Taste for Change 2007

Eating for charity. Who doesn't like the sounds of that?Oxfam is holding its annual Taste for Change dinner in support of Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (OIYP) this month. Funds raised will enable youth leaders aged 18-25 to better work with their communities "to create positive, equitable and sustainable change".A six-course dinner will be prepared by Sydney chefs, each of whom have

Not even Olbermann had the stones to do this

But Mika Brzezinski did:

You go, girl.

R.I.P. Joel Siegel

Is it my imagination, or is the day of the film critic over?

I did movie reviews online for seven years. For seven years, I spent just about every weekend day in a darkened movie theatre, then went home and wrote about them. Then one day in 2005, after plodding my way through a review of the Jet Li film Unleashed, it all just seemed just so trivial.

Back when I was in the Online Film Critics Society, and later on as a founding member of Cinemarati, working towards gaining credibility for online film reviewing seemed like a worthy goal, if not necessarily an attainable one. Film festivals proliferated and for a while it seemed that everyone was reviewing movies. Some of those writing were better than others, but it seemed like a worthy endeavor. Then one day I just didn't want to do it anymore. To some degree, blogging is having the same trajectory, so far with better results. But with Roger Ebert being out of the picture due to illness, and now with the death of Joel Siegel, it seems that the quote whores have won the day -- and reading movie reviews has less impact than ever on people's decision to see a movie -- witness the success of Evan Almighty.

Still, I can't help but feel that yet another door is closing on the art of film reviewing with Siegel's death. For one thing Siegel wasn't was a whore. Like Ebert, Siegel always seemed able to evaluate a movie not in terms of how it compared to some four-hour film about World War II filmed entirely with handheld cameras in the Czech Republic, but in terms of what it was trying to do -- and he managed to do it without Ebert's unfortunate tendency to filter Angelina Jolie movies through the filter of her two co-stars.

What I'll always remember about Joel Siegel is the way he convinced me that Titanic was a film I should see. I had been a Rivethead ever since reading A Night to Remember since the sixth grade, and when I'd heard that James Cameron was going to do this film with a painstaking re-creation of the ship, I was geeked -- until the reports of cost overruns and talk of "Waterworld II" begam seeping (so to speak) out.

But after seeing Siegel on Good Morning America the day it opened, I knew it was someting I wanted to see.

Yes, I know, melodrama, crappy dialogue, propeller guy, and all of that. And the film has aged badly. But the first time in, it was magic -- and Siegel saw that.

It's easy for cinéastes to mock guys like Siegel; the kind of people who worship at the altar of Jonathan Rosenbaum and think Anthony Lane is a hack -- as if reviewing actors pretending to live lives is some kind of Great Cosmic Endeavor. And perhaps this is why I never really was cut out to be a film critic. But I couldn't help but feel sad upon hearing about Siegel's death, because it's just another sign that the art and the industry of movies is changing radically -- and we just don't really know where it's going.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere -- weekend edition

Busy weekend after being away for a week, so blogging will be light. But there's much going on, so let's take the old keyboard out for a spin:

DUUUDE!! Cliff Schecter has the goods on Norm Coleman's stoner days. I can't wait to watch this guy:

...paint Al Franken as a hippie.

Brynn Craffey at the DOS attack-proof Shakesville temporary home thinks something is fishy about the London car bomb story (and I agree...)

Cernig on the Administration's contention that if Americans kill people in Iraq, they are therefore by definition al-Qaeda, not civilians.

Liberal Talk Radio on the state of news media.

Sean Daniel on how using the term "Animal House" to describe bad political behavior disses the denizens of Delta House.

Jon Swift on desegregation and original intent. (Warning: do not click unless you appreciate finely-honed snark.

At the Berlin Zoo, Knut's surrogate parent Thomas Dörflein begins to get his life back, not without some ambivalence at cutting the umbilical cord to his furry adopted progeny. Women worldwide weep, and parents everywhere relate.

He's still 0-for-8: John Amato on Bob Shrum's appearance on The Daily Show.

And speaking of The Daily Show, Hoffmania links us up to Lewis Black in perfect form as he explores the conservative Toobz.

Auguste explores the demented, and yes, misogynistic, world of Debbie Schlussel.

Jurassicpork is going on hiatus to finish his novel. Let me know how it goes, JP....I have one that needs finishing too, and at this rate, I don't have enough life expectancy ahead of me, despite ridiculously hardy genes, to finish it.

And finally, Badtux the Rude Penguin (is he related to the missing Jeffy?) gets his rant on about the health insurance industry.

Blogswarm this!

I realize that this little bloggeroo doesn't have the kind of high traffic to mount an effective blogswarm, but it's worth a try.

As someone who has watched a spouse go through a number of job searches, plowing through ads with long lists of requirements for completely unrelated skills that no one person can possibly have, it's been clear to me that job recruiting is done with the clear goal of NOT finding qualified American workers, so that H-1Bs can be hired instead.

Thanks to Carrie, who commented here for the first time yesterday and who is being blogrolled as a way of expressing our thanks, we now see that there are, in fact, immigration attorneys who are in the business of helping employers disqualify American workers to facilitate the hiring of foreign workers:

If you are not a tech worker and you think this doesn't affect you, guess again. It affects all of us.

And if you're thinking of supporting Hillary Clinton for president, call her campaign headquarters and refer them to this video and ask what the candidate's official response to this kind of practice is. If you're supporting Bill Richardson, ask how "education" addresses the problem of a policy that allows companies to rig the system to exclude American workers. Then please share with us in the comments what you find.

(More at Information Week and lots more videos of media coverage here. Note how all of the representatives interviewed in the media coverage are Republicans. Does this mean the Democrats support excluding Americans from the job force via these tactics? I think it's worth contacting our Democratic representatives and Senators, as well as our presidential candidates, and finding out.)

Mc Lucksa, Haymarket Chinatown

How could you not smile when queueing for lunch at a stall calling itself Mc Lucksa?There are plenty of options at the level three food court in Market City but today I'm standing at the counter of Mc Lucksa.I've stood here a few times, lured by the salt and pepper chicken, sambal tofu and brown simmered tea eggs in their prettier-than-most bain marie window. It's cold, wet and miserable this

From now on I am a "thinness-free person"

Eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant is now a sign of FREEDOM, get it?

This reeks of classic Rove.

The AP — and therefore official mainstream media — wording for Bush/Cheney’s warrantless wiring taping program is suddenly the new and improved “warrant-free program” or alternatively, “warrant-free eavesdropping.”

Think about it. Warrantless wiring taping sounds as if what you did was without a warrant, which would make it illegal. Warrant-free just means you were unfettered by warrants. That sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it? Like sugar-free is superior to sugarless, or law-free is better than illegal.

And eavesdropping is what Lucy did to Ethel when she was trying to find out what Ricky was getting for her birthday. Wiring tapping…well, that makes makes you think of Watergate.

This is now the official lapdog media meme for the new police state -- it's not warrant-less, it's warrant-FREE! And FREE!! is good, right? After all, to phrase it the other way might make us think of Watergate, right? Good heavens, if we do that, then Barack Obama might have to find his balls and stop reaching across the aisle to the Bush Administration and insisting that going to war based on lies, announcing via signing statements that you have no intention of obeying laws, and conducting mass surveillance of American citizens aren't crimes because golly gosh gee whillikers, it might make the president MAD, and we are just too genteel for that.

Did the Democrats have a debate last night?

Of course they did. Unfortunately, I missed most of it, but I did tune in just in time to hear the entire crew of them talk about education as the cure for outsourcing. I hate to tell this bunch of nimrods this, but there are hundreds of thousands of displaced tech workers, many of them over 40, who cannot find jobs due to outsourcing and age discrimination. You can talk about education all you like, but this bunch has only been listening to the corporate executives who stuff their campaign coffers complaining that there aren't enough skilled Americans to fill the available jobs and that's why they need to bring in more H-1Bs and outsource their programming to India. Try talking to the actual tech workers sometime; the people sitting at home learning Flash and C# and ASP.Net out of a book and who still won't be able to find jobs because they don't have practical work experience with these skills.

