June 15, 2011
At the protests yesterday, I was doing still photography, and Meade was taking video...
... keeping me in the frame much of the time. We arrive at the Wisconsin Capitol Square to the tune of "Turn the Beat Around," and I can't hear what the substituted lyrics might be, but — walk with me to the next corner — I was aware of the horrible irony of the lines "Love to hear percussion" and "Blow horns you sure sound pretty." I mean, we're hearing vuvuzelas and banging on buckets.
If you pay attention you'll be able to match scenes in this with some of the stills I posted yesterday. And this one...
... which matches the end of the video. This is half a block down from the square, and you can see that the sidewalk cafés are full of people enjoying the late spring afternoon, with the protests as something close to white noise. Really... don't be afraid to come to Madison. It's a lovely place. And though, as I said here, the Statue of Liberty — deliberately, I think — tried to intimidate me, there were lots of nice people around.
We went inside the Capitol and, as you can see in the video, there was almost no one there. Not in the video: I mentioned to a young man that the state court had decided its case, and we ended up having a half hour discussion of legal issues, mostly on an abstract level — separation of powers and so forth. I perform random acts of law teaching around town, you know.
In the video, children play, a man cradles his dog, and a woman tells me she loves my skirt. People are out there, showing they care and which side they're on, but I'm not seeing anger or hysterical despair. Everything's going to be all right.
If you pay attention you'll be able to match scenes in this with some of the stills I posted yesterday. And this one...
... which matches the end of the video. This is half a block down from the square, and you can see that the sidewalk cafés are full of people enjoying the late spring afternoon, with the protests as something close to white noise. Really... don't be afraid to come to Madison. It's a lovely place. And though, as I said here, the Statue of Liberty — deliberately, I think — tried to intimidate me, there were lots of nice people around.
We went inside the Capitol and, as you can see in the video, there was almost no one there. Not in the video: I mentioned to a young man that the state court had decided its case, and we ended up having a half hour discussion of legal issues, mostly on an abstract level — separation of powers and so forth. I perform random acts of law teaching around town, you know.
In the video, children play, a man cradles his dog, and a woman tells me she loves my skirt. People are out there, showing they care and which side they're on, but I'm not seeing anger or hysterical despair. Everything's going to be all right.
Why would the No Child Left Behind emphasis on math and reading leave less time to learn history?
I'm reading this Wall Street Journal article about new history history test scores:
I have discussed this issue before, and I know people have a problem with it, but schoolchildren don't need to read fiction to learn how to read. Let them choose their own fiction books for reading outside of school.
The overall lackluster performance is certain to revive the debate about whether history and other subjects, such as science and art, are being pushed out of the curriculum because of the focus on math and reading demanded under the No Child Left Behind federal education law. The federal law mandates that students be tested in math and reading.Why is this even a conflict? To learn reading, you need reading material! Make the reading material nonfiction works about history. Problem solved.
I have discussed this issue before, and I know people have a problem with it, but schoolchildren don't need to read fiction to learn how to read. Let them choose their own fiction books for reading outside of school.
"Alright, my package and I are not going to beg. We both see the hazard of going down the path of comparative sexiness."
That's something I read out loud over here at Meadhouse.
MEADE: "Is that Weiner?"
ME: "Do you recognize Weiner's writing style?"
No. He just recognizes my reading style. I'm reading something about sex out loud, basically.
MEADE: "Is that Weiner?"
ME: "Do you recognize Weiner's writing style?"
No. He just recognizes my reading style. I'm reading something about sex out loud, basically.
Does Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette have the power to delay publication of the collective-bargaining law until June 28th?
"La Follette said he had consulted with his own attorney as well as his own staff to make sure he followed proper procedure. The problem, La Follette said, is there is no procedure for what happened on Tuesday when the Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, reinstated the collective-bargaining law that was passed in the Legislature."
Incredible. How is it possible for this man to have the power to prevent a law from going into effect?
I thought the law was published back on March 25th:
But there's another statutory provision that the main opinion fails to discuss, and it does seem to be an impediment. Justice Prosser, who's part of the majority, wrote a separate opinion, which brings up § 35.095(3). As applied in this case, it presents a puzzling conflict:
Why didn't the court just decide that the publication by the Legislative Reference Bureau was effective? When is the effective date of the law? It should be March 26th. How can it be June 28th if Sumi's order was void ab initio and it's too late for La Follette to publish "10 working days after the date of enactment"? I'm guessing that the court thought that as a matter of separation of powers, it had no business doing anything but getting out of the way of the legislature.
