Goo Goo G'Joob

Fafnir's pie is missing.  And he knows whodunit.

While I'm Waiting for That Link to be Fixed

The Mahablog is on fire this morning:

In a nutshell — health reform legislation is being gutted of the most critical cost control measures by “centrist” legislators who complain the cost control measures are too costly. So the aspects of the bill that make it fiscally responsible are being removed in the name of fiscal responsibility. At the same time, Republicans who for years have badmouthed Medicare and sworn to dismantle it are scaring seniors by telling them the health care bill would ruin Medicare.

That Tolling's Been Going On Awhile...

Arthur Silber urged the reading of the latest posting by Chris Floyd.

So I did.

I guess we're in trouble.

...[S]hould we give credit to such a regime, single it out for praise, whenever it happens to behave in a rational manner on one issue or another? After all, functioning governments of every kind do a multitude of worthy things for their people every day. They build roads, lay electric lines and sewer pipes, maintain the food supply, sponsor medical research, facilitate technological developments, adjudicate civil disputes, provide disaster relief, maintain parks and recreation areas, etc., etc. – the list is virtually endless. And this was equally true of, say, Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union, and other regimes imbued with a crimeful essence. Would you have told a dissident opposing the depredations of Hitler or Stalin or Franco or Tojo or the apartheid regime in South Africa that he or she must always be sure to point out any constructive thing these governments do, and give them credit for it?
[...]
...extreme systems force that kind of triage upon us. Raoul Wallenberg could not end the Holocaust; he could only save what was in relative terms a very small number of people at the margins. But who would deny his heroism, and wish that he had not sought such small but deeply meaningful mitigations? Conversely, who among us would have suggested that Wallenberg, in the dire moral urgency of his mission, take time out to give credit to the Nazis for, say, their "Strength Through Joy" recreational programs for ordinary workers, or their remarkable highway system? Or in our time, do we require Shirin Ebadi to praise the Tehran regime for its social housing programs, or Aung San Suu Kyi to give credit to the Burmese generals for building roads or installing storm drains?

In Memoriam

Robert Degen, who was at least partly guilty of the Hokey Pokey.

The December "From the Archives" obituaries are wonderfully rich.  James Baldwin...Grandma Moses...

More Skewers, Please, We Still Have Corn

Why extraterrestrials don't eat us

"Well at the very least they would've eaten us," says Giblets. "Just look at us, all marbled with succulent fat and dripping with tasty earth juices!"
"Maybe they're vegans," says me. "Or maybe we taste all weird an gamey."

and the purpose of the war in Afghanistan.

And just as America can't afford to abandon this war, surely it can't afford to abandon the Afghan people, who without the American military would be left to the savage whims of their hated enemy, the Afghan people.

Mostly, you can't beat Fafblog! Except sometimes.

L'Amuse-Bouche

Driftglass pokes at the current apostasy of Andrew Sullivan.

Next Step

Banning divorce.

(Not, strictly speaking, serious; but, y'know, slippery slope stuff.  It would be like re-instituting stoning for adultery:  Too many hypocrites conservatives would be personally inconvenienced.)

Takedown

The Slacktivist calls out the authors of the Manhattan Declaration and names their sin.

Metamorphosis

Barack Obama turns into Lyndon B. Johnson.  Bad sign.  Jumping into quicksand is never the smart thing to do.

ETA:  And then there's this matter.

All Greek to Me

One of the other reasons I subscribe to Harper's is that Scott Horton not only excerpts a passage from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, he connects it both to historical parallels between Athens and the U.S.  and to architecture in Germany, with additional Bruckner.

This is the sort of thing public intellectuals are supposed to do.

No Man Can Find the War

Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker on major U. S. wars since WWII.  There's also a Roger Angell article (the baseball season is not over until Mr. Angell has analyzed the Yankees' part in it, and since that included a World Champeenship, there was more to write), but that's not available on-line unless you subscribe, and while I do, I'm not up for ladling out any more data than I already have.  So there.

Arctic Sea Ice

Melting like ice in a warm drink.

Yawn

Apparently that business about the Governor having died early this morning was a dream (I thought I'd heard an announcement on the news, turned over and went back to sleep, and have not yet found the slightest hint of confirmation).

Different Journey

Terrance of Republic of T on Alcoholics Anonymous (today being the birthday of one of the founders of AA) and Thanksgiving.

In Trust

So the question for you is: Do you trust this system? Do you? I would offer one further point: the degree to which you think global warming is a genuine crisis requiring urgent action, is the precise degree to which you should trust this system even less. If you think the entire globe faces a frightening crisis of truly unprecedented proportions, do you trust a system where decisions are made on the basis of friendships, alliances, connections, "influence" and doing "favors" for those one prefers, for whatever reason? No matter how sincere some individuals may be, do you trust a system which invites and encourages the participation of people who aren't sincere in any measurable degree, but are primarily and sometimes solely concerned with increasing their own wealth and power?

Well, do you?

Read the rest.

Researching

Apparently Phil Agre has dropped out of sight.