Only Gravel, Edwards, and Kucinich directly implicated U.S. trade policy. Obama delivered some typical Obama pap about "retraining". I wonder for which jobs he thinks people should be retrained? The tech jobs that are being outsourced? Richardson delivered some typical DLC pap about "education." Clinton was completely disingenuous about this, since she's shown far more interest in what India's business executives say about outsourcing than talking to actual Americans who have been affected.

You'd almost think this is the terrorism equivalent of a horse's head in the bed

Remember that infamous scene from The Godfather when movie producer Jack Woltz woke up with the bloody severed head of his prize racehorse in his bed, placed there as a warning by the Corleone family after he refused to give Johnny Fontaine a movie role?

After years of having Tony Blair as his own personal valet, George W. Bush now has to deal with Gordon Brown. Brown has been a supporter of the Iraq War, but there's no guarantee that he's the kind of true believer in the PNAC neocon agenda that Blair was. So it's just perhaps a bit too convenient for George Bush that a car packed with fuel was found in London's West End early this morning.

However, it's worth noting that ABC News reported 11 days ago that the Taliban -- remember the Taliban -- the guys in Afghanistan we supposedly defeated before detouring to Iraq? -- had trained and dispatched teams of suicide bombers to the U.S. and Europe. If this morning's find is, in fact, just the first of many attacks to come, we will no doubt hear from not just the Bush Administration, but also from Rudy Giuliani, who despite putting his command center in the World Trade Center AFTER the 1993 attacks, is blaming Bill Clinton for 9/11, that only Republicans can keep us safe. With one major attack and perhaps teams of suicide bombers roaming the U.S. under their belts, Republicans have a very difficult case to make. Especially since the perpetrators of the 1993 attack were found, tried in legitimate American courts, convicted, and imprisoned, whereas Osama Bin Laden is not only still at large, but the unit put together to apprehend him was closed by the Bush administration. The Bush family always does take care of its friends.

Nancy Pelosi: Can't win, don't try

Who knew that Nancy Pelosi would end up adhering to the Bart Simpson view of the universe? In the rarefied Washington air of the Speaker, the sure bet (sic) of winning the White House in 2008 trumps any attempt at holding this Administration accountable for its crimes against the Constitution and the American people. In other words, it's all about the party (and presumably the Benjamins). And if that means that George W. Bush and especially Dick Cheney are never held accountable for their crimes, well so be it. After all, what is the Constitution when compared to the coffers of the DSCC?

Martin Bosworth at Scholars & Rogues was on a blogger conference call with Pelosi, and recognizes what I do, and what you do, and what other bloggers know -- but what Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress either don't know or don't care to know: that an Administration that views itself as above the law can do plenty of damage in two years:

I understand how tough the political process is in the best of environments–and this is anything but. Pelosi is a new Speaker leading the Dems back to power for the first time in 12 years, and she’s a woman, so she gets the 20 percent sexism tax attached to everything she does. I get that. Bush has stacked the government so thoroughly with “loyal Bushies” at every level, in all three branches, that it will take years to get rid of them and undo all their damage. I get that too.

But at the same time, when you look at the sneering defiance with which the Bush/Cheney axis refuses to comply with even the basic tenets of law, or how they’re incapable of passing any sort of legislation without it collapsing under the weight of its own bullshit, or any one of a million other crimes that have been committed under the aegis of the Worst President Ever, you have to ask yourself, “What the hell are we waiting for? How much power can a guy with a historically low approval rating really wield?”

Plenty. Bush’s veto pen can kill all of the progressive, forward-thinking legislation Pelosi wants to push, and without 60 Senators on board to override a veto, that’s that. And do not doubt he will do it–the man has proven time and again that he simply does not care what others think, and will happily kill any legislation out of spite, ignorance, or just plain meanness.

Bush has almost two years left to do incalculable damage and to continue to sully and stain the future and reputation of our country. At a time when the nation’s mindset is leaning more progressive left than ever, and we have strong enough leaders in Congress and elsewhere to make the change, it’s tough to accept that impeaching Bush (and Cheney) for their flagrant violations of law and ethics can’t be done. Right now, they are in the way of making this country a better place.

Indeed, the biggest obstacles to turning this country around are in the White House right now. And when an obstacle is in your way, you find a way around it, or you go through it. If we can’t get around them, then they need to go.

This is all pretty disheartening when viewed in the context of the Administration's view that Congressional subpoenas regarding the illegal domestic wiretapping program are an "unfortunate choice of confrontation" on the part of Congress.

When the executive branch is as out of control as this one is, Congress has an OBLIGATION to hold it to account. If an appeal to a partisan Supreme Court overturns an impeachment attempt, or subpoenas, or whatever other Constitutional measures are taken to hold this bunch to account, so be it. But at least you have to TRY. Betting the ranch on a Democratic presidential win when guys like David Gregory are out there defending the likes of Ann Coulter and partisan Secretaries of State still have the power to withhold voting machines from minority neighborhoods is a sucker bet.

When bad things happen to people who aren't Bush cronies

The Gulf coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina are the forgotten citizens of this country -- forgotten by most Americans now, and not just forgotten, but actively screwed over by their leaders.

The GAO has issued a report on what a disaster the Bush Administration's handling of Katrina and its aftermath was, is, and will continue to be. Think Progress distills many of the salient points:

EPA allowed toxic chemicals to harm poor Katrina victims: A GAO report revealed that EPA publicly downplayed the risk of asbestos inhalation, which is often released during home demolition, to city residents and failed to deploy air monitors in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Furthermore, EPA waited nearly eight months to inform residents that short-term visits could expose them to dangerous levels of asbestos and mold.

FEMA ignored its own hurricane plan: Prior to Katrina, FEMA created a “Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Backup Plan” which forecasted specific consequences and action-plans in the event of a hurricane. But “post-Katrina FEMA documents demonstrate that that the plan was never implemented.” The day before Katrina hit, FEMA Deputy Director Patrick Rhode sent an e-mail to Michael Brown’s assistant with the subject line, “copy of New Orleans cat plan,” stating, “I never got one — I think Brown got my copy — did you get one?”

FEMA guaranteed billions in profits for big companies: Following Katrina, federal agencies “doled out more than $2.4 billion in cost-plus contracts,” which “offer companies no incentive to save money or keep costs from ballooning.” FEMA was responsible for nearly 94 percent of all of the hurricane-related cost-plus contracts, with the remainder being issued primarily by the EPA and U.S. Air Force.

It's been said that Republicans say government doesn't work because they don't know how to make it work. There has never in my lifetime been an Administration and a Republican Party that has proven this adage more than this bunch. In its handling of one of the greatest natural disasters ever to hit this country, just as in its handling of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this Administration has proven that if you are not one of its cronies and business partners, they don't even regard you as an American citizen. It's government of the cronies, by the cronies, and for the cronies. And if this country ever elects another Republican president, they deserve exactly what they get. Too bad they'll be carrying the rest of us with them.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere -- all girl edition

Happiness is a kabob house within walking distance when you're staying in an unfamiliar town that has horrific traffic on the main drag. That the owners are Iranian makes it not just delicious, but subversive too. So there.

Meanwhile, as I sit trying to decide whether to go to an evening session on using both sides of your brain, or one on how to determine if your coding sucks, or to just stay in my room and flip back and forth between Olbermann and the Mets (since the latter are on ESPN tonight), let's take a spin around and see what the rest of the world is saying tonight:

Joan Walsh points out the hypocrisy of wingnuts who want to silence everyone who disagrees with them, but think Ann Coulter advocating the assassination of a presidential candidate is perfectly OK. (Keep in mind that this is also a country in which a kid holding up a banner that says "Bong Hits for Jesus" isn't.) Here's what bothers me about the whole thing, aside from how conservatives are allowed to advocate murder of those who disagree and no one calls it terrorism: Chris Matthews is having entirely too good a time with this. If this builds ratings, are we going to see more of Ann Coulter on TV because she's good for ratings?

Melissa on how Mitt Romney is not only a fucking idiot, but isn't fit to own a dog.

Speaking of Republican idiots, Pam reports on another one: Rudy Giuliani (hearts) Regent University.