Incredible. How is it possible for this man to have the power to prevent a law from going into effect?
I thought the law was published back on March 25th:
The drama over Gov. Scott Walker's controversial measure limiting public sector collective bargaining took a sharp turn Friday [March 25th] when the Legislative Reference Bureau published the law — normally the last step before legislation takes effect....Is it published already or not? Let's look at the new state supreme court opinion:
A restraining order prevented Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the act. But the state constitution says only that laws must be published before they can take effect; it does not specify by whom.
This court has granted the petition for an original action because one of the courts that we are charged with supervising has usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the legislature. It is important for all courts to remember that Article IV, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution provides: “The legislative power shall be vested in a senate and assembly.” Article IV, Section 17 of the Wisconsin Constitution provides in relevant part: “(2) . . . No law shall be in force until published. (3) The legislature shall provide by law for the speedy publication of all laws.”How can La Follette, a member of the executive branch, control the power that belongs to the legislature? According to Wisconsin Supreme Court, the way the legislature has provided for publication is — in § 14.38(10)(c) — to direct the Secretary of State to publish it. So La Follette had a statutory duty back in March. But the trial judge — Sumi — ordered La Follette not to publish the law. Now, Supreme Court's opinion declares the judge's order "void ab initio." That is, the order was always void. But knowing that La Follette wasn't ever bound doesn't cause something that didn't happen to have happened in the past. And indeed, the court's opinion looks to the future, saying "there remain no impediments to the Secretary of State fulfilling his obligations under § 14.38(10)(c)."
But there's another statutory provision that the main opinion fails to discuss, and it does seem to be an impediment. Justice Prosser, who's part of the majority, wrote a separate opinion, which brings up § 35.095(3). As applied in this case, it presents a puzzling conflict:
(a) The legislative reference bureau shall publish every act . . . within 10 working days after its date of enactment.The Legislative Reference Bureau complied with the requirements of (a) back in March, and, as noted, La Follette, because of Judge Sumi's order, never fulfilled his obligation under (b). The main opinion said "there remain no impediments to the Secretary of State fulfilling his obligations under § 14.38(10)(c)," but that obligation is detailed in § 35.095(3)(b) in terms that are now impossible to fulfill. Maybe that's why they didn't want to talk about it! It's a problem that should never have arisen, but Judge Sumi's (invalid) order made it happen. Now what?
(b) The secretary of state shall designate a date of publication for each act . . . . The date of publication may not be more than 10 working days after the date of enactment.
Why didn't the court just decide that the publication by the Legislative Reference Bureau was effective? When is the effective date of the law? It should be March 26th. How can it be June 28th if Sumi's order was void ab initio and it's too late for La Follette to publish "10 working days after the date of enactment"? I'm guessing that the court thought that as a matter of separation of powers, it had no business doing anything but getting out of the way of the legislature.
Telling the old "Can you make me one with everything?" joke to the Dalai Lama.
That extreme awkwardness defines the expression "losing something in the translation."
Dan Savage now says: "Anthony Weiner Might As Well Resign."
Before, he'd defended him, saying:
He didn't do anything with his dick, phone, and internet access that millions of his fellow Americans aren't also doing. He got a few online thrills, he sent out a few pics, he drained his sack sitting in front of his computer. This is part of the new normal, people, just another one of the ways technology is impacting and shaping our lives....But now:
Now here's what I hope the legally married congressman doesn't do: confess to having a problem, blame "sex addiction," check into the Tiger Woods Memorial Sex/Career Rehabilitation Center, resurface a month later Dr. Drew's couch looking contrite, and apologize to the American people for being one of them.
By checking into rehab—by pretending that it's him, and not the culture, that has a problem with sex—Weiner is sharpening the blade on the guillotine to which he's been dragged.Why didn't Weiner fight for the right to fool around on line, new-normal-style? By pandering to the old normal and aiding the forces of repression by spreading the lie that the new normal is an illness, he lost Dan Savage.
"Can we call the men who engage in this sort of sucking-up to women 'Uncle Tims'?"
Ha.
Reminds me of this Rush riff from Monday.
Meanwhile, Hugh Hefner got played:
Reminds me of this Rush riff from Monday.
