are all Macaca

U.Va. senior and reluctantly famous Jim Webb campaign volunteer S.R. Sidarth's piece in The Washington Post:

A Virginia Welcome: I Am Macaca

Quote du Jour: Newly re-elected Democratic Senator

"This was an election that might be called the return of the center of American politics."

Yay -- viva moderation! I'm right on the cutting edge here, the avant-garde (ahem).

OK, the unnamed senator in question being quoted here is Joe Lieberman (now designated I/D-CT), on "Meet the Press" today. But that's beside the point, or is it?

Maybe it's not. My idea of the triumph of moderation is not just the triumph of the center, per se, but the triumph of people who think for themselves, as well as respecting the diverse views of all their constituents, not just the ones who voted for them. And I guess sometimes it's also about the triumph of some who have blinders on with regard to some issues but take a saner view on others.

So maybe it's OK that Lieberman's back. I may not agree with him on the war, but, for one thing, I don't live in Connecticut, and the point of democracy isn't just about getting what you want, but about keeping things stirred up a bit, about tolerating seeming inconsistencies and paradoxes, about venturing into the gray areas and electing people who aren't afraid of the gray areas and aren't afraid of solving puzzles that require going out on a limb sometimes, without saying to hell with those who want to pull you back for the communal good; people who don't think cooperation is a dirty word.

I don't know if Senator Lieberman is one of those people. The other independent in the Senate, Jim Jeffords, as well as his also-independent successor Bernie Sanders, seem to fall into that category. Oddly enough, John Kerry, in his often clumsy way, does, too. So did Bill Clinton, much more successfully. So do Arlen Specter and Susan Collins, each with their distinctive personal styles.

It's hard to get really excited about stuff like moderation and bipartisanship, but I would raise a couple glasses of pinot noir on their behalf.

OMG -- Bush lied about something, and it's not news. This is news?

Media matters has an excellent breakdown of the matter.

I guess FReepers would say the "MSM"* wouldn't know a lie if it bit them in the ass, so that could explain things. Although, there seems to be a bit of concern that their legislative counterparts in liberal-land don't share the same disregard for the truth, with all the panic about probes and hearings.

*I just learned this term yesterday. The day before I would have mistaken it for a food additive. I obviously have not worked in the "communications/media industry" very long.

But what's funny, as always, is Bush's wording. He didn't lie so much to keep his decision under wraps, but just to keep things moving in the briefing room:

"The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you that answer."

But it's OK, the beloved first lady is in on the game, too. Her husband is apparently not the aspiring bard some of us suspected (I admit I was myself duped. Sure, it wasn't Petrarch, but it still made me feel warm and fuzzy for a few seconds. That's the last straw. Impeach them all ;)

Well, I'm speechless...

... Speaker Pelosi; (one overdue concession speech by you-know-who away from) Leader Reid; bye-bye Rumsfeld; and less voting machine turmoil than I expected -- just a bit of rogue squirrel mischief and the odd choking of a voter who refused to choose a local judge.

The world looks so different today than it did yesterday that I don't know what to say, so I guess I'll just hand it over to the prez.
transcript of Bush speech from BBC

"Will Work for Chance to Defraud Fellow Voters, a Free Hat and (maybe?) a Sandwich"

From the Washington Post, two hours ago:
"Inaccurate sample ballots describing Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Senate candidate Michael S. Steele as Democrats were handed out to voters in at least four polling sites in Prince George's County this morning..."

Erik Markle, one of the people handing out literature for Ehrlich, who is seeking reelection, and Steele, the current lieutenant governor who is campaigning to replace retiring Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D), said he was recruited at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia."

After a two-hour bus ride to Maryland, Markle said the workers were greeted early this morning by first lady Kendel Ehrlich, who thanked them as they were outfitted in T-shirts and hats with the logo for Ehrlich's reelection campaign. Nearly all of those recruited, Markle said, are poor and black. Workers traveled to Maryland in at least seven large buses."

U.S. Presidents Who are Funny on Purpose

Maybe he just got a new speechwriter who was laid off by The Colbert Report.