Lynn wrote about Ann Thrax last
March. (Turn your pop-up blockers on before clicking!) If Lynn's right, maybe the best way to get her off the scene is to ignore her, since she seems to fear obscurity more than anything else.

BlueGal says that since Shakesville has been felled by a DOS attack, it's time for another Spartacus. Count me in. I AM SPARTACUS.

You must read Shortwoman's post on outsourcing.

Ah, they just want an excuse to do jello shots and ecstacy but make themselves puke after going to Quizno's. Kate Harding on how a substantial minority of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 think fat is a greater threat to public health than drugs or alcohol.

One Brown Woman on the rise in use of skin-lightening creams in India. Is this what happens when Pradeep has to call herself Marcie when working Dell's call center?

Tata has a "Come to Jesus" moment. Or not.

Tami gets the birdseye lowdown on compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Echidne on how a wife-murderer who at least has the decency to kill himself too gets absolved -- if he makes his living with muscles.

Chinese Noodle Restaurant, Haymarket Chinatown

Shredded pork in Beijing sauce with mini pancakes $12.80"I am so sure I could do that."Today's noodle maker at the Chinese Noodle Restaurant is female. I watch, mesmerised, as she effortlessly transforms lumps of dough into a cats cradle of noodle string.Thwack! Thwack! moans the dough as it's pounded relentlessly into the counter.The noodle maker looks bored. She glances around the cramped

Ann Coulter, domestic terrorist

And here is the section of the very USA PATRIOT Act she so vigorously defends that applies:

(a) Whoever, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States, and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct, shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half of the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the crime solicited, or both; or if the crime solicited is punishable by life imprisonment or death, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years.

18 U.S.C. § 373(a).

Good cop, bad cop

In a CNN interview, the author of the WaPo series on Dick Cheney states, "It's clear that the president knows what Dick Cheney is doing and it's clear the president could stop it."

But why should he?

It's clear that a calculated decision was made to make Dick Cheney the bad cop -- a role to which he is eminently suited and which he obviously wanted -- and let George W. Bush be the good cop -- the affable guy walking the beat, reassuring the people sitting on their stoops in the summer night that everything would be OK because he was on the beat.

And as such, if we lived in the country we all thought we did, both would be held accountable. However, we live in the United States, where the opposition party doesn't oppose and everyone is terrified of an Administration with a 30% approval rating.

Yay!

It's about fucking time:

More than half of Americans between 17 and 29 years old — 54 percent — say they intend to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008. They share with the public at large a negative view of President Bush, who has a 28 percent approval rating with this group, and of the Republican Party. They hold a markedly more positive view of Democrats than they do of Republicans.

Among this age group, Mr. Bush’s job approval rating after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was more than 8 in 10. Over the course of the next three years, it drifted downward leading into the presidential election of 2004, when 4 out of 10 members of young Americans said they approved how Mr. Bush was handling his job.

At a time when Democrats have made gains after years in which Republicans have dominated Washington, young Americans appear to lean slightly more to the left than the general population: 28 percent described themselves as liberal, compared with 20 percent of the nation at large. And 27 percent called themselves conservative, compared with 32 percent of the general public.

Forty-four percent said they believed that same-sex couples should be permitted to get married, compared with 28 percent of the public at large. They are more likely than their elders to support the legalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The findings on gay marriage were reminiscent of a survey of voters leaving the polls on election day 2004: 41 percent of 18-to-29-year-old voters said gay couples should be permitted to legally marry, according to an exit poll at the time.

The current generation of Americans who are about to reach voting age have seen what conservatism means. It means hate and bigotry and narrow-mindedness. To be young is to be by definition expansive. Conservatism flies in the face of what youth is. That young Americans are becoming more liberal means that the universe is once again ordered as it should be.

Ann Coulter has a right to say what she wants. She does not have the right to national exposure for it

How much longer are mainstream media outlets going to continue to give this woman a microphone?

Sometimes not being able to read blogs is not such a bad thing

Like today. If I'd read this before getting into the car and driving 270 miles today, I'd have screamed all the way to Bethesda:

A PEDOPHILE who raped a 10-year-old girl will be free in just four months after a British judge said his victim had "dressed provocatively".

Window cleaner Keith Fenn, 24, could have been jailed for life after twice attacking the girl in a riverside park.

Judge Julian Hall was at the centre of a storm over the "pathetic" sentence he imposed after hearing the girl had appeared much older than her age.

The same judge caused uproar earlier this year by setting free another paedophile and telling him to give his victim money "to buy a nice new bicycle".

In the latest case, Oxford Crown Court heard harrowing details of the assault on the 10-year-old. She was attacked in a park in South Oxfordshire by Fenn and his accomplice Darren Wright, 34, on October 14 last year.

Fenn removed all her clothes and raped her, then Wright took her to his home and sexually assaulted her.

Yet Judge Hall said the case was exceptional because the "young woman" had been wearing a frilly bra and thong.

The girl has been in local authority care since the age of four.

She was on her own when she met the pair in the street. They went to the park together. The judge said he faced a moral dilemma.

The court heard that the girl regularly wore make-up, strappy tops and jeans.

This may have taken place in England, but as western culture becomes more in thrall to Christian conservatives, we are going to see more of this.

(hat tip: Kate Harding)

Sorry, Mets fans, I can't stay out of town forever

Last Friday I headed for North Carolina for a family visit and birthday "celebration", about which the less said the better. Now I am halfway home, in Bethesda, for a Cold Fusion conference, and I can't wait to get home.

There's only one problem: The Mets haven't lost since I left town, and going into tonight's game were 3-1/2 games ahead of the Phillies and 4-1/2 ahead of the hated Atlanta Braves, who are near my current location playing the hapless Washington Nationals.

Meanwhile, the Mets had a better time on my birthday yesterday than I did, as they waited for Shawn Green to arrive at home plate from his home run trot in the 11th inning:



As of this moment, the Metropolitans are losing to the Cardinals and the Braves are beating the crap out of the D.C. Expos. Which means that I can go home on Friday after all.

Japan photos: Tokyo to Takayama

Photos from Japan Day Six are up!Highlights: green tea Kit Kats, a scenic train ride to Takayama, the last of the cherry blossoms, and a kaiseki dinner banquet.Click here for more

The ones the war hawks don't think about

Via PJ Sauter comes this story of what George W. Bush's war policy hath wrought:

He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him.

Four years ago almost to this day, Joseph Briseno Jr. was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain.

The 24-year-old is one of the most severely injured soldiers — some think the most injured soldier — to survive.

"Three things you would not want to be: blind, head injury, and paralyzed from the neck down. That's tough," said Dr. Steven Scott, head of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Tampa VA Medical Center, where Briseno has twice been hospitalized for extensive care. In recent days, Briseno was hospitalized yet again, this time at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center.

As a high schooler, Briseno liked the Discovery Channel and CSI, and wanted to be a forensic scientist or investigator. He was 20, attending George Mason University, when he was called up from the reserves and sent to war.

After he was shot, he was flown to Kuwait and then to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. His parents and two sisters rushed to his side.

"They told us, 'Prepare for his service.' That's how bad he was," said his father, Joseph Briseno Sr., a retired career Army man.

But he survived. From Germany, he went to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, then to McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. In December 2003, he went home, to Manassas Park, Virginia, where his parents, Joseph Sr. and Eva, quit their jobs to care for him.

"All our savings, all our money, was just emptied ... the 401(k)s, everything," said Joseph Briseno, who took a new job a year and a half ago to make ends meet.

The family has help from VA-provided nurses, but not around the clock. Jay's mother and father often do overnight duty, making sure their son is turned every four hours so he does not develop bedsores, which can become infected and threaten his life. If they do not turn him and keep him on schedule, he does not sleep well and becomes agitated.

What happens to Joseph Briseno when his parents can no longer care for him? Will Joe Lieberman pay for his care? Will Willian Kristol pay for his care? Will Michelle Malkin empty his bedpans and bathe him? Of course not. Briseno may be one of the most seriously wounded soldiers, but he isn't alone. The maimed are the forgotten ones of this war. The dead are buried and promptly forgotten by everyone other than their families, while the war hawks continue to slap Chinese-made ribbon magnets on their SUVs and impugn the patriotism of the rest of us. George W. Bush gives speeches about the lives of embryos and cares naught about this young man or any of the others whose blood can never be washed from his hands.