Look, even liberal men want to get the girl. There's something universal about men and women, the guy wants to get the girl. When your target is a liberal woman, look at what you have to do. I've been there, folks, I've been there. I've put this to the test. I've told you about this.And I love the graphic:
I actually gave a woman I was dating in Kansas City once a book by Susan Brownmiller, who wrote at the time the definitive book on rape, and her thesis was that it's not sex, it's violence. I didn't care. That's what I had to do, you know, to get a second date with this babe. It's all it was. The guy always wants to get the girl. When you have the liberal woman that you want to get, oh, Good Lord, look what you have to do.
Meanwhile, Hugh Hefner got played:
Hugh Hefner's wedding to Crystal Harris was called off after she secretly planned to ditch the Playboy mogul at the altar in return for a $500,000 media deal...Staged humiliation for the reality-show ladies.
Harris, 25, was shopping for a big-bucks deal to tell all after she ditched hapless Hef, 85, in front of 300 guests at their wedding at the Playboy Mansion on Saturday, to be filmed for a Lifetime TV special.
Intimidated by Liberty.
Yesterday at the protests, the Statue of Liberty got in face. Stopped. Loomed over me. And swooped down at me.
Live free or die, baby. Die, possibly speared on those Liberty head-spikes. Of papier maché.
"Poetry, not special effects, is the engine that drives lyric theater, and 'Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark' is as unpoetic as you can get."
"[The] book is flabby and witless. The score, by U2's Bono and The Edge, sounds like a double album of B-sides ("Don't think about tomorrow / We've only got today"). Not only are the songs forgettable, but they never succeed in generating any dramatic momentum—all they do is get louder."
Says Terry Teachout, observing that "no stage show, even a multimillion-dollar extravaganza, can offer anything remotely as believable-looking as the digitally generated magic that moviegoers have been taking for granted for the past couple of decades."
Why see a stage show, when there are movies? The makers of stage shows need to have an answer to that. And it really should be a better answer than: this combination of glitz and familiar names will trick the rubes into handing over their money.
Says Terry Teachout, observing that "no stage show, even a multimillion-dollar extravaganza, can offer anything remotely as believable-looking as the digitally generated magic that moviegoers have been taking for granted for the past couple of decades."
Why see a stage show, when there are movies? The makers of stage shows need to have an answer to that. And it really should be a better answer than: this combination of glitz and familiar names will trick the rubes into handing over their money.
"The nation's first federally funded bicycle 'freeway.'"
"The last mile, through downtown [Minneapolis], was ready May 23 and was by far the most expensive leg at $9 million, more than five times the cost of the first 3 1/2 miles."
Sounds lovely, but why does the federal government fund municipal improvements like this?
That said, I love bike trails, and I'm a frequent user of Madison trails that have received plenty of federal funding.
Sounds lovely, but why does the federal government fund municipal improvements like this?
"The last extension was pricey, with retaining walls [and] private property owners, and it was full of political hurdles, but I think the city's very proud of it, and I know we've saved lives," said David Klopp of the CLPA. "I don't think it's safe to put cars, trucks and bicycles on the same road."...So... you'd like us to bike, but you're sending the message that it's not safe to bike along with cars and trucks. How are we supposed to get to the trail or use it to commute or see the city? Either we can ride with motorized traffic or we can't.
Charlotte Zelle, 19, of Minneapolis, pedaled to the ceremony with her father, and said of the trail: "I think it's beautiful, and I don't feel endangered by cars."
That said, I love bike trails, and I'm a frequent user of Madison trails that have received plenty of federal funding.
"WI Supreme Court validates Walker union law — now will Quinn pay up on Bears-Packers bet?"
"[I]t's time to put some pressure on Illinois' hapless governor, Pat Quinn."
Here's some pressure on Quinn from last April:
... and our fleshy governor from the south. In a soup kitchen. Pronto!
Here's some pressure on Quinn from last April:
Quinn was scheduled to fulfill the bet on Feb. 21 at Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin, a food bank in Milwaukee. But he canceled because Democrats and Republicans in Wisconsin were at each other's throats at the time. Plus, Walker was trying to steal Illinois jobs....We want our lounging fleshy females...
I asked Walker's office if they'd like to publicly condemn Quinn for his foot-dragging and perhaps throw him under the Packers team bus. They didn't seem too upset...
There's one other bet that hasn't been satisfied yet. We're still waiting for the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the city we vanquished in the Super Bowl on Feb. 6, to lend us the Renoir painting, "Bathers With Crab," as they promised. We want our "lounging, fleshy females," as our art critic described it.