From Former President Clinton's remarks at a Jim Webb for Senate Rally, Alexandria, VA:

The campaign that has been run against Jim Webb is just the most grotesque example of this formula they're running all around the country.
It goes something like this. This is their message. Pretend I'm their guy. No, no, wait, wait.
OK, we really messed up. I mean, this Iraq deal didn't work out too good and now we've put Afghanistan at risk. And we probably shouldn't have put that horse show association guy in charge of FEMA before Katrina.
And you know, it was embarrassing when our senior White House aide that dealt with Mr. Abramoff had to go to prison.
But Karl Rove didn't know him very well. He only had 485 contacts with the White House.
And he's shy, Karl is. You've got to know him 486 times before he knows you.
And you know, we did get attacked by six federal judges in the last two months for flagrantly and deliberately violating the law and the environmental areas. But what the heck? We're in power. What's the law?
Yeah, we've got a lot of problems, but you still have to vote for us, because my opponent is a slug, and they're going to tax you into the poorhouse.
On the way to the poorhouse, you'll meet a terrorist on every street corner.
And when you try to run away from that terrorist, you will trip over an illegal immigrant.
You can't vote for him.
I mean, is that it?
Now, the only good thing about that outrageous attack on Jim Webb's books is that somebody from the other side had to read a book.
As a candidate, Jim Webb has already done more to advance the education of those Republicans than they have in six years in power.

Well, I found it funny, anyway, even though I thank my lucky stars every day that I don't live in Virginia and have to choose between a misogynist and a racist (not that Virginia is the only state offering that particular choice, just the most blatant example.)

Tomorrow, vote early and often.

And if you're in California, don't forget to press the yellow button.

Is it just me or does it seem strange that no one seems really freaked out about all these issues with electronic voting machines?

I have a feeling that once the votes are in, it might become a topic of interest.

Check out votersunite.org for a well-compiled log of voting irregularities.

After the Taliban: Women in Afghanistan

This is the most depressing article I've read in some time.

Time Capsule Quote: Dick Cheney

"Over the long haul what counts is what it looks like 20 years from now and how people will judge the effort we've made to deal with a very, very tough situation."

-- on the subject of Iraq, speaking on "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" (Here is the transcript.)

If I'm still alive in 20 years, I guess I'll see. Something tells me it will probably resemble the long-term fallout from just about every other time the West has messed around in the Middle East (and Asia; and Africa; and Latin America...)

Ted Haggard quote du jour

"I am a deceiver and a liar."

There was more to Haggard's Swaggart-esque (ooh, alliteration) public confession, but I think that snippet pretty much says it all.

Quote du Jour: Lindsey Graham

"I'm optimistic because the Iraqi people are dying for their own freedom. We just need a strategy to provide better security to get this right."

-- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to Wolf Blitzer on "Late Edition" this afternoon

My concern is with the word "dying." Does he mean it in the hyperbolic sense, or in the literal sense, or some cynical combination of the two?
I don't mean to imply that Graham is a particularly cynical politician; in fact, I think he's one of the more sincere on his side of the aisle. I just think it's kind of sad the way Iraqi lives are spoken of so casually, tossed lightly in a sentence beside "optimism."
After all, with Saddam on death row now, exactly who is it we're expecting them to wrest their freedom from? Surely we can't be speaking of ourselves.

Haggard and Dawkins Square off on Video

Two personalities currently starring on page one of this humble blog met at Haggard's New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where Dawkins asked some questions before Haggard got pissed off and asked him to leave the property (of course, they had finished at that point and were packing up their stuff.)
(Courtesy of Wonkette, the source of all sinfully good Beltway and Ted Haggard dish, which has a new look; not sure if it's an improvement.)

You can view Richard Dawkins' BBC program "The Root of All Evil?" on Google Video,
Parts One and Two.
The Haggard interview above is an excerpt from Part One, but I found the second part more interesting overall.

Quote du Jour: Ted Haggard

"Don't let any substance determine how you live your day."

-- from his book The Jerusalem Diet: The "One Day" Approach to Reach Your Ideal Weight--and Stay There

Not bad advice...ahem.

Britain, our bestest friends in the world...

... don't really seem to trust our supreme leader.

"The United States is seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbors and allies, with Britons saying President George W. Bush poses a greater danger than North Korea's Kim Jong-il, a survey found on Friday."

You can't make this stuff up...