All for greed and lies and oil.

And the Democrats sit in Congress and worry about appearances. And John Boehner goes on a crying drunk rant in Congress asking "When we're gonna go get 'em?" I wonder that too, only I have a different "them" in mind....and a different approach to getting rid of "'em" -- one codified in the U.S. Constitution; the one of which the Democrats are so frightened.

Here's why there will never be accountability

Your liberal media at work.

H-1Bs are not about finding the next Sergey Brin

They're about lowering the wage base for highly skilled workers in the US:

Bill Gates and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft have led a parade of high-tech executives to Capitol Hill, urging lawmakers to provide more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants who can fill critical jobs.

Google has reminded senators that one of its founders, Sergey Brin, came from the Soviet Union as a young boy. To stay competitive in a “knowledge-based economy,” company officials have said, Google needs to hire many more immigrants as software engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists.

High-tech companies want to be able to hire larger numbers of well-educated, foreign-born professionals who, they say, can help them succeed in the global economy. For these scientists and engineers, they seek permanent-residence visas, known as green cards, and H-1B visas. The H-1B program provides temporary work visas for people who have university degrees or the equivalent to fill jobs in specialty occupations including health care and technology. The Senate bill would expand the number of work visas for skilled professionals, but high-tech companies say the proposed increase is not nearly enough. Several provisions of the Senate bill are meant to enhance protections for American workers and to prevent visa fraud and abuse.

High-tech companies were surprised and upset by the bill that emerged last month from secret Senate negotiations. E. John Krumholtz, director of federal affairs at Microsoft, said the bill was “worse than the status quo, and the status quo is a disaster.”

In the last two weeks, these businesses have quietly negotiated for changes to meet some of their needs. But the bill still falls far short of what they want, an outcome suggesting that their political clout does not match their economic strength.

Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a co-author of a treatise on immigration law, said: “High-tech companies are very organized. They have numerous lobby groups. When Bill Gates advocates more H-1B visas and green cards for tech workers, everyone listens.

“But that supposed influence has not translated into legislative results,” Mr. Yale-Loehr, who teaches at Cornell Law School, continued. “High-tech companies have been lobbying unsuccessfully since 2003 for more H-1B visas. It’s hard to get anything through Congress these days. In addition, anti-immigrant groups are well organized. U.S. computer programmers are constantly arguing that H-1B workers undercut their wages.”

There is no shortage of American high-tech workers. There IS, however, a shortage of American high-tech workers who are under 30 and willing to work 100 hour weeks for pay competitive with programmers in Bangalore. To major in computer science is to commit yourself to a career path in which your top skills today will be obsolete in a year, that requires constant updating of skills, which don't make you any more marketable. Because if your current employer uses skill A, B, and C, and you teach yourself D, E, and F on the side, after you've trained your H-1B replacement, your next potential employer, which uses D, E, and F, won't hire you because you haven't used it on the job.

Who needs this?

American tech workers are going the way of manufacturing workers because the investment in continuing education, just so one can get shafted by employers constantly looking to cut costs while increasing the executive pay share of the pie, hardly seems worth the effort.

When companies tell American workers that the special commitments an IT career requires will be rewarded if they make the effort, and when companies stop deciding that anyone over 35 is too old to learn anything new, and when companies realize that the commitment to continuous updating of skills ought to be compensated accordingly, they won't need to hire foreign workers because there WILL be enough Americans to fill the need.

Around the blogroll and elsewhere

So here I am on a Sunday morning in Chapel Hill, NC, having slept a full night without a white cat deciding to appropriate my pillow as her own, and with my first waking sight being two deer staring right at me from the window of the room over my sister's garage that is affectionately known as the "Garage Mahal."

In such a bucolic setting, it's tempting to let the horrors of Life in the Bush Era just slide by, but instead let's take a look at what my compatriots in Blogtopia (^®Skippy) are talking about today.

ModFab gives us ModFab's ways to Combat Blog Writer's Block (and my doing this link, I take care of #5).

Because family visits always involve some degree of talk about Weight Issues, I went to visit Kate Harding's place this morning in an attempt to salvage what little self-esteem I have. Given that I will be trying to find a new gynecologist this year that doesn't make you sign a malpractice waiver before she'll do a pap smear or advocate ridiculous crash diets, Kate's entry today on how overweight people are treated by the medical profession, and why it makes us less likely to even bother to get preventive care, let alone care for any active problems, was worth reading.

Cernig reports on Rahm Emmanuel actually planning to do something other than turn the Democratic Party into the Republican Party.

Why I Sometimes Wish I Still Did Movie Reviews: Because sometimes a movie like Sicko comes out that would allow me to blend blogging and reviewing. I may yet do a review after I see it next week, but meanwhile Ezra Klein gives us a sneak peek.

Amanda, no longer having to tiptoe around Bill Donohue, has the latest on Air America host Lionel's BFF.

Pachacutec asks John Edwards to please, kindly, grow a pair. While he's at it, he might ask Obama to do the same.

Be careful what you wish for, Digby -- you just might get it, and then what do we do? (Howie Klein has more on Rudy, the self-appointed Saint of 9/11.)

Frank Rich looks ahead to the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- and sees more of the same. (Like this is a surprise?)

Hoffmania on Democratic branding.

Tata on the latest escapades of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade in South Carolina.

And in honor of Steve Gilliard, because dammit, someone has to pick up this particular mantle, let me just note that since I left town on Friday, the Mets have won two straight games and are now two games up on Philadelphia and 3-1/2 up on the suddenly hapless Atlanta Braves. (Does this mean I can't come home till October?) Metsgrrl explains why Paul LoDuca's outburst against the umpire in last night's 1-0 win is EXACTLY what the slumping New York Metropolitans (® Steve Somers) needed. Democratic Party, take note.

The tipping point of evil, part II

On May 30 I posed the question: "What will it take to arouse the ire of the American people so that they demand that Nancy Pelosi put impeachment back on the table?"

Every day, as the Bush Administration racks up more crimes against the Constitution of the United States and declares itself subject to no existing law anywhere on the face of the earth, I find myself wondering: Is there a tipping point of evil beyond which a president and his administration can find themselves completely unaccountable? Is there a point where the crimes become so heinous that the will is just not there to remove the perpetrators from office because to do so would mean to acknowledge that there are times when our system just plain doesn't work?

The laws upon which this country was founded presupposed at least a modicum of good will on the part of those who would lead it. Checks and balances were built in to prevent any one individual or any one branch of government from gaining too much power. These were designed to protect us from the kinds of despotic individuals that would set themselves up as kings or dictators.

The words "no one could have anticipated..." have become hallmarks of the Bush Administration, but in the case of the way this bunch has circumvented every attempt by the Founding Fathers to make our system immune from people like them, it's clear that the men who rebelled against a king and created a new government, like the humanists they read, believed in the inherent good will of those that would seek to lead this nation. They never banked on bandits taking over and deciding that the laws codified in the Constitution didn't apply to them.

And so we find ourselves now with an administration and a party that puts its own gain and its own power not just ahead of the good of the nation, but supplanting the good of the nation, so that this country is now nothing but a fiefdom for the corporatocracy, to be plundered by those who seek ever more power and ever more money -- even if it means taking the entire country down.

And yet, Americans are still more interested in who the next Top Chef will be, or how Paris Hilton is doing in jail, or whether Angelina is pregnant again than they are in the world in which their kids will live.

Sometimes I wonder why people with children don't seem more engaged in the process, and why they don't seem to care about the crimes that their government is committing against them and their children. Is it really just about being too busy holding two jobs and taking the kids to soccer practice or is it something more? Is it a willful ignorance because to acknowledge what's happening is to be obligated to do something about it? Isn't part of being a parent and protecting your children protecting their future from those who would destroy it in the name of self-enrichment and the amassing of power?

In other words, do George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales, and especially Dick Cheney, recognize that there is a kind of criminal tipping point beyond which Americans are unable to believing their government capable? And is that why as the exact nature of this bunch becomes ever more apparent, ever more brazen, and ever more appalling, the sound you hear is only that of crickets chirping?