... and our fleshy governor from the south. In a soup kitchen. Pronto!
If you knew me when the year I went to college...
... I would have tried to get you to listen to this:
Tyrannosaurus Rex - "Warlord Of The Royal Crocodiles." The album is "Unicorn."
Tyrannosaurus Rex - "Warlord Of The Royal Crocodiles." The album is "Unicorn."
June 14, 2011
The big Tuesday protest at the Wisconsin Capitol looked pretty mellow to me.
I mean, how can you stay angry forever?
It's summertime. Almost. Come on...
Everything's going to be all right.
"Supreme Court just ruled in favor of the Republicans on Budget Repair."
That's the word on the street.
(Talking about Wisconsin Supreme Court here.)
ADDED: Here is the opinion, which is based on the proper role of the courts in a system of separation of powers:
(Talking about Wisconsin Supreme Court here.)
ADDED: Here is the opinion, which is based on the proper role of the courts in a system of separation of powers:
In Goodland v. Zimmerman, 243 Wis. 459, 10 N.W.2d 180 (1943), the court... explained that the “judicial department has no jurisdiction or right to interfere with the legislative process. That is something committed by the constitution entirely to the legislature itself.” Id. at 467. The court held that “[b]ecause under our system of constitutional government, no one of the co-ordinate departments can interfere with the discharge of the constitutional duties of one of the other departments, no court has jurisdiction to enjoin the legislative process at any point.” Id. at 468. The court noted that “[i]f a court can intervene and prohibit the publication of an act, the court determines what shall be law and not the legislature. If the court does that, it does not in terms legislate but it invades the constitutional power of the legislature to declare what shall become law. This [a court] may not do.” Id.So Judge Sumi, asserting that the legislature had violated the law, herself violated the state constitution. Seeking to check the excesses of the legislature, she fell into judicial excess.
... [W]hether a court can enjoin a bill is a matter of great public importance and also because it appears necessary to confirm that Goodland remains the law that all courts must follow.... Accordingly, because the circuit court did not follow the court’s directive in Goodland, it exceeded its jurisdiction, invaded the legislature’s constitutional powers under Article IV, Section 1 and Section 17 of the Wisconsin Constitution, and erred in enjoining the publication and further implementation of the Act.
"We men just make bad decisions. We can't help it. We’re men."
"Women, on the other hand, do almost everything better. We’ve known this intuitively for a long time. If you didn’t, just ask your wife or your mother. But now there’s a raft of evidence that suggests women are better at everything — including investing."
That's David Weidner — in the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch — citing Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, John Ensign, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards and riffing.
Remember it's okay to say one sex is superior to the other as long as you're saying women are better.
That's David Weidner — in the Wall Street Journal's Market Watch — citing Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, John Ensign, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards and riffing.
Remember it's okay to say one sex is superior to the other as long as you're saying women are better.
"Tim Pawlenty was debate night’s big loser. He walked onto that stage with one mission..."
"... to prove himself the ultra-base alternative to Romney. He failed, miserably. Pawlenty’s failure is not the kind of stumble he can correct later. It goes to the core of the guy: offered the chance to confront Romney directly, he flinched. He did not look 'nice.' He did not look like he was observing the 11th commandment. He looked uncertain and weak. He looked like a man fully aware that Romney would best him in a one-to-one discussion of healthcare policy."
Frum says.
ADDED: James Taranto said Pawlenty looked weak.
AND: Here's the relevant video of Pawlenty.
Frum says.
ADDED: James Taranto said Pawlenty looked weak.
AND: Here's the relevant video of Pawlenty.
"I knew that Scott would be bold and ... the promises he made, I knew that he would keep," Tonette Walker said.
From the Wisconsin State Journal:
"I just didn't know they were going to happen so quickly. So soon. I was busy trying to move our family and the next thing I know, I had 4,000 people outside my home in Wauwatosa."Another political wife. By the way, she's 11 years older than Governor Walker. And her maiden name is Tarantino. She met Scott Walker at a karaoke bar in Milwaukee:
It didn't take long for the governor's mansion to become the family's only refuge. The governor and first lady didn't go out to eat or attend teacher conferences at their sons' school.
The family received threats. Protesters confronted their teenage sons in grocery stores, she said.
"'We hate your husband,' 'We hate your father' ... of course those things are hard to hear," Walker said.