Random Acts of Senseless Clickiness

So apropos of nothin'-in-particular, I was thinking of Tony Bennett yesterday (no, not the basketball coach) and well-aged singers, which led to poking around skippy's blogroll, which led to Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, posting about movies and baseball.  (I heard that "Do tell.")

Most of it is so rich that I can only nosh for half an hour, but have the entry on Halloween Leftovers for a thorough overview of early horror movies.

More in Sorrow Than in Anger

The word for this is not Schadenfreude, but it's close.

Opening That Door

This being a Monday morning (pries open one eyelid and mainlines decaf) of a short work-week, I poke around the usual Web readings of a morning and found a couple of inspirational things, which caused inspiration to blossom inspirationally, and I think I'm sending the characters in the story I am not writing (not.  not.  not) to a party.  But that comes later, after I unearth a really spectacular bad pun.

Sorry.  Anyway.  J. C. Hutchins at tor.com suggested two questions to move a story along, good.  But Shark-fu gets to a deeper issue:

So, while the blessed few among us who are able to defeat our fear and experience creativity go about the bitness of making and eating sumptuous cakes, the rest of us eat crackers…all because we afraid to risk fucking a few cakes up before we get that shit right.

Because society punishes the creative among us when they do fuck up…because deep down in the core of too many of us is a resentment toward those pretty ass cake making motherfuckers.

(The talk she refers to is a video with subtitles one needs to turn on.)

So, yes, I've been terrified of mistakes in writing for a while.  But it's time to grab that back.  Even if I have to do it in pieces.

Watch this space.  (Not too closely, mind.)

(xposted to Dreamwidth journal)

Organized Football Takes a Stand

Remember the article on concussions in football and the consequences thereof?  The NFL is arranging to have independent neurologists work with teams on concussion issues.

They're also relying on self-reporting and teammates voicing concerns.

The Associated Press this month conducted a survey of 160 NFL players — about 10 percent of the league — and 30 replied that they have hidden or played down the effects of a concussion.

Unemployment by the Month

In easy visual form:  http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html.

You can supply the thousand words.

Antelope Freeway, 1/128 mi.

Via The Sideshow:  Our intelligentsia ain't too bright.

(Yes, the "ain't" is deliberate.  Yes, it's Salon; close the ad.)

As leading opinion-makers, Broder and Diehl are paid to carefully ponder issues and then offer their considered thoughts. That's not part of what they're supposed to do -- it's what they are singularly employed to do. It's how they earn their living and credibility -- indeed, it's their entire raison d'être. And yet, these leading lights of the intelligentsia are overtly preaching anti-intelligence, insisting the president must avoid taking time to think through his actions.

This isn't interpretation -- it's what these Beltway sages are literally saying. Broder is explicitly demanding Obama make a knee-jerk decision -- any decision -- even if it has catastrophic consequences. Likewise, Diehl is calling for Obama to immediately risk thousands of American lives simply because that's what Diehl believes the establishment wants.

At least today, I like this David Sirota guy.

Cy Young Winners

Zack Greinke, K. C. Royals; Tim Lincecum, S. F. Giants.

The Dunes of Seattle

Mrs. Robinson is back!

Sara Robinson on the Copenhagen climate change conference and possible results.

Pass the Popcorn, Please

Driftglass is mocking Thomas Friedman.

We keep being told that all that conservative venom is shellac, and we keep waiting for it to dry...

Stuff from Harper's

Scott Horton features Hannah Arendt on political falsehoods:

The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes, or denied and distorted, often carefully covered up by reams of falsehoods or simply allowed to fall into oblivion. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witnesses to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs.

He also has a brief piece on contractor immunity:

The contractor had been required by U.S. contracting rules to take out insurance to cover just such an event–not that it mattered, since no American court could require them to pay. Neither could any court in Iraq, it turns out, because of Order No. 17, issued by Paul Bremer as American proconsul, which had granted contractors immunity from process in Iraqi courts. The contractor, it turned out, had been completely immunized for its wrongful acts.

John R. MacArthur draws a lesson from William L. Shirer.  No, not that one:

At the end of his first chapter, Shirer takes stock of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 with nearly 100,000 troops. The Red Army, he wrote, was “reported to be meeting the usual reception which Afghans gave foreign invaders…. To the surprise of no one who knew the land, the Russian troops apparently were having a more difficult time than Moscow had envisaged.”

Here Comes The Judge

You see the critical point of common agreement: the United States is the bestest ever, in this and every other universe. God, we love us. Verily, 'tis a romance for the ages.

On the issues involved in trying the supposed 9/11 co-conspirators:

1. Sentence first, then trial;
2. Fruit of poisoned tree;
3. Corruption of justice.

No, that's my condensed summary. You still need to read the whole article.

It's Not Paranoia if They're Really Out to Get You

Coverage for women's health seems to be getting chipped away.  Gee, I can't imagine why I'd think that.

For Your Edification

Dictionary definitions of Mrs. Palin's favorite epithet.  Via piranha.

Bring Popcorn

Arthur Silber illustrates cultural misogyny with Andrew Sullivan.

(Yes, the sentence may be read two ways.)