Last week the Vice President of the United States blatantly declared himself to be not subject to any applicable law, making the indefensible statement that "vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch."

When you think that the last president was impeached for what was said to be lying about sex under oath in a civil case (even though "sex" in the case was defined to be "sexual intercourse, so technically it wasn't a lie), it makes it even more appalling that in a country that fancies itself to be all about law and order, an administration that declares itself to be not subject to any laws gets a free pass.

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman goes through the motions of hearings, while the party he represents has shown itself to be lacking the courage to protect this nation from the criminals now sitting in the executive branch and their lackeys in the Senate and House. Instead, they, just like the president and his war in Iraq, choose to run out the clock rather than honor the many hundreds of thousands of soldiers who have died over the last 231 years defending this country by providing the oversight and accountability for which they were elected.

Ju Ju, Kings Cross

TempuraDinner at Ju Ju.It's most endearing aspect is the cosy booth seating, Japanese-style. Once you enter, it's shoes off (the smiling but silent nodding waiter offers everyone a plastic bag), before you shuffle across polished floorboards in your (hopefully hole-free) socks. Each booth is a wooden rectangle of seating, a table rises from the centre cut-out, as legs dangle into the "pit".The

OK, then, I want to be a web developer but my religion says I can't use a computer

Isn't it time to stop making all these allowances for the Christofascist Zombie Brigade? If you aren't willing to practice medicine and provide medical, don't become a doctor. But no, you don't get to decide what you will and will not do for patients:

Lori Boyer couldn't stop trembling as she sat on the examining table, hugging her hospital gown around her. Her mind was reeling. She'd been raped hours earlier by a man she knew — a man who had assured Boyer, 35, that he only wanted to hang out at his place and talk. Instead, he had thrown her onto his bed and assaulted her. "I'm done with you," he'd tonelessly told her afterward. Boyer had grabbed her clothes and dashed for her car in the freezing predawn darkness. Yet she'd had the clarity to drive straight to the nearest emergency room — Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, Pennsylvania — to ask for a rape kit and talk to a sexual assault counselor. Bruised and in pain, she grimaced through the pelvic exam. Now, as Boyer watched Martin Gish, M.D., jot some final notes into her chart, she thought of something the rape counselor had mentioned earlier.

"I'll need the morning-after pill," she told him.

Dr. Gish looked up. He was a trim, middle-aged man with graying hair and, Boyer thought, an aloof manner. "No," Boyer says he replied abruptly. "I can't do that." He turned back to his writing.

Boyer stared in disbelief. No? She tried vainly to hold back tears as she reasoned with the doctor: She was midcycle, putting her in danger of getting pregnant. Emergency contraception is most effective within a short time frame, ideally 72 hours. If he wasn't willing to write an EC prescription, she'd be glad to see a different doctor. Dr. Gish simply shook his head. "It's against my religion," he said, according to Boyer. (When contacted, the doctor declined to comment for this article.)

I would like to know if this doctor is willing to prescribe Viagra.

On the road

I take one day off from blogging, and look what I missed. Yesterday I spent the day driving to Chapel Hill, NC, where I'll be till Tuesday, when I head north to the CFUNITED conference in Bethesda.

It's an enjoyable ride, up until the last 60 miles, when I start wishing for Star Trek-style transporters. But I have to wonder about human nature, when, just as I got south of DC, I ran into no less than five bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, none of them due to lane closures, all of them due to rubbernecking, and only one of them due to an accident.

Why is it that we feel we need to stpo and gawk at a disabled vehicle because we think it might be an accident with some nice juicy carnage, but we can't handle images of the war dead on television?

OK...explain this one

By the tiime the book on the Bush Administration and the 9/11 attacks is written, the conspiracy theorists will turn out to have been right:

Newly released documents reveal the FBI suspected that a plane hired to transport members of the bin Laden family from the United States back to Saudi Arabia might have been chartered by Osama bin Laden himself. The documents raise new questions about the FBI investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Truthout reviewed the 224 pages of newly released documents over the past two days.

A heavily redacted FBI report on the incident begins by describing a private jet that was hired to pick up members of the bin Laden family that were in the US eight days after the 9/11 attacks. "The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian Royal Family or Osama bin Laden," according to the declassified pages of the FBI investigation titled PENTTBOMB (page 3).

Subsequent references to the chartered flight in the released documents state that it was "chartered by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC" (page 106). The possibility that the flight was arranged or paid for by Osama bin Laden was not addressed again in the subsequent 221 pages released by the FBI.

The FBI report was prepared in response to an October 2003 Vanity Fair magazine article by Craig Unger which raised questions about the FBI procedures after 9/11 that allowed six planes of Middle Eastern nationals to fly out of the United States. Most of the people on these planes were members of the Saudi Royal family, the wealthy rulers of Saudi Arabia, who have high-level contacts with the Bush administration. One plane, Ryan International Flight 441, made four stops around the country on September 19, 2001 to pick up members of the bin Laden family. According to the FBI, these individuals were half-siblings or the children of half-siblings of Osama bin Laden with no connections to the international terrorist. Critics accuse the FBI and possibly the White House of being complicit in allowing individuals with direct connections to Osama bin Laden to flee the country after the attacks. The FBI maintains that their interviews, conducted primarily at airports right before the nationals were to board planes, were sufficient and did not garner any actionable intelligence or warrant the detention of any of the nationals.

A set of documents compiled by the FBI in 2003 sheds some light on the procedures the FBI followed prior to allowing the bin Laden family members and other Saudi nationals to leave the country in the weeks following 9/11. The documents also raise new questions.

An internal FBI email described the effort to collect and compile all of the information about the Saudi nationals. "The point of this mess is a sort of damage assessment of those people leaving the US" (page 136).

The documents were obtained by the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. These documents had previously been released but all mention of Osama bin Laden and the bin Laden family were blacked-out by the FBI. After a protracted legal fight, these FBI redactions and their accompanying explanations were ruled unacceptable by a Washington, DC District Court judge, who ordered the FBI to reassess the redactions and re-release the report.

Judicial Watch made the re-released report public on Wednesday, with many of the blacked-out sections restored. All mention of Osama bin Laden or the bin Laden family were made readable, revealing the sentence stating that Osama bin Laden may have chartered the flight that collected members of the bin Laden family in the days following the attacks.

It has never made sense that there was no national outcry, or even an investigative report, about the connection between the Bush and Bin Laden families. One wonders what Fox News, or even CNN, would have done had Bill Clinton had the kind of connections with the Bin Ladens that Bush had. And now, if the controversial flight out of the country carrying members of the Bin Laden family following the 9/11 attacks turns out to have been chartered by the supposed "black sheep" of the family, it debunks the entire notion of Osama Bin Laden as being somehow unaffiliated with the rest of his family.

So why WAS George Herbert Walker Bush in a meeting with members of the Bin Laden family on the morning of the attacks anyway? And why WERE the Bin Laden family members allowed to leave the country? And if this plane was chartered by Osama Bin Laden, then put the pieces together. And once you do that, it it at all still possible to believe the official story?

So...has the surge started yet?

Or does it only count as soon as things like this stop happening:

The U.S. military announced the deaths of 14 American troops, including five killed Thursday in a single roadside bombing that also killed four Iraqis in Baghdad.

Elsewhere in Iraq, a suicide truck bomber struck the Sulaiman Bek city hall in a predominantly Sunni area in northern Iraq, killing at least 13 people and wounding 70, an Iraqi commander said.
[snip]

The deadliest attack was a roadside bomb that struck a convoy in northeastern Baghdad on Thursday, killing five U.S. soldiers, three Iraqi civilians and one Iraqi interpreter, the military said.

A rocket-propelled grenade struck a vehicle in northern Baghdad about 12:30 p.m. Thursday, killing one soldier and wounding three others, another statement said.

Four other U.S. soldiers were killed and one was wounded Wednesday when their convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in a western neighborhood in the capital, the military said separately.

Southwest of Baghdad, two U.S. soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday when explosions struck near their vehicle, according to a statement earlier in the day.

Two Marines also were killed Wednesday while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the military said.

