They Can't Do That, It Makes Sense

Skippy reprints suggestions by rayne at firedoglake, who lays out a workable but not politically fashionable crisis management plan.  

Horton Hears a What?

Texas rewrites history.

I'd like to hope that good universities will reject applicants who show signs of the taint of Texas education in the future, but that's unlikely.

By The Numbers

Driftglass's 2,500th post!  Featuring his 2,000th post with most of the numbers changed (I will drop a comment on the one he forgot about) and bonus quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Quick reminder:  I will be up to my 1,000th post soon, and nobody's organized a betting pool (pout).

Like the Letdown After the Revolution, without the Revolution

Two links to Arthur Silber, because signal-boosting is all I can do.

And I hope that the Christians in the readership had a Spirit-filled Pentecost/Whitsunday.  (That latter term probably isn't used much anymore.)

Two Things

1. Via Noli Irritare Leones, an irritating essay that has already been taken to task by PZ Myers (Pharyngula) under the title "A child is not a notch on the bedpost."  I give you "Contradeception," originally published in Touchstone, which is probably some kind of conservative-but-religious publication--the link is to Generation Cedar, which may be another.  When you're finished?  Wash your hands.
2. Dave fights back.
   

   An untapped well of anger rose in me. I grabbed hold of the wheels and began to roll towards them all the while speaking loudly and firmly. Telling them that they were rude, ignorant people who deserved no respect from me. That if they hadn't learned basic manners then I was going to teach them.

The Poisoned Center of the Libertarian Chocolate

Rand Paul and the libertarian stance on civil rights.  Via Like a Whisper's Prof. Susurro, who also says:

It should also be noted that the discussion of Rand Paul’s comments today have focused exclusively on race but Paul aslo made similar comments about disability rights and his views would make it possible to discriminate in public spaces on the basis of any identity including: gender, sexuality, language, etc. as well as race and ability. While his example of placing workers on the first floor of a building rather than building an expensive elevator may seem reasonable to some, the reality is that workers relegated to a single floor of a business are not integral participants in the business because they cannot move freely, access material or conversations throughout the business, and subsequently can be excluded fairly easily.

Your Corporate Overlords at Work

Via Brilliant at Breakfast: Coast Guard and BP trying to prevent amateur documentation of results of oil spill on public land.

The Coast Guard, as one of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, answers to the commander in chief — President Obama. Despite Obama's half-hearted attempt at displaying anger over the government's "cozy relationship" with BP, I believe Obama is aiding and abetting a foreign oil company as it perpetrates an environmental crime on American soil, a crime which fortunately (thanks to Sen. Barbara Boxer) is now being taken to the Justice Department.

(Source is not unbiased.) This is just bad news all around.

Michael Kinsley does the deadpan:  Sex Lives of Supreme Court Justices.  Via Republic of T.  I don't think much of Mr. Kinsley, but this piece is bone dry.  And mercifully short.

IOKIYAC*

*Pronounced "It's OK if you're a corporation."

Remember how conservatives are always spewing malarkey about taking responsibility?

But of course corporations are not held to that standard.  Particular corporation in this case is Transocean Ltd., which owns the Deepwater Horizon rig; Scott Horton notes the ongoing squirming.

Cautionary

Problem Chylde voices a concern:

I am not saying that Aiyana does not deserve justice, or that the cops who took her life should not face consequences. I am saying that you should write your media outlets and ask them why they have not dedicated as much mainstream attention to Aiyana as they have to Yeardley Love. I am saying you should question the claim that “the suspect was found inside the home” when the police executed the search warrant. I am saying you should question the necessity of filming a documentary of any kind during a high-pressure moment of capturing a homicide suspect.

If you're going to Detroit to march, please take the concerns into account.

"Don't Turn Away"

Via flip flopping joy:  7-year-old shot by police.

Getting Even Cozier with Evil

(Yes, I said evil.)

It is noted by Ross Douthat (!) that the government is doing non-nice things.

Via Arthur Silber.

Weird But True

The Stanford White-designed public library in Orange, NJ was recently closed because it has serious lead paint and asbestos problems.

The Tocsin

Getting cozy with evil.  Because I probably need to read Berlin Diary and re-read Ten Days That Shook the World and some basic 20th century history and Orwell.  Also, a spoonful of sugar, etc.

The mother has read the supplement to this story distributed by the Ogre Council. Tomorrow morning, she will point out to the children how this story demonstrates the openness and freedom of the new regime. "Some legal authorities" are "deeply uneasy." You see, children? she will say to them. A few people -- a few very bad people -- say that you cannot challenge the Ogre. But that's obviously not true. People do challenge him, and their objections are even printed in the official Ogre paper.