After a while, the stress wore on her. She would choke up watching the news. She even called the governor and his staff, questioning them about the controversy. "I would say to Scott ... 'Is this really, really what you have to do?'" she said. "And after he would explain it to me, I would be better again."
Every time someone would rise to head to the stage to sing, the two would lock eyes and make approving or disapproving faces at one another....
Toward the end of the night, the young man rose to leave. As he passed, the future governor handed her a napkin with his phone number on it. Five months later the two returned to Saz's, where Scott Walker proposed to her the same way — on a napkin.
Biddy Martin is leaving: "The decision to leave UW-Madison is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. I love this university."
What a terrible loss, but no surprise to those of us who watched the events of the last few months.
ADDED: Chancellor Martin worked hard to restructure the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but many people here did not appreciate the interaction with Governor Walker.
Her announcement occurs on a hot day in Wisconsin politics:
UPDATE: The NYT on Biddy Martin's departure:
ADDED: Chancellor Martin worked hard to restructure the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but many people here did not appreciate the interaction with Governor Walker.
Her announcement occurs on a hot day in Wisconsin politics:
Tuesday is a big day at the Capitol, with debate scheduled on Gov. Scott Walker's budget, and the possibility that the Supreme Court will rule on a decision by Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi that struck down the law eliminating nearly all collective bargaining.I guess Meade and I will have to slog over there one more time, but it will be with great sadness today.
With the expectation that thousands of protesters will be gathering at the Capitol for rallies later in the day, there is an increased police presence inside the historic building.
Dozens of Wisconsin State Troopers, as well as Capitol Police and officers of the Department of Natural Resources, are everywhere inside the Capitol, guarding the Rotunda, staffing staircases and watching the entrances to both the Assembly and Senate.
Shortly before 11 a.m., protesters started showing up inside and outside the Capitol....
UPDATE: The NYT on Biddy Martin's departure:
For most of this year, Dr. Martin, 60, and her campus have occupied center stage in the nation’s raging, politically charged battles over higher education. In February, Wisconsin was roiled by the fight over the collective-bargaining rights of public employees, including those at the university. In March, a state Republican Party official sought the release of the e-mails of a tenured professor in Madison who had criticized both Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, and the party’s position on collective bargaining. And Dr. Martin and Governor Walker spent months on an unsuccessful effort to split Madison from the rest of the state’s higher-education system, giving it greater flexibility in an era of reduced state financing.
“Does everything that’s occurred over the last year play a role?” Dr. Martin, who is known as Biddy, asked in an interview. “It would be foolhardy to say it played no role, but neither I nor anyone else could say exactly what role it played. It’s been incredibly interesting. I really love it here, I got my Ph.D. here, and I feel like I’m leaving this university in a position where it will continue to make great progress.”
Russ Feingold speaks and then "600 firefighters marching down State Street, past Walkerville, and around the Capitol..."
"... They ultimately held a ceremony on the rooftop of the Monona Convention Center for fallen firefighters."
I guess that answers my question why firefighters in uniform are allowed to participate in a political protest march. It was really a procession toward a ceremony for their dead comrades. That it occurred immediately after the much-promoted Feingold rally was merely a coincidence.
Right? That must be right. Please tell me I'm right. They wouldn't use a ceremony for dead firefighters as a cover for political activity in uniform.
UPDATE: From the same blogger, tweeting 47 minutes ago:
UPDATE 2: I've got video from Sunday's rally, which I'm edited to show you how the 2 events were sequenced and interwoven. My video, which will be up fairly soon, shows that as Feingold's speech ended, the crowd was told:
So, the ceremony could have been long planned, with no connection to the protests, but: 1. There seems to be another firefighters' march today, 2. The firefighters seem to have coordinated with the announcer at the Feingold rally to some extent, and 3. The crowd (including me and Meade) perceived it as a single, multi-part, anti-Walker event.
AND: Here's the edited video (described in Update 2, above):
I guess that answers my question why firefighters in uniform are allowed to participate in a political protest march. It was really a procession toward a ceremony for their dead comrades. That it occurred immediately after the much-promoted Feingold rally was merely a coincidence.
Right? That must be right. Please tell me I'm right. They wouldn't use a ceremony for dead firefighters as a cover for political activity in uniform.
UPDATE: From the same blogger, tweeting 47 minutes ago:
Today's rally starts 11AM #Walkerville 3:30pm time of firefighters bagpipe march. 5:30pm evening speakers #wiunionThere can never be enough ceremonies for the fallen comrades. And coincidences.