Bomber hits mayor’s office; 10 dead
Earlier, a suicide truck bomber struck a mayor’s office in northern Iraq, killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, an Iraqi commander said. Meanwhile, a barrage of mortar bombs hit Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, according to Reuters reporters.

The explosion in the north of the country, which occurred about 10:30 a.m. in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Sulaiman Bek, caused part of the government building to collapse and destroyed at least four vehicles at the site, said Brig. Gen. Anwar Hamah, commander of the Iraqi army’s 2nd Brigade.

Hamah said at least 10 people were killed and 40 were wounded but he expected the casualty toll to rise as people were pulled from the rubble.

In Baghdad, several plumes of smoke could be seen rising near buildings housing the Iraqi parliament and government offices.

On the other side of the river Tigris, a thick plume of black smoke could be seen near the area where a suicide truck bomb partly demolished a Shiite mosque and killed 87 people on Tuesday. The origin of the smoke was not immediately known.

Slamming mortars

At least seven mortar rounds could be heard slamming into the Green Zone, which houses many Iraqi government ministries as well as the U.S., British and other Western embassies.

It was unclear if there were any casualties.

Snapped: Sam in Woollahra

Enjoys long walks on the beach, quiet nights in and is never afraid to go shopping.

Gee, ya think?

What a shock: WaPo is reporting that Bradley Schlozman filled jobs based on candidates' political leanings.

Are we going to just have investigations, or are the Democrats going to actually do something about the Justice Department being revamped as the policy action wing of the Republican Party:

Karen Stevens, Tovah Calderon and Teresa Kwong had a lot in common. They had good performance ratings as career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division. And they were minority women transferred out of their jobs two years ago -- over the objections of their immediate supervisors -- by Bradley Schlozman, then the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

Schlozman ordered supervisors to tell the women that they had performance problems or that the office was overstaffed. But one lawyer, Conor Dugan, told colleagues that the recent Bush appointee had confided that his real motive was to "make room for some good Americans" in that high-impact office, according to four lawyers who said they heard the account from Dugan.

[snip]

Schlozman's efforts to hire political conservatives for career jobs throughout the division are now being examined as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department. The department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed last month that their inquiry, begun in March, will look at hiring, firing and legal-case decisions in the division.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan today to shine a renewed spotlight on decision-making in the division by questioning Schlozman's replacement, Wan Kim, about hiring practices and about its support for state voter-identification programs that could inhibit minority voting.

Democrats also plan to ask about the dwindling diversity of the staff in a division whose core mission includes fighting racial discrimination. The Bush administration, largely under Schlozman, hired seven members as replacements or additions to the 14-lawyer appellate section where Stevens, Calderon and Kwong worked. They included six whites, one Asian and no African Americans.

Schlozman, who really needs to learn how to speak without the helium, is like Karl Rove's mini-me. Can you recall ever seeing a more loathsome bunch of people than those in this Administration?

Compassionate Conservatism

There. Are. No. Words:

While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government.

Army Spec. Alex Jimenez, who has been missing since his unit was attacked by insurgents in Iraq on May 12, had petitioned for a green card for his wife, Yaderlin Hiraldo, whom he married in 2004.

Their attorney, Matthew Kolken, said 23-year-old Hiraldo illegally entered the United States in 2001 to reunite with her husband, whom she had met in her native Dominican Republic and later married at his New York State Army base in 2004.

Her husband's request for a green card and legal residence status for his wife alerted authorities to her status, Kolken said.

She now faces deportation, reports CBS station WBZ correspondent Beth Germano, and would be barred from applying for a green card for 10 years.

Her attorney is seeking a hardship waiver, which so far the government won't grant.

Of course writing about this is exactly the same as being obsessed with Bill and Hillary Clinton, right?

Wow...playin' with the Kool Kidz

So does this mean I get invited to the Kool Kidz lunch table now? (And do I even WANT to?)

After being on the sidelines of most of the more interesting blog fraci, I am now in the pool, thanks to Ann Althouse deciding that my little 600-page-views-a-day bloggie warrants a visit from someone of her Exalted Status^® in response to my snarky musing in this post yesterday, in which I relied on the old Yiddish "needs a schtup" construct as a facile and sarcastic way of attempting to explain what TRex so vividly refers to as Althouse's "Clinton Derangement Syndrome."

Now, I do think that much of the problem with the Christofascist Zombie Brigade is their antipathy towards Teh Sex, which is as far as I'm concerned the main reason why they end up running reform schools in which abuse is part of the "treatment", or setting themselves up as egg harvesters from teenage girls, or as any variety of sex offender. I'm not saying that Althouse is a card-carrying member of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade, but when I read that onion rings symbolize the vagina, or that carrot sticks are a phallic symbol, I have to wonder just what the deal is.

Of course, since wingnuts never let their complete and utter lack of a sense of irony stand in the way of salivating over what they see as a catfight, our own resident troll, Barry, gets in on the fun -- with the predictable reptilian responses from his commenters, who opine that being appalled at a president who lies us into war and systematically destroys the middle class is somehow analogous to obsessing about another president's sex life.

I'm sure that Barry is envisioning some sort of Amazonian catfight, perhaps in spandex and leather with studs and push-up bras, but I have to dash that notion -- my figure, when combined with spandex and leather, is NOT the stuff of which fantasies are made.

Meanwhile, in an echo of the Infamous Jessica Valenti How Dare She Wear Her Breasts to a Lunch with Bill Clinton fracas, TRex reports that La Althouse is now trying to defuse the controversy with levity. Too bad she didn't do this before trashing Jessica Valenti all over the Toobz. I mean, if you're going to talk about women bringing their sex characteristics with them, at least be clever about it. Wanda shows how it's done:

UPDATE: Now all's right with the universe, because Jon Swift has weighed in.

These are the people with whom Zionists have decided are their allies

Why on earth any Jew, no matter how Zionist, would think that the Christofascist Zombie Brigade is their friend, is a mystery.

Christian support of Israel is based on one thing: conversion or annihilation of the Jews.

Cernig uncovered this little tidbit from Jesusland that explains it all:

Prophecy continues to unfold. The Bible has warned about Middle East turmoil increasing "in the latter times."

In Ezekiel 36-39, God speaks of bringing Jews from around the world to Israel, not because they deserve their own land but to vindicate His holy name. They besmirched deity's holy name by repeatedly sinning over centuries; but God will not tolerate His holiness smeared without vindication, hence Jews gravitating to Israel "in the end times."

So look to the divine miracle: May 14, 1948, when Israel became a nation for the first time in centuries. Jews from all over the globe went to Israel, their homeland.

Ezekiel predicted Israel's flourishing: herds, flocks, fruitage, ruined cities rebuilt.

With Israel having settled in, however, biblical predictions go on to state that the enemies surrounding Israel attack Jews mercilessly. Blood flows like rivers.

Natural calamities come also upon Israel, convincing Jews and Gentiles alike that God is God and that His holiness must be recognized.

At the close of the Church Age — "in the latter days" — Israel will then come under the blessing of the returned Messiah Christ's peace.

This is with who Joe Lieberman and William Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of the Jewish neocons break bread. This is whom they think are "friends of Israel."

Digby Unleashed!!

I found out quite a while ago that Digby is, in fact female, and it was a surprise, for I, like most people, just assumed Digby was a man. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because Digby doesn't post through a female prism the way most female bloggers, including myself, do. Or maybe it's the screaming Howard Beale image on her blog side banner. Or maybe it's just that if there was ever a blogger who came across as gender-neutral, it's Digby.

With the loss of Steve Gilliard, Digby and Driftglass are, from where I'm sitting, the smartest and best political writers on the web -- not that they weren't before, but with the Holy Trinity of Blogtopia (® Skippy) now diminished by one, we need them even more.

Again, I'm not trying to diss anyone else out there. Every blog I put on my blogroll is there for a reason, and I read all of them regularly.

As a middle-aged blogger, I often feel like the creepy old person playing in the kids' sandbox. Maya's Granny might disagree, but she occupies a niche all her own, while I sit here on the outskirts of the Kool Kidz Klub looking in -- a place where I occupy just about every aspect of my life, as a matter of fact. But while the political blogging sandbox isn't, contrary to popular belief, occupied by today's version of the antiwar marchers of the 60's, it's still a bastion of thirtysomething.