Real Rock Ribs

From Brilliant at Breakfast, from Andrew Tobias:  A Vermonter speaks truth to bigots.

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I'll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for "true Vermonters."

You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn't give their lives so that the "homosexual agenda" could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart.

He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn't the measure of the man.

Read the whole thing.

What It Is

This raises questions that should be put to Secretary Gates forcefully. Why is JSOC being allowed to run a self-standing detentions operation? (JSOC will no doubt deny that it is a detentions operation, putting its activities within its core intelligence-gathering mission, but that doesn’t change the facts.) Why is JSOC being allowed to operate a facility applying its own rules, including the use of impermissible techniques such as hypothermia and long-term sleep deprivation? Why was the Red Cross denied access to the prison for many months following the president’s January 22, 2009 order, which insured Red Cross access? What sort of accountability system has been put in place for this secret prison? What other secret detention facilities does JSOC run? Reports have long circulated about JSOC “filtration” operations at forward positions in Afghanistan. Of course, there is also Camp Nama in Iraq and the still unexplained Camp No in Guantánamo.

Obama's Black Sites from Scott Horton at Harper's.  Also from Harper's, Ken Silverstein on the oil industry's fight against disclosing how much they bribe pay foreign governments to tap resources.

“While API supports the goals of the amendment, we oppose the unilateral approach to revenue disclosure taken in the amendment, API feels that requiring only U.S-listed extractive companies to disclose revenues creates a competitive disadvantage for these companies in the global energy marketplace,” the Institute said in a letter to key lawmakers last week. In other words, API opposes the goals of the amendment.

Senator Cardin’s staff offered a rebuttal of the API argument, noting that the amendment applies to a large number of foreign companies as well as U.S. firms and that it “levels the playing field” because it would require openness about payments to countries that currently offer little or no transparency at all, such as Russia, China, Burma, and Cambodia.

But nobody really wants a level playing field.  They wouldn't know how to play.

Stasis

1. Parallels between the zombies of Night of the Living Dead and the apology from one head of state to another.
2. Via annafdd's Live Journal, Don Andreas Gallo.  (The original source is in Italian.)

Why yes, we're a bit ... terse ... today.

Oh, And...

Arthur Silber forbids you to read his essays.  And uses bad language, too.  And calls readers nasty names.

(Of course you should.  And read thoroughly.)

A tiny taste, because you aren't ready:

Oh, you think these people have crapped all over your precious ideal, but it remains an ideal -- and if only people like you ran things, there'd be rainbows and puppy dogs and kitty cats all over the goddamn world, in every teeny tiny little home, in every itsy bitsy backyard, and in every stinkin' rotten little heart. You continue to believe this shit because you are fantastically, remarkably stupid. You're also a gutless coward.

Two Things

1. AG proposes "legislated change to Miranda." (via Harper's)
   

   The protections against coerced testimony are essential to the integrity of the criminal justice system. But Miranda is hardly the only way to approach the problem, and indeed it may not be the most efficient approach. Moreover, civil libertarians in the United States have made too much of the Miranda warning itself. The essence of the protection is against coerced statements, and this rule serves the public, not just the defendants, because coerced statements are not reliable and should not be the basis of evidence in a criminal prosecution.

2. From Pandagon, conservatives want everyone to be unhappy.
   
   

   And let’s be clear---it’s really not that conservatives are taking a swipe at privilege. They don’t have a problem with privilege per se. Privilege is only wrong in their book if more people get to partake of it (such as women or racial minorities getting into elite universities or getting elite jobs), or if the people who have privilege care about others who have fewer privileges than they do. That goes double if privileged people actually work to expand opportunities for all. ... But I will say his conclusion is revealing in a way he probably didn’t intend, when he basically admits that he can’t be bothered with the fact that his preferred social strictures create so much heartbreak and misery. In the end, that was probably the point anyway.

In Memoriam

Frank Frazetta, artist.  [ETA: via comment of David W. at The Sideshow.)

In Memoriam

Lena Horne.

(New York Times obituary is here.)

Excitement

19th Perfect Game!

Murder and Tourism

The past and present of Languedoc, and what's interesting to see.

In the Other War

History in Afghanistan.

In Memoriam

Robin Roberts, pitcher.

“When he won, he was gracious,” [James A.] Michener wrote of Roberts in The New York Times. “When he lost, so often in extra innings with his teammates giving him no runs, he did not pout. Day after day he went out there and threw that high, hard one down the middle, a marvelously coordinated man doing his job. If he had pitched for the Yankees he might have won 350 games.”