"The Rev. Ted Haggard said Friday he bought methamphetamine and received a massage from a male prostitute. But the influential Christian evangelist insisted he threw the drugs away and never had sex with the man."

Oh, well, in that case...

The third female soldier to die in Iraq objected to interrogation techniques...

... and committed suicide, and nothing more was said except that her death was the result of “non-hostile weapons discharge," a catch-all term for what is usually accidental death or so-called "friendly fire."

From the article in Editor & Publisher, which describes a young woman who really was one of our finest:

Here’s what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston now works, reported yesterday:

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. ...".

She was was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. “But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle,” the documents disclose.

The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told E&P: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were."

John Kerry: Oh, the humanity

So John Kerry read a bad joke the wrong way and ended up insulting the academic achievement of American troops in Iraq, rather than his intended target, George Bush, the architect of the plan that got us "stuck in Iraq."
Whether it was a misreading (not studying hard enough before the stump speech?) or a Freudian slip, either way, it played right into the hands of the very never-worn-the-uniform "Republican hacks" Kerry has been criticizing for their "swiftboat-style" attacks on Dem congressional candidates. Ah, deja vu.
Listening to him defend himself this afternoon was just painful -- the frustrated rage of someone who's been put in the same corner one time too many, but with nothing to do about it.

Will this halt the Democrat momentum?
Will it be 2004 all over again?
Will John Kerry go to "joke school"? ("Sure," he told some dude in the press corps)
And what about Fox vs. Limbaugh; D. Cheney vs. Rangel, L. Cheney vs. Blitzer, Harold Ford, Jr. vs. Miss October?
Will someone just send me an absentee ballot and then wake me on November 8?

Michael Steele: Party Pride

Maryland Senate candidate Steele on his party affiliation:

"It's an impediment. It's a hurdle I have to overcome."

"I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter."

"For me to pretend I'm not a Republican would be a lie."

"If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose."

And of course, there's the infamous blue "Steele Democrat" sign and bumper sticker, which he told Tim Russert yesterday was conceived as a "cute" idea for his Democrat supporters, a reference to the "Reagan Democrats." Hmmm.

I guess posing as a Democrat might be an honest enough tactic as long as he kept it up for the next six years. But something tells me that won't happen.

If an un-election were held today, Bush and the GOP Congress would probably win...

... or lose, all depending on semantics, according to the lastest Newsweek poll.

Among the statistics, 51 percent of Americans believe impeaching Bush should be either a high or a low priority for Congress: "Other parts of a potential Democratic agenda receive less support, especially calls to impeach Bush: 47 percent of Democrats say that should be a 'top priority,' but only 28 percent of all Americans say it should be, 23 percent say it should be a lower priority and nearly half, 44 percent, say it should not be done." (italics mine)

Based on their joint track record, for those who take a longer retrospective view, (over the whole 5 1/2 years... I know it flew by, but some of us remember that far back) it seems fair enough.

This Salon article takes a stroll down memory lane.

Agree with him or not, Richard Dawkins has balls.

Not easily influenced by the spirit of the times, (which stands to reason, as he doesn't put much stock in spirits) Richard Dawkins has a new, unapologetically opinionated book, "The God Delusion," in which he expounds on the views of theology that inform his well-received science popularization books.
The book centers, as Dawkins tells BBC News in this interview, around an argument addressed not only to confirmed atheists, who will probably be the lion's share of his audience, but also to on-the-fence agnostics and even those who don't realize they're already inclined toward a lack of theistic belief but are afraid to admit it to themselves in a climate somewhat hostile to atheism. (Due to the tone, it's probably not going to inspire much other than ire or, at best, dismissal from most confirmed theists.)
It's obvious from the BBC interview that both Dawkins and the interviewer expect a different reaction to the book in America, which is probably a fair guess. So far, his toughest customer has been Stephen Colbert, but that's probably the tip of the iceberg.
Read it for yourself and see. The only copy at our local library is currently checked out by one of the librarians, but my shackmate signed up for it once it's available.
Here are some excerpts, courtesy of BBC and The New York Times.

Umm, I think you might have said it once or twice, Mr. President.

Bush to George Stephanopoulos this morning: "We’ve never been stay the course, George!"

I guess he's been spending more time listening to James Baker than he lets on.