UPDATE 2: I've got video from Sunday's rally, which I'm edited to show you how the 2 events were sequenced and interwoven. My video, which will be up fairly soon, shows that as Feingold's speech ended, the crowd was told:
One of our greatest allies has been the firefighters — the firefighters' union. [CHEERS.] They are having a special commemoration for their fallen members, and they've asked us to cheer them on as they march from the Concourse, they're going to take a left around the Capitol. Just the firefighters. But they ask if we wait here 'til they come, they should be here in about 5 to 10 minutes. We want to cheer them on. We want to remember people who've fallen. We want to stand with the firefighters and we're ready for this week.During the wait, there were chants of "Recall Walker" and "What's disgusting? Union busting!" When the firefighters arrive, the crowd cheers "thank you, thank you" — which could mean thank you for your public service, but it is also the cheer that was used throughout the protests to express approval for participating in the protest. We see more of the march as it goes around to the right and over to the Monona Terrace (where the ceremony will take place). You'll see the firefighters — with Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin in formation — followed by civilians, many of whom are carrying protest signs.
So, the ceremony could have been long planned, with no connection to the protests, but: 1. There seems to be another firefighters' march today, 2. The firefighters seem to have coordinated with the announcer at the Feingold rally to some extent, and 3. The crowd (including me and Meade) perceived it as a single, multi-part, anti-Walker event.
AND: Here's the edited video (described in Update 2, above):
Bill Kristol: "Bob Dylan Said It Best."
Yeah, he did, but you didn't. That's the most pathetic appropriation of Dylan I've seen in a long time.
Here's a rule. If the only Bob Dylan song you can think of to quote is "The Times They Are A-Changin'," don't quote Bob Dylan. Please heed the call.
Here's a rule. If the only Bob Dylan song you can think of to quote is "The Times They Are A-Changin'," don't quote Bob Dylan. Please heed the call.
"Just for the record, Jonah Goldberg, Mark Krikorian, John Derbyshire and I are all 23-year old lesbians."
Says Mark Steyn, implying something about his "serious moobage."
"It pains me to say this, but putting down black might help my admissions chances and putting down Asian might hurt it."
A modest "might."
ADDED: Our President "put black." That's the most conspicuous analysis of morality young people have.
ALSO: The NYT inserts "African-American" explaining the statement "My mother urges me to put down black to use AA." Surely, Scott wrote "AA" to abbreviate "affirmative action."
“My mother urges me to put down black to use AA” — African-American — “to get in to the colleges I’m applying to,” [wrote Natasha Scott, pseudonymously, on a college admissions discussion website.] “I sort of want to do this but I’m wondering if this is morally right.”How many applicants go through a moral quandary? Would you? Or would you say whatever is defensibly true that would help you the most? When you help yourself you hurt someone in this zero-sum game, do you not? Proponents of affirmative action say you do not. I won't spell out what the argument is, but if you can't think it up on your own, that might be some indication of its speciousness.
Within minutes, a commenter had responded, “You’re black. You should own it.” Someone else agreed, “Put black!!!!!!!! Listen to your mom.”
ADDED: Our President "put black." That's the most conspicuous analysis of morality young people have.
ALSO: The NYT inserts "African-American" explaining the statement "My mother urges me to put down black to use AA." Surely, Scott wrote "AA" to abbreviate "affirmative action."
Ideology and irony: Stephen Jay Gould mismeasured "The Mismeasure of Man."
A new study shows that Gould — who purported to show that ideology influenced the 19th-century physical anthropologist Samuel George Morton — was himself the one who got the data wrong.
Ah, but what does John Hawks — our local (UW) blogging paleoanthropologist — have to say?
In a 1981 book, “The Mismeasure of Man,” the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould asserted that Morton, believing that brain size was a measure of intelligence, had subconsciously manipulated the brain volumes of European, Asian and African skulls to favor his bias that Europeans had larger brains and Africans smaller ones.Does that mean Gould was the ideologue? Did Gould consciously or unconsciously slime Morton? Gould isn't around anymore to explain. He died in 2002, presumably a rich man, having sold many books that said many things readers enjoyed hearing, including the defamation of a man who'd died a century before he was born. But all the skulls remain, to be measured and evaluated by the living.
But now physical anthropologists at the University of Pennsylvania, which owns Morton’s collection, have remeasured the skulls... “demonstrating that Morton did not manipulate his data to support his preconceptions”...