So when like most bloggers, I went to Google Video to see for myself Digby's amazing speech at the Take Back America conference accepting the Paul Wellstone award, imagine my delight to see that Digby is not just one hell of a public speaker and someone whom we can all be proud to have as a public face, but is also another wise woman of years.

The company they keep

You've got to love those moral values Republicans. From so-called pastors involved in sexual abuse to Rudy's Bible Belt campaign chair being a coke dealer -- I'm beginning to understand why they NEED Jehovah -- because without a Big Daddy deity to make them afraid and a good, forgiving Jesus to wash away their disgusting, foul, vile, inhuman perversities -- sins that ONLY religious wingnuts seem to commit -- they'd probably slit their own throats from having to live in their own heads.

Now the Mittster has one too:

In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, 133 plaintiffs have alleged that Robert Lichfield, co-chairman of Romney’s Utah finance committee owned or operated residential boarding schools for troubled teenagers where students were “subjected to physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse.”

The complaint, which plaintiffs amended and resubmitted to the court last week, alleges children attending schools operated by Lichfield suffered abuses such as unsanitary living conditions; denial of adequate food; exposure to extreme temperatures; beatings; confinement in dog cages; and sexual fondling.

A second lawsuit filed by more than 25 plaintiffs in July in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of New York alleges that Lichfield and several partners entered into a scheme to defraud them by operating an unlicensed boarding school in upstate New York. The suit does not allege physical or emotional abuse.

These are two active lawsuits against Lichfield. Several others suits have alleged child abuse on behalf of dozens of plaintiffs, but judges have thrown out the suits for procedural reasons. As a result, the merits of the allegations have not been weighed. In some suits, plaintiffs have settled their cases for undisclosed amounts of money.

The allegations could force Romney to re-examine his relationship with his Utah finance co-chairman or put pressure on him to give away the contributions Lichfield helped raise.

St James Hotel, Sydney

250gm certified Angus Rump steak with mash and jus $9.95Wow. I'd heard good things about the $10 steaks at the St James hotel, but even this surpasses my expectations.The Angus rump steak is perfect. It's seared and sealed satisfyingly on the outside. The flesh is juicy, tender and well-rested within. The steak is cooked to medium rare as requested. It is so far removed from the majority of cheap

But as long as gay people aren't getting married and women aren't having abortions, that makes it all OK.

Via Americablog comes this report on just how badly the red-staters who have been reliably voting Republican are getting screwed:

A new study released this week revealed that Americans' health care varies dramatically from state to state. It should come as no surprise that in general Southern states ranked at the bottom in almost every category. After all, whether the issue is health, education, working conditions, or virtually any indicator of social pathology, things are worst in precisely those states that voted for George W. Bush.

The Commonwealth Fund report, "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance," examined states' performance across 32 indicators of health care access, quality, outcomes and hospital use. Topping the list were Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Bringing up the rear were the Bush bastions of Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, with Mississippi and Oklahoma. The 10 worst performing states were all solidly Republican in 2004.

The extremes in health care performance are startling. For example, 30% of adults and 20% of children in Texas lacked health insurance, compared to 11% in Minnesota and 5% in Vermont, respectively. Premature death rates from preventable conditions were almost double (141.7 per 100,000 people) in Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi compared to the top performing states (74.1 per 100,000). Adults over 50 receiving preventative care topped 50% in Minnesota compared to only 33% in Idaho. Childhood immunizations reached 94% in Massachusetts, compared to just 75% in the bottom five states. As the report details, federal and state policies, such as insurance requirements and Medicaid incentives, clearly impact health care outcomes.

[snip]

But health care isn't the only area where denizens of the Republican heartland suffer relative to their blue state brethren. As Perrspectives detailed in January, minimum wage levels also vary significantly from state to state. Unsurprisingly, many of the "bluest" states lead the way in exceeding both the previous ($5.15 an hour) and recently passed ($7.25) federal requirements, with Washington, Oregon, California, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut mandating wages as high as $7.93. Only one of the 21 states (New Hampshire) mired at $5.15 an hour voted for George W. Bush in 2004. (Click here to view a map of the minimum wage by state.)

And the minimum wage is just the beginning. A December 2005 report Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts showed that Americans' working conditions in general closely follow the 2004 electoral map. The report's Work Environment Index (WEI) rated the quality of Americans' working lives by a weighting of three factors: job opportunities, job quality, and job fairness. The top five states were Delaware, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont and Iowa, the bottom five were South Carolina, Utah, Arkansas Texas and Louisiana. Unsurprisingly, all five of the cellar-dwellers are so-called "Right-to-Work" states featuring outright hostility towards union organizing. (Click the following links for maps of WEI by state and right-to-work states.)

More here.

This is clever and funny, but is it a good idea?

Something tells me that Steve Perry had better enjoy it while he can, because the number of Sopranos Finale parodies is going to wear thin very quickly.

But until that happens, I can't decide whether to give props to Hillary Clinton's ad people for coming up with this, or if it's a really dumb move:

I especially like the way the video shows the interaction between Bill and Hill. Every marriage has its own dynamic, and it's clear that whatever the problems they've had, this couple has a very intense and affectionate bond that transcends all of their marital strife. I also like the way it "Homer Simpsonizes" Bill Clinton. He is the 800-pound gorilla (cue the wingnuts who come here from Memeorandum and Real Clear Politics to post about his weight battles in the comments) who sits over the entire party, let alone this campaign, and while Hillary ordering carrot sticks because of Bill's inclination to the fried and the fatty may make the phallus-worshippers quiver with anxiety about Hillary's Terrible Penis Knife, I think it's effective in underscoring just who is the candidate here. And the presence of Vincent "Johnny Sack" Curatola to play the guy in the Members Only jacket is hilarious.

But a note to the campaign: are you guys really sure that you want to associate a candidate who, along with her ex-president spouse, has been accused by the must wingnut segments of wingnuttia of murdering forty-seven people, with Tony Soprano? There's something rather delightfully cheeky about tweaking this kind of nuttiness by doing so, but does this defuse the Clinton Conspiracies lunatics, or will this just trigger another round of elevating a couple that are still regarded inside the Beltway as rubes who don't belong as being the most Machiavellian duo in history?

At the very least, it provided the opportunity for Maureen Dowd to unsheath her claws again. I guess Bill never made a pass at her and she's still angry. I'm about as far from being a Hillary Clinton supporter as it's possible to be without an "R" after one's name, but every time Dowd does this kind of hatchet job I wonder if I should reconsider. Even if the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing" played in the show's finale would be far more appropriate, and at least marginally less horrible, than the Celine Dion shrei-fest she actually chose. Now I'll grant MoDo that one: Anyone choosing anything that comes out of Celine Dion's mouth as a campaign song by definition has questionable judgment.

(UPDATE: MoDo isn't the only one. Via TRex at FDL comes, right on cue, teh lunacy from Ann Althouse, Clinton obsessive de luxe. You know, I work in a building full of shrinks, most of whom are pretty liberal. There is a car with a "Stewart/Colbert '08 or the Terrorists Win" bumper sticker in the parking lot. And I don't think one of them would make the Freudian connections that Althouse does. Another one who's pissed because Bill never made a pass at her.

Another good, law-abiding moral Republican

This one's a cocaine dealer. And he's Rudy Giuliani's South Carolina campaign chairman.

(Via the ever-vigilant Josh Marshall.)

That's the same "law and order" Rudy Giuliani who calls the jail sentence given Scooter Libby by a judge who's a Bush appointee "grossly excessive."

This is such an entertaining evening I'm thinking I don't dare go to sleep.

Hey Fred Thompson, don't start picking out drapes just yet

The 2008 presidential race is barely underway and I'm already depressed. After vascillating back and forth between Barack Obama and John Edwards about fifty times, I keep coming back to John Edwards, although I still have some nagging distrust of his metamorphosis from Southern Dream Democrat to populist, and he hasn't given me that "YES!! This is the guy!!" feeling that I had the first time I saw Howard Dean on Press the Meat in late 2003. As for Obama, I'm finding that he doesn't wear very well. His campaign staff seems inexperienced, and I'm still seeing a cautious, creeping Joe Liebermanism to him that bothers me. And the thought of another Clinton administration, particularly one run by Hillary the Warhawk, makes me want to stick an icepick in my own forehead.