Two slightly different views on the significance of the upcoming election

The glass is half empty, and the other half is filled with nitroglycerin:
Thomas Ferraro

The wine of victory is probably sour, anyway:
Bob Novak

A thoughtful reminder to certain constituents...

... from someone Tan D. Nguyen, the GOP challenger to Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez, denies he is in any way affiliated with:

"You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time."

This ABC News article notes that "In fact, immigrants who are naturalized U.S. citizens can legally vote."

Of course, the letter was written in Spanish and only sent to constituents with suspicious-sounding names, such as a candidate for a local city council -- oops.

Methyl mercury, in moderation?

Finally, a little clarity on whether or not those super-healthy omega-3 fatty acids found in fish are worth the risk of ingesting dangerous levels of mercury.
This article even has a nifty little chart.
However, it's been noted that one can see the hand of the formidable tuna lobby in the refusal to rule out a popular product like canned white albacore, even for pregnant women.
And judging by the very high levels of mercury in large predatory fish, I'd personally stay away from them regardless of my age, gender, or reproductive status, not that I've ever been very tempted to eat shark or tilefish, anyway.
It seems like focusing on yummier seafood with low mercury and high omega-3 levels, like salmon and blue crabs, might be the way to go...

And because it's Sweden Week in Blogland...

... and also because I haven't filled my quota of news about the future, (it takes longer on the wires) look what else those Swedes have been up to while we weren't looking: a self-assembling cottage on the moon.

"We know where the Americans want to land people in 2020... It would be nice if we had a house for them when they come," Mikael Genberg said.

Wishful thinking?

Seriously, though, this is pretty cool.

"But when we put this house on the Moon, which is a kind of Swedish endeavour right now, we want to make it an international symbol... it will represent the position of our own planet in the universe, like a fragile thing."

And of course, wine in moderation, for your health and good fortune.

The property in red wine known as resveratrol has already been shown to be good for your heart and even promote longevity, according to a number of recent studies, and now they're saying it may also protect the brain from damage caused by stroke.
The recommended dosage is two glasses a day (a bit much for me on a work night, but one can aspire ;)
(And unfortunately, catching up on the weekend falls outside the category of "moderation." I'm still waiting for a study to come along and refute that, but I'll probably be waiting a while.)

And drinking with colleagues means earning more money, too, apparently, so one may as well combine the two regimens.

Speaking of Mehlman, "Abramoff's rock star"

This article appeared today in Salon. You have to register to read the full story, but here's the excerpt:

Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican Party, insists he doesn't have a Jack Abramoff problem. "Everything I did was above board and consistent with the rules," Mehlman told reporters this month about his work in the White House during President Bush's first term, when the now-disgraced super-lobbyist was hustling Washington. In fact, the Republican National Committee chairman likes to insinuate that Jack Abramoff never made much of an impression on him at all. He might have met with Abramoff or his lieutenants, Mehlman conceded to Fox News recently, but "I don't recall the specifics or the meetings."
But maybe Ken Mehlman does have an Abramoff problem. On Sept. 29, the very day the Foleygate scandal broke and sucked up most of the media oxygen, the House Committee on Government Reform released a bipartisan report on the contacts between the White House and Abramoff. The 91-page report lists 17 different Abramoff lobbying efforts directed at the White House Office of Political Affairs when Mehlman was that office's director from 2001 to 2003. But the most revealing story about Mehlman is told by the hundreds of pages of e-mails in the appendices of the report.

NBC News also covered Mehlman's Abramoff ties, including the Mariana Islands connection. That appeared in the week leading up to Rove assistant Susan Ralston's resignation on October 6, which I admit I kind of tuned out at the time, because the sheer breadth and depth, the seemingly infinite variety of the corruption was starting to give me a headache (or maybe I only kept silent because it was my Week of Golden Silence on such matters, or I was coming down with a cold.)

Vote for Real

So vote in November, too.
But since polls often seem to determine who/what we get to vote for in November, weighing in at Zogby might be sort of like cutting out the middle-man.
Here's the registration form to get on the Zogby mailing list, courtesy of the Libertarian blog Hammer of Truth.

You can't read this at home: Newsweek International's North Korea story

But happily, there's that great equalizer, the World Wide Web.