Dr. Gould, who died in 2002, based his attack on the premise that Morton believed that brain size was correlated with intelligence. But there is no evidence that Morton believed this or was trying to prove it.... Rather, Morton was measuring his skulls to study human variation, as part of his inquiry into whether God had created the human races separately....
But the Penn team... identified and remeasured half of the skulls used in his reports, finding that in only 2 percent of cases did Morton’s measurements differ significantly from their own. These errors either were random or gave a larger than accurate volume to African skulls, the reverse of the bias that Dr. Gould imputed to Morton.
“These results falsify the claim that Morton physically mismeasured crania based on his a priori biases”....
Ah, but what does John Hawks — our local (UW) blogging paleoanthropologist — have to say?
Some of Gould's mistakes are outrageous, with others it is hard for me to believe that the misstatements were not deliberate misrepresentations.Truly shocking.
For example, let's take the story about pushing seed into the skulls. Here is a paragraph from Lewis and colleagues, with direct quotes from Gould:
Gould famously suggested that Morton's measurements may have been subject to bias: “Plausible scenarios are easy to construct. Morton, measuring by seed, picks up a threateningly large black skull, fills it lightly and gives it a few desultory shakes. Next, he takes a distressingly small Caucasian skull, shakes hard, and pushes mightily at the foramen magnum with his thumb. It is easily done, without conscious motivation; expectation is a powerful guide to action”... While Gould offers this as only a “plausible scenario,” and did not remeasure any crania, subsequent authors have generally (and incorrectly) cited Gould as demonstrating that Morton physically mismeasured crania...In other words, Gould made up the whole thing. It was an utter fabulation. It is disgraceful that later authors have cited this idea as fact.
Lawprof blog traffic rankings.
TaxProf keeps score.
Not all lawprofs display their Site Meter statistics. Everyone knows Instapundit is really #1. But I still enjoy looking like #1. I'm like Harvard, if Yale refused to play the U.S. News game.
ADDED: Professor Jacobson says: "I will continue to highlight blog rankings which show me in a good light. I will vigorously expose as complete frauds any blog rankings which do not meet that objective standard."
Not all lawprofs display their Site Meter statistics. Everyone knows Instapundit is really #1. But I still enjoy looking like #1. I'm like Harvard, if Yale refused to play the U.S. News game.
ADDED: Professor Jacobson says: "I will continue to highlight blog rankings which show me in a good light. I will vigorously expose as complete frauds any blog rankings which do not meet that objective standard."
Will the "lamestream" journalists now look straight into the camera and proclaim Sarah Palin a media genius?
"The Daily Show" had a great montage of the idiotic media excitement over Sarah Palin's email.
A few thoughts:
1. This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can't see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner's wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah's misdeeds. And then — oh, how awful! — they got nothing from Sarah. Nothing but hard work and — urrrgghhh! — good government and — damn! — family values.
2. The fact that there was nothing was actually news, and the journalists should have protected their integrity — appearance of integrity — by reporting the nothing with clarity. In the run up to the receipt of the boxes of xeroxes, air time was devoted to speculating about what might be in those emails. Most notable — it's in the middle of the "Daily Show" montage — was the suspicion that the governor's husband was secretly running the show, pulling the strings. (You know, the shameful sexism.) But there was absolutely nothing that looked at all like that. Maybe there's another montage that could be made of these reporters spelling out clearly what was disproved by the emails. But I think what they did was dribble out statements like "no smoking gun yet" — seemingly expecting that we'd gradually lose interest and move on to something else.
3. Let's credit Sarah Palin for phenomenal, hilarious restraint. She knew there was nothing that would hurt her in there. She resisted the disclosure for legitimate privacy reasons, but she had to also know that the revelation of nothingness would backfire on her disgustingly salivating opponents. Her designation of them as "lamestream media" is vividly vindicated. And, because there was nothing, the invasion of her privacy looks especially unkind. Finally, she knew that the most interesting thing in the big box was the full text of the letter from God. She'd edited it down for publication in her memoir "Going Rogue." It might have seemed maudlin to reprint the whole thing at that point. But now we get the entire missive, and we're stunned and weeping. Oh, Sarah! The idiot is a genius!
A few thoughts:
1. This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can't see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner's wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah's misdeeds. And then — oh, how awful! — they got nothing from Sarah. Nothing but hard work and — urrrgghhh! — good government and — damn! — family values.