So unlike much of the political blogosphere, which is at least giving lip service to being just THRILLED with our choices (and of course compared to the pantysniffers and bloodbathers that constitute the Republican field, anyone would look good), I have been facing the 2008 campaign with more dread than excitement.

But today things look if not better, at least more interesting, because New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is leaving the GOP and registering as in independent:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday switched his party status from Republican to unaffiliated, a stunning move certain to be seen as a prelude to an independent presidential bid that would upend the 2008 race.

The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the GOP for his first mayoral run, said the change in voter registration does not mean he is running for president.

"Although my plans for the future haven't changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city," he said in a statement.

Since he hasn't really talked about his plans for the future, this sure looks like a fairly significant toe being dipped into the 2008 waters.

At the very least, an independent Bloomberg candidacy would be interesting. Rudy Giuliani has crowned himself the King of 9/11, but it's this diminutive little billionaire Jewish guy who did the heavy lifting of bringing the city back. Bloomberg is pro-choice, favors stem cell research and gun control, and while you may not like some of his ideas, like ridding the city's restaurants of trans fats and smoking, or his new congestion pricing plan for the city's bridges and tunnels, you can't say the man isn't capable of thinking out of the box.

Conventional wisdom would indicate that a guy with this kind of record would pull more from Democratic than from Republican voters. But Republicans this time out don't seem enamored of ANY of their candidates, which is why the dour, lazy, and intellectually lacking Fred Thompson is now leading the Republican pack. With McCain in free-fall, Giuliani sounding more and more fascist every day, and Christian conservatives uncomfortable at the thought of supporting a Mormon, Thompson is the blank slate on which Republicans can paint their vision of their party's future -- or more accurately, its past. But once he throws his hat into the ring, the fact that Fred Thompson is a dumbass will become as clear as day to all but the most deluded kool-aid drinkers.

All this is of course why a Bloomberg candidacy would be so intriguing. He doesn't have to worry about money; he could put a billion dollars into his campaign and not have to give up so much as a manicure. He has a business record that makes Mitt Romney look like the proprietor of a lemonade stand. His social issues stands made even Rachel Maddow and David Bender giddy on this evening's Rachel Maddow Show. And he's not a nut or egomaniac spoiler like Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. If Bloomberg gets in it, he's in it to win it.

There is a lot to dislike about Bloomberg. His elitism and insensitivity during the December 2005 transit strike was appalling, and it's hard to imagine him representing Americans who are not of Wall Street. It's even harder to imagine him coming up with a plan for universal health insurance and health care that doesn't involve shoveling a shitload of money into the pockets of United Healthcare and Bill Frist's hospitals.

But I have to tell you, this is one staunch progressive that if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, will give Bloomberg some heavy consideration. I may not vote for him, but I'd certainly give him a look.

bills, Woollahra

Ricotta hotcakes $16.60with fresh banana and honeycomb butterThere was only one gustatory must-do when Kelly--sometime foodblogger at The Occasional Epicure--visited Sydney. "Breakfast at bills" was pencilled into both our diaries months ago.She and RJ brought the rain with them from Brisbane (it's still here!) but at least that meant the breakfast queue on Saturday morning was only 30-minutes in

So...are Democrats ignoring information given them by IT experts, or has someone just not told them?

It's time someone gave Democrats a lesson in what happens to e-mails when they are deleted.

Rob Pegoraro, WaPo's IT columnist, explained it back in April:

The secret life of e-mail isn't obvious from looking at your mail program. It sensibly simplifies things, presenting a message as a single object you can open, read, and then delete. Once you empty your mail program's trash, no trace of the message remains.

But under normal circumstances, nothing you delete on a computer vanishes immediately. The computer clears its own record of where it put the file, but the file itself won't disappear until enough other data gets written to that same spot. Given the vast size of most new computers' hard drives, that can take years.

The same thing happens with theoretically erased e-mail. Most mail programs don't store each message as its own separate document; instead, they squirrel away all your messages in one database file. When you hit the delete key, your mail program can just update its internal records to mark that message's location as vacant. You could say it conveniently forgets about the e-mail.

You can try specialized software that can overwrite a deleted file to prevent later retrieval -- for example, the Eraser program for Windows and Mac OS X's "Secure Empty Trash" option -- but those products may not work inside an e-mail program's database.

E-mail also leaves a long trail as it hops from computer to computer across the Internet. Most of the copies aren't kept, but at the receiving end, at least two can stick around: one on the mail server that delivers new messages to each user's computer, the other on the user's own machine.

So even if both the sender and recipient strive to make a message disappear, "data forensics" companies can dig it up. Brian Karney, the director of product management for one such firm, Guidance Software of Pasadena, Calif., bragged about how easy it is to unearth a long-buried message from the database file created by Microsoft Outlook -- the software used by many businesses and organizations, including the White House.

"Anybody can recover an e-mail," Karney said. "You just need to know how to look and find that stuff."

The House Oversight Committee gives little indication that it understands or is willing to do what's necessary to recover the e-mails by White House officials that have been deleted from RNC servers:

There are several next steps that should be pursued in the investigation into the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House officials. First, the records of federal agencies should be examined to assess whether they may contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC. The Committee has already written to 25 federal agencies to inquire about the e-mail records they may have retained from White House officials who used RNC and Bush Cheney ’04 e-mail accounts. Preliminary responses from the agencies indicate that they may have preserved official communications that were destroyed by the RNC.

Second, the Committee should investigate what former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales knew about the use of political e-mail accounts by White House officials. If Susan Ralston’s testimony to the Committee is accurate, there is evidence that Mr. Gonzales or counsels working in his office knew in 2001 that Karl Rove was using his RNC e-mail account to communicate about official business, but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove’s official communications.

Third, the Committee may need to issue compulsory process to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney ’04 campaign. The campaign has informed the Committee that it provided e-mail accounts to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the Committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

I'm sure that someone has already gone after the hard drives in question with a sledgehammer, but just on the off chance that the RNC has no tech guys who understand that any e-mail can be retrieved, the Committee ought to be impounding those hard drives at once.

There is a great deal of technical talent in the blogosphere. One would think that Nancy Pelosi or John Conyers or Henry Waxman would make use of some of them to recover these e-mail from these drives. Unless, of course, they don't want to....

(h/t: Cernig)

Protecting the "life" of the fetus, but when you're a real live child, you're on your own

This is "pro-life" Republicanism in action:

You won’t see these stories on television, but Marian Wright Edelman and Dr. Irwin Redlener could talk to you all day and all night about children whose lives have been lost or ruined because they didn’t have health insurance.

This is not a situation one associates with a so-called advanced country. That you can have sick children wasting away in the United States, the wealthiest nation on the planet, because medical treatment that could relieve their suffering is withheld by men and women with dollar signs instead of compassion in their eyes is beyond unconscionable.

Ms. Edelman is the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Dr. Redlener is president of the Children’s Health Fund.

Both are appalled at the embarrassing fact that nine million American children have no health coverage at all. Among them are children with diabetes, chronic asthma, heart conditions, life-threatening allergies and so on. In many instances they are left untreated until it is too late.

Leaving children uninsured is a form of Russian roulette, Dr. Redlener said.

“All children should be covered,” said Ms. Edelman.

[snip]

The Congressional Budget Office and most researchers have agreed on the six million figure for the number of youngsters who are eligible for government-sponsored health coverage but remain unenrolled — roughly four million for Medicaid and two million for S-chip. This has not been controversial.

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services began circulating a study that tries to make the case that the total number of eligible but uninsured youngsters is a mere 794,000, an absurdly low figure.

If you can wave a magic wand and make five million poor kids disappear, you no longer have to think about caring for them.

Advocates like Dr. Redlener and Ms. Edelman don’t have that luxury.

“Kids who grow up with poor access to health care carry a high risk of having underdiagnosed and undertreated chronic illness, both physical and emotional,” said Dr. Redlener. “We know what to do. We should fully fund this effort at the $50 billion level and make coverage mandatory for all children.”