Northern Mariana Islands, Abramoff & co.: Beyond scandal, beyond sad

I admit I didn't even know the Northern Mariana Islands were a U.S. territory until I heard Wolf Blitzer broach the subject of yet another Abramoff-related scandal in an interview with Ken Mehlman on "Late Edition" today.
Apparently I wasn't paying attention a year and a half ago when the story broke.
Here are updates.

What they really think of the people who got them elected.

It's possible that Bush himself is a born-again, a true believer, but, according to David Kuo's new book “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," that would put him in the minority in the White House.
Kuo, himself an evangelical, quit his post in the faith-based initiatives program in 2003.
Of course, there are denials. But does this sort of thing really surprise anyone?
Wake up, people (I'm thinking, for example, of those kids worshipping the cardboard cutout of their caesar -- I mean, president.) You're being taken for a ride, and we're all paying the price.

Quote du Jour: Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari

"The situation is not as gloomy or as bad as things are."

-- speaking about the war in Iraq on CNN's "Late Edition" last Sunday, October 8.

OK, Mr. Zebari seems like a decent guy who's trying his best, and I know there's a language barrier, so it's not quite fair to parse words, but I still can't help wondering which "things" in Iraq are so much worse than "the situation."

The devil is in the details? Often the case, it seems. Durn details.

Sweden's "New Moderates": What's in a Name?

Apparently, Sweden, on the other hand, is so far left that the "Moderate Party" (recently re-packaged as the "New Moderates" to denote a more centrist stance) is all the way to the right of the political spectrum, according to the graphic in this article.
And they just won a majority in the parliament.
OK, maybe a little reform is needed, after 70 straight years of Social Democrat rule, although it sounds like they aren't doing too bad at the moment.
It will be interesting to watch (as will post-Blair Britain, an entirely different kettle of fish.)

Another paragon of conservative Christian family values bites the dust...

The sad story of country music star and GOP darling Sara Evans' simultaneous divorce announcement and withdrawal from the new hit show "Dancing With the Stars" (I kid you not; Tom DeLay has a cameo here) is too grotesquely Bizarro World, I would think, to even inspire liberal schadenfreude (except maybe for Al Franken, who's having a pretty bad day.)

If anyone is still buying this paradigm, I give up.

I guess this says something about America...

... although I'm still pondering precisely what that might be.

Liberal radio network files for bankruptcy

Good on Them: Nobel Committee Recognizes Role of Poverty in Violence

... in their nomination of Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus, the so-called "Banker to the Poor," for the Peace Prize.

"Asle Sveen, a Norwegian historian who closely follows the Nobel Prize, told AFP: 'It is the first time that the fight against poverty has been rewarded in itself.

'There were enough good nominations in the area of conflict resolution in the strictest sense but the Nobel Committee is increasingly taking the fight to the fundamental reasons for which war is waged.

'It is not enough to make peace, this peace must be a just peace and the causes of war, such as hunger and poverty, must be treated at their roots.'"


The selection of Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk for the Lit prize is also controversial and has been criticized as being political, since Pamuk is a moderate voice in Turkey who has urged his country to own up to the Armenian genocide.

That criticism may be valid, assuming one can separate politics from literature, but how could the committee possibly separate politics from the international selection process? By choosing "mainstream," "apolitical" (read "Western") writers only, and shying away from any, like Harold Pinter, last year's choice, who are critical of American foreign policy?

In some parts of the world, where writers are either mouthpieces of the state or literally prosecuted for their views, as Pamuk was, it's pretty much impossible not to be political.

If either of these selections were political choices, I think the committee could have done worse. And maybe, just maybe, the work of each laureate, if examined on its own terms, outside a Western context, would speak for itself.

The Justice Cortex

Interesting...
Based merely on the study as it is summarized in this article, though, should the region of the brain that apparently evaluates fairness be associated with "morality" (in the form of righteous indignation) or simply delayed gratification?
(Although I believe some have argued that delayed gratification is synonymous with morality, so maybe that's a moot point.)
But a long-term strategist somewhere back in our evolutionary history may have been clever enough to punish unfair division of resources by refusing his or her sliver of woolly mammoth meat with a huff and roll of the eyes -- maybe even a prehistoric temper tantrum -- cunningly wagering that it might be worth it in the long run if, next time, it paid off with a bigger share of the pie.
I also wonder if self-conceived notions of where one stands in a group hierarchy might play into one's reactions to being apparently cheated.