He also helped organize the players' union.

And About Time

Ta-Nehisi Coates calls out stupidity.

1. Ignorant behavior:
   

   It's not that the hood is, itself, ignorant. In the main it isn't. It's that in every community there is a minority that feel, and act, like they have nothing to lose. In the beautiful Harlems of America, poverty is greater than normal, and thus that minority is greater than normal. There's also nothing particularly black about. By now, I've been around enough hood-ass white people to know that.

2. Racist behavior:
   
   

   Time is short and if your political strategy amounts to banking on the stupid factor, I'm going to assume that much of everything else you're peddling is the same. Perhaps you have a good case to build around the shocking size of government. Perhaps there really is an intelligent argument against the estate tax. But a shocking number of people who would make that argument, are not smart enough to see the difference between using the term "Negro" and wishing that white supremacy had won out.

3. Homophobic behavior (in reference to Rekers outing):
   
   

   It's not that you're homophobic...[Article title] It's that you think I'm stupid.

4. Addendum.
   
   

   In the meantime, I think it's worth saying that I don't count on diversity and multiculturalism because I think it's kind, nice or because it makes me feel all cuddly inside. I count on it because I think that's where this world is headed. I think banking on the world remaining as it was in 1968 or even 1998, isn't very smart.

The Cliché Title is "Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?"

Seen at Bugsybanana's LJ:  Mental mistakes on the field.

First, we are overcoaching our players from T-ball to the major leagues. God bless all amateur coaches for the time they spend with our kids, but our young players lack creativity and don't develop essential instincts for the game if they're being told how to do everything as soon as they put a glove on their hand. [...] Consequently, some of our young players become practice players, robotic in the mechanics of their pitching deliveries or their swings. They spend hours in the batting cages developing a beautiful hack and hours on the mound refining their exquisite motion, but sometimes at the expense of learning base-running and defense and all the intangibles that make a great all-around player. [...] The desire by teams to win and make money, and to justify huge investments in young players, is also at the root of the problem. When a player is a high draft pick, the organization might rush that kid to the major leagues ahead of his time because of what they paid him to sign. There was once a day when a player needed 2,000 at-bats or 500 innings in the minor leagues before being brought to the major leagues. Now they are arriving much quicker.

(What, you thought I'd forgotten about baseball?)

In Memoriam

4 May 1970.  Killed at Kent State 40 years ago.  "Four dead in Ohio."

It turns out I can download pictures from the camera to the printer and thence to storage devices.  Although it also downloads everything, which is a problem.

Saturday I did not get up at oh-dark-hundred hours to be at the traditional park for the traditional Morris-dance greeting of the sun.  I did laundry at a reasonable hour (it won't do itself; that's been tried) and then made my way to the house of some friends who are expecting a baby in a couple of weeks for prayer and blessing.  The newborn may end up at a ball game in a couple of months; there's a sweater.

Yesterday was Father Seamus' 35th anniversary (as a priest) and the church was packed.  I wished I'd been rude and gotten a shot of six priests and a deacon at the altar--you don't see that any more.  Fr. S was wearing the vestments his aunt had made for his first Mass.  I have verbal permission to post this picture:

(35 years ago, according to the photos on display in the entranceway, he looked rather like Tom Selleck.)

Aaaaaaaand I forgot about the Oakland Museum of California, which reopened this weekend, but I decided that should get its own posting elsewhere, so I did.

Statesman = Dead Politician

Happy Natal Day to Niccolo Machiavelli, 541 years young!

In his honor, go out and scheme to be politically expedient.

I Had a Wow Title, But It Evaporated

There will be pictures as soon as I can transfer the memory stick contents to this computer, which I can't do right now because the whatnot is missing.

Meanwhile, Noli Irritare Leones has a terrific post up about immigration, featuring this statement:

When I fear that the new Arizona Immigration Law SB 1070, allowing state officials to inquire into the immigration status of any person based upon “reasonable suspicion,” will lead to ethnic profiling, part of the reason for my fear is that I believe many of my fellow Americans want ethnic profiling. I believe, in other words, that part of the reason for people’s fervent fear of illegal immigrants is the fact that said immigrants are the wrong color. Fear of immigrants of the wrong color is a long American tradition. Nearly a century ago, it led to the Immigration Act of 1920, an act designed to limit immigration of the darker sort of white person, people like my father.

Raising this issue in the context of our current immigration debate requires nuance, though. Many people, reading remarks like what I’ve just said, will hear me as saying that the only non-racist position is to support completely open borders. And that’s not the case.

And there's more where that came from.