Nutrition in a Nutshell

From the NYT Magazine, courtesy of Mr. X.

I like Michael Pollan's moderate, common sense approach, but does this mean I have to actually cook, every day?

That seems like something to ease into gradually.

Quote du Jour: Kim Gandy

"Decades from now, when this country finally catches up with the rest of the developed world with regard to women's rights, we will look back on the Bush presidency as a temporary detour from our long history of building democracy one right and one freedom at a time. The eight years of mis-rule by this President will be seen as a profound embarrassment that was eventually overcome. I guarantee it."

-- Kim Gandy, president of NOW, from her biweekly column, "Below the Belt"

Quote du Jour: Chuck Hagel on the nonbinding resolution on Iraq

“This is not a defeatist resolution. This is not a cut-and-run resolution. We are not talking about cutting off funds, not supporting the troops. This is a very real, responsible, addressing of the most divisive issue in this country since Vietnam.
Sure, it's tough. Absolutely. And, I think, all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this.
What do you believe?
What are you willing to support?
What do you think?
Why were you elected?
If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes.”

(from yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing)

I can't say I've always been a Chuck Hagel superfan (as Republicans go, he's no Arlen Specter) but I have to admire his stance on this resolution, not because it's more than a symbolic gesture compared to Chris Dodd's substantive one, but because by co-authoring it with two Democrats, he's basically (unless I'm missing something) putting the last nail in the coffin of his hopes for the Republican nomination, if he hadn't given up on that already.

Don't you wish you were me right now?

I'm reading a copy of the State of the Union, which is classified, or as they call it "embargoed," as, just this very second, W. is being introduced. Soon you too will know and understand my, um, joy.

Pat Leahy: You're funny, Al, but not haha funny.

At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice, Chairman Patrick Leahy questions Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the details regarding a Canadian citizen sent to Syria to be tortured.

GONZALES: I think General Ashcroft confirmed this publicly, that there were assurances sought that he would not be tortured from Syria.

LEAHY: Attorney General... (derisive chuckle) ... I'm sorry. I don't mean to treat this lightly. We knew damn well, if he went to Canada, he wouldn't be tortured. He'd be held. He'd be investigated.

We also knew damn well, if he went to Syria, he'd be tortured. And it's beneath the dignity of this country, a country that has always been a beacon of human rights, to send somebody to another country to be tortured.

You know, and I know, that has happened a number of times, in the past five years, by this country. It is a black mark on us. It has brought about the condemnation of some of our closest and best allies. They have made those comments both publicly and privately to the president of the United States and others.

And it is easy for us to sit here comfortably in this room knowing that we're not going to be sent off to another country to be tortured, to treat it as though, well, Attorney General Ashcroft says we've got assurances.

Assurances from a country that we also say, now, we can't talk to them because we can't take their word for anything?

GONZALES: Well, Senator, I...

LEAHY: I'm somewhat upset.

GONZALES: Yes, sir, I can tell. But before you get more upset, perhaps you should wait to receive the briefing...

LEAHY: How long?

GONZALES: I'm hoping that we can get you the information next week.

LEAHY: Well, Attorney General, I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll meet you halfway on this. I'll wait next week for that briefing. If we don't get it, I guarantee you there will be another hearing on this issue.

Canadians have been our closest allies -- longest unguarded frontier in the world. They're justifiably upset. They're wondering what's happened to us. They're wondering what's happened to us.

Now, you know and I know, we're a country with a great, great tradition of protecting people's individual liberties and rights. You take an oath of office to do that; I take an oath of office to do that.

I believe, in my basic core nature, in that. My grandparents, when they immigrated to this country, believed that. Let us not create more terrorism around the world by telling the world that we cannot keep up to our basic standards and beliefs.

So I'll wait a week. I'll wait a week, but I won't wait more than a week for that briefing.

What do you and I have in common with detainees in Guantanamo?

Look what Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (and I thought he was one of the better ones) slipped in at the end of the last Congress:

U.S. civilians can face military trials.

Testy cable news exchange du jour

From an interview on MSNBC today between Tucker Carlson and Dennis Kucinich, in which the former refuses a little history lesson from our favorite small but feisty presidential candidate:

KUCINICH: You and I are in agreement with respect to the exercise of freedom of speech, but I want you to go back to 1934. And this might be good, to have a...

CARLSON: (with characteristically petulant defiance) I don't want to go back to 1934.

KUCINICH: Well, you need to.

But isn't Tucker Carlson already living in 1934?

Bush's Iraq plan speech: spoken "with the confidence of a perp in a police lineup"

Howard Kurtz's breakdown of the media reaction to the much-leaked speech, including the above reaction from Newsweek's Howard Fineman.

As for the actual content of the speech, Congress was well prepared to be unpleasantly surprised. They may have a point, though. History is not on the side of the last-ditch, politically expedient, face-saving effort.

Quote du jour: (the other) Dick Clarke

"Bush reminds me, in doing this escalation, of a gambler who came to the table and was given a lot of chips and repeatedly made what, at that time, were foolish bets, what everyone looking on at the time knew were foolish bets. And he depleted all of those chips. And he's now left borrowing chips in a last, double-down attempt at a very remote possibility of leaving the table with some chips, with some face."

In order to save face, he is not only borrowing money, our grandchildren's money, by running up the debt. But he's also gambling with the lives of Americans; he's gambling with the lives of Iraqis; and he's gambling with U.S. national security."

-- Richard Clarke, former chief counter-terrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council, delivering remarks on terrorism at The Center for American Progress, 1/9/07

The Ehren Watada court martial case

Kevin Sites article: Conscientious Rejector?

Dems to 'pubs: Cry Me a River

Well, let them gloat for a few days, at least (no more than 100 or so...)

Washington Post editorial, A Fairer House: But not quite yet.

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...