Quote du Jour: Plato

“Moderation, which consists in an indifference about little things, and in a prudent and well-proportioned zeal about things of importance, can proceed from nothing but true knowledge, which has its foundation in self-acquaintance.”

Nutshell history...

... of where Republicans and Democrats come from (good, notecard-size piece for parents who have been agonizing about that "little talk.")
I always thought it was interesting that, at least, post-Reconstruction and pre-Bush 43, Republicans seemed to be more "democratic" in principle (for the enfranchised) and Democrats seemed more "republican," and I assumed this ironic switcharoo gradually took place sometime between FDR and the Civil Rights movement, but it seems, although there was rhyme and reason to the original coinage, history unraveled in such a way that the two terms became pretty much random and interchangeable.

Breaking my golden silence on those zany 'pubs

OK, so my seven days of silence on the foibles of the Bush administration and congressional Republican leadership are mercifully ended.
And noting again my considerable admiration for those few (and fewer every vote) Republicans in Congress who manage to hold out against the giant magnet that's been affixed to the Far Right ever since it was determined that therein the "base" resides, I will go so far as to admit that even most of those in lockstep with the administration and leadership are probably decent folks who are kind to fluffy animals (off their respective seasons) and, leaving out any discussion of children for the time being, don't literally harbor cooties, even including North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry, (not to be confused with Patrick "Give me liberty or give me death" Henry) although pundits on this morning's talk shows implied that the "We are rubber; Dems are glue" tactic he's spearheaded is just kind of silly and probably won't work.
I guess that means it's back to Iraq, the one thing they all can agree on.
What's next?
Revolt of the soccer moms?
All right, I feel better now (aside from a bad case of the sniffles.)
I should have known better than to go cold turkey.

Tomorrow: a fair and balanced analysis of the rising tension between my immune system and the upstart rhinovirus that has launched a vigorous campaign against it.

Modest Goals: Electing People Who Approve of Science

Well, I guess the new action group Scientists and Engineers for America figure it's a start.

(And since I'm still observing my Week of Not Talking Smack About Republican Politicians -- it's been a long week, and still two days to go -- I hope I can get away with this post, since I'm not personally talking any smack, but merely allowing a group whose advisory board contains eight Nobel laureates to do so for me.)

So what's up with all these shootings?

Having grown up close enough to Pennsylvania Amish country that the sight of horse-and-buggies clopping down the street between cars and trucks was not a novelty, I could picture the scene of a national cable news convergence on a quiet Amish schoolyard even before it was conjured up on each of the major news channels, in one case with an unidentified white-bearded Amish man being interviewed in a split-screen shot alongside a scene of the schoolhouse.
I think I had fallen prey to the prevailing pessimism that's been brooding in the country, with yesterday's incident marking the third so-called "school shooting" in a week. What's going on here?
Tonight's NewsHour interview with forensic psychologist and juvenile violence expert Dewey Cornell shed a little light, as Dr. Cornell noted that, overall, violence at schools in the U.S. has gone down over the last several years, although there have obviously been a number of sensational cases that seem to suggest it is becoming some kind of epidemic. He made the point that coining and throwing around the term "school shooting" has the potential to create an arbitary category that may serve as a lure for desperate people looking for the maximum notoriety for their violent fantasies.
As someone who works, to cite my bio, in the communications/media industry, I'm certainly not one of those who believes the media is the root of all evil; certainly not in the sense that violent video games or pornography incite normal, well-adjusted people to violence. And I don't believe that 24-hour cable news channels are slowly devouring the brains of those who watch them (provided those viewers take occasional breaks to eat, sleep and other things essential to life in the three-dimensional world.)
However, I do think it would be productive to examine the larger implications of 24-hour, internationally broadcast cable news, whose bread and butter, is, to be brutally honest, the "big stories" (which never tend to be the warm and fuzzy kind) on psychologically unstable individuals desiring to write their pain in a large hand across the world they feel has wronged them.
When you have people, whether kids or adults, with violent tendencies, either due to childhood abuse, relationships gone bad, school bullying or simply unmedicated psychopathology, offering them the promise of posthumous gratification of a megalomaniacal desire for instant, worldwide notoriety, while it is far from the cause of such behavior (these are people who, unless they got help or found a way to help themselves, would inevitably act out in some way, at some time) but I'm just thinking that the lure of those 15 minutes probably doesn't help much.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

So as anyone who has been frequenting this blog (if there are such people outside my own household :) may have noticed, I jumped to a new blogspot address, something a little shorter and catchier.
I chose not to go with my helpful shackmate's suggestion for the new address, bitterdemocrat.blogspot.com, (it's available, incidentally) but his point was taken. I've been straying a bit from my moderate credo when it comes to topics of a partisan nature.
But sheesh, look at the material I have to work with...Even David Brooks is stretching to find chipper things to say about the 'pubs these days.
So this is going to be hard, but I've decided to take a week's holiday from talking smack about Republican politicians, just as a little experiment in moderation.
If I fail, I may just have to yield the middle ground and join the legions of lefty bloggers queueing up for the guest list of Bill Clinton's next blogger luncheon.
Either way, wish me luck.

The straw that broke the elephant's back?

GOP House leaders admit they covered for Foley, hoping that if they kept it on the d/l, no one would notice (the way it always works in Washington, right, especially in election years?)

WTF? If Boehner and Hastert are allowed to wash their hands of this, it's a damn shame. I wish I could say precedent is against them, but after the way Abramoff was isolated and neutralized like the lobbyist equivalent of an ebola strain in a rhesus monkey lab, it's really anyone's guess.

Poetry makes the Sunday news (W.C. Williams would be pleased.)

"Poetry has shown me the way to feel again and again, how to contain my feeling, how to be able to feel in that complicated human way, when you feel more than one way at once, ways that seem contradictory but which are true, both at the same time."

-- the (fairly) new poet laureate, Donald Hall, reading from his first poem completed as the U.S. laureate (talk about pressure), and speaking on This Week with George Stephanopoulos

McCain, Warner, Graham: Remember when...?

Sometimes it's interesting, in a bittersweet way, to go back and read news articles from the past -- for example, this one from a little less than two weeks ago -- and reflect on a more hopeful time for America.
After that Jerry Falwell incident, I wonder how chummy a reception McCain will get from Jon Stewart (whom he seems to count on for his "hip" factor) next time he's on, based on this whole torture thing...
What happens behind those Oval Office doors during Senate-White House negotiations?
Based on the blatant contempt for the Geneva Conventions over there, you gotta wonder...

Who's Afraid of Bob Woodward?

So everybody is talking about this book, State of Denial: Woodward (I mean Bush) at War, Part III

It's coming out on Tuesday and all the cool kids in Washington and the surrounding blogopolis are gonna read it, so I thought I better mention it, even though I'm kinda busy myself with reading Virginia Woolf for school.

Crazy about that Andy Card thing, though.

Everything, indeed everything in moderation

Too much testosterone kills brains cells

And as a chick, the results of the estrogen test conducted "to be fair" made me chuckle quite daintily.

Indeed, the scientist who conducted the study happens to be a woman. But I don't find it surprising that the hypothesis may not have occurred as naturally to some of her male colleagues, particularly the ones who have been busy conducting tests like this, which I hate to say seem to depend for their conclusions on much fuzzier, or "softer," if you will, data and methodology.

Not that there's anything wrong with being fuzzy, of course, in moderation.

Macaca '08, RIP

If there is a drop of sanity left in America, anyway, George Allen won't be the Republican nominee for the White House.
I suppose a radical moderate shouldn't be indulging in catty name-calling, but, hey, he started it.
The thing is that, although I take for a given that all politicians are a bit slutty, once in a while one just rises above the rest in terms of that "ick" factor, and George always had that effect on me. I hate to say it, but I'd almost rather see Cheney at the top spot; at least he keeps a low profile (although I probably only say that because he's not running.)

But the main thing I'm glad for right now is that I don't live in Virginia, where Allen's "moderate" Senate competition is only vaguely more appealing.

While I'm being gleefully juvenile, it reminds me of a certain "South Park" episode.

Couldn't those waffling appeasers over at DNI even bother to translate "cause celebre" into English?

So here's the nugget from the declassified NIE that's just been leaked, wrangled, digested and spun with whirlwind speed over the last few days in Washington (along with some other boring parts about how lots more different kinds of people are even more excited about trying to kill us than ever before):

"We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

So what's the gist of this?
Could it possibly be what moderate voices in both parties (although admittedly more of them on the Dem side) have been saying over the last year or so, that it was a mistake to go into Iraq because, false pretenses aside, it was bad strategy for the so-called war on terror and has only made things worse, but since we're in it deep now, we need to figure out a way to get out smart and make sure the Iraqis have their Shiites together with their Kurds and Sunnis so we don't leave behind what would amount to the world's largest terrorist training camp.
It's a good thing Rove, Cheney & co. decided to just find a way to spin this, or else they'd have to accuse their own intel people of flip-flopping, waffling, or whatever new term they've coined for a foolish inconsistency.

Clinton on Fox: Pissed, yes; Blindsided, no.

According to Slate's John Dickerson, who called it pretty well, I think.

And finally, a fun little Right-Winger parlour game

Name three other things Mark Twain, Noam Chomsky and Osama bin Laden have in common.

And in that vein, is Satan the new Hitler this season?

Generation Last?

So these kids believe, in a fairly political take on Christianity...

(I mean, I can empathize; I grew up believing I would leave this earth before age 30, and this even before aspiring toward poetry as a career choice.)
But with kids on the other side of the world believing just as fervently in their own vision of reality, and each side casting each other as the bad guys, what kind of future are we looking at?

Interesting, too, how evangelicals who don't happen to be depicted in this film, "Jesus Camp" are getting just as freaked out as the rest of us (or myself, at least) about how wacky these people look on film.

But you can only push a moderate so far: Clinton on Fox News Sunday

Bill Clinton gets closer to killing Chris Wallace (I mean bin Laden) than anyone since.

I know what Bill means about the little smirk, but I think Wallace was born that way; must come from somewhere back on his mother's side.

Here's the full transcript.

On the perils of being too nice

I caught Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeating the following sentiment on a "Late Edition" interview this afternoon with guest host John King.

Here is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article from earlier this month:

TIME: President Karzai, let me ask you about your own style of governance. A number of people have said that one of the best things about you is that you consult with a wide range of Afghans, people within your government, your cabinet...

Karzai: I am criticized for that.

TIME: At the same time there are a number of people who have said that is the wrong approach. You are too nice to be leading the country in this way in this time. Do you think you are too nice?

Karzai: Well it's not bad to be nice. It's a very good thing to be nice. But look. What was the problem in Afghanistan? Why did Afghanistan fall to terrorism and the trouble that caused you trouble as well in the rest of the world? The trouble was twofold.

(and he goes on to offer a coherent argument, which is something in itself. Whether or not it's a valid one, I couldn't say. I'm no expert on Afghanistan. But I can't help but root for the nice guy every once in a while.)

It always gives me a sense of satisfaction to hear the obvious confirmed.

Spy agencies say Iraq war is hurting U.S. terror fight

Hey There

So by way of introduction, before someone calls me an oxymoron (I'm sure I've been called worse) here's a nutshell defense of what I mean by "radical moderate."
I'm not talking middle-of-the-road, let's-not-rock-the-boat sort of moderate.
What I like about the classical concept of the golden mean with regard to ethics (if you're looking for my take on geometry, I'm sorry to say that I missed that boat back in eleventh grade) is that it's not about where you end up on the spectrum but how you arrive there. And just because the center may at times resemble, for instance, what used to be the Right, that doesn't mean moderates have to pack up and head east. Just because the current mode is to view George H.W. Bush as a moderate doesn't mean anything more than the fact that a decade or so ago, Bill Clinton seemed to look like one. Although I respect the latter in many ways, neither are precisely the model for my conception of what a radical moderate would look like in the political realm.
It's not about carving out a niche in the spectrum or compromise for compromise's sake but a state of mind and the corresponding behavior of thoughtful consideration and open dialogue.
A passionate dedication to thoughtful consideration and open, unprejudiced dialogue informed by firsthand research and mutual respect (as opposed to the current mode of either polarized vitriol or spineless compromise) seems like something worth fighting for.