2. The fact that there was nothing was actually news, and the journalists should have protected their integrity — appearance of integrity — by reporting the nothing with clarity. In the run up to the receipt of the boxes of xeroxes, air time was devoted to speculating about what might be in those emails. Most notable — it's in the middle of the "Daily Show" montage — was the suspicion that the governor's husband was secretly running the show, pulling the strings. (You know, the shameful sexism.) But there was absolutely nothing that looked at all like that. Maybe there's another montage that could be made of these reporters spelling out clearly what was disproved by the emails. But I think what they did was dribble out statements like "no smoking gun yet" — seemingly expecting that we'd gradually lose interest and move on to something else.
3. Let's credit Sarah Palin for phenomenal, hilarious restraint. She knew there was nothing that would hurt her in there. She resisted the disclosure for legitimate privacy reasons, but she had to also know that the revelation of nothingness would backfire on her disgustingly salivating opponents. Her designation of them as "lamestream media" is vividly vindicated. And, because there was nothing, the invasion of her privacy looks especially unkind. Finally, she knew that the most interesting thing in the big box was the full text of the letter from God. She'd edited it down for publication in her memoir "Going Rogue." It might have seemed maudlin to reprint the whole thing at that point. But now we get the entire missive, and we're stunned and weeping. Oh, Sarah! The idiot is a genius!
June 13, 2011
Worse than being told that you've got to leave and the party's going on without you...
... would be to be told the party's going on forever and you're not allowed to leave. And the host insists that you have a good time.
It's Christopher Hitchens, talking about dying.
It's Christopher Hitchens, talking about dying.
Live-blogging the Republican Debate.
6:14 Central Time: Just letting you know that I'll be here with the live-blogging when things start. Join me in the comments.
7:19: "Romney's already won," Meade announces, after Pawlenty gives a weak response to John King's repeated challenge of his use of the term "Obamaneycare."
7:26: A New Hampshire citizen frets about the influence of the Tea Party, and Santorum and Bachmann try to placate with platitutes. Bachmann speaks as if she's at a rally.
7:29: You can stream the debate on line here.
7:33: A federal right to work law? Pawlenty says yes.
7:37: Bachmann is asked if she prefers Elvis or Johnny Cash. An infusion of cuteness.
7:38: Ron Paul is tearing into another question. He's so crusty and cranky. It's refreshing... and a bit weird.
7:42: Romney looks good defending his position that the auto companies should have gone through bankruptcy. Obama, in effect, gave the bailout money to the unions, he says. King asks if everyone else agrees, but Santorum and Bachmann consume so much time answering that we don't get to find out if any of the others disagree.
7:45: Is everyone against the space program? Pawlenty's not. Gingrich thinks private business could run the program. Hard to picture that.
8:16: There's a question about the separation of church and state, and I'm struck that Ron Paul says, "The most important things is the First Amendment: 'Congress shall write [sic] no laws,' which means Congress shall never prohibit the expression of your Christians' faith in a public place." Why specify Christians? And under the First Amendment, there's freedom of speech for all opinions, including religious opinions. I thought that was bad of Paul, but Meade said, no it was great, because he won a lot of votes saying that. There are plenty of voters who will respond precisely because he said "Christians."
9:40: A good debate. I'd say all of the candidates did reasonably well, but wasn't Romney the big winner? He seemed believable as a leader, made no missteps, and none of the others landed a significant blow.
7:19: "Romney's already won," Meade announces, after Pawlenty gives a weak response to John King's repeated challenge of his use of the term "Obamaneycare."
7:26: A New Hampshire citizen frets about the influence of the Tea Party, and Santorum and Bachmann try to placate with platitutes. Bachmann speaks as if she's at a rally.
7:29: You can stream the debate on line here.
7:33: A federal right to work law? Pawlenty says yes.
7:37: Bachmann is asked if she prefers Elvis or Johnny Cash. An infusion of cuteness.
7:38: Ron Paul is tearing into another question. He's so crusty and cranky. It's refreshing... and a bit weird.
7:42: Romney looks good defending his position that the auto companies should have gone through bankruptcy. Obama, in effect, gave the bailout money to the unions, he says. King asks if everyone else agrees, but Santorum and Bachmann consume so much time answering that we don't get to find out if any of the others disagree.
7:45: Is everyone against the space program? Pawlenty's not. Gingrich thinks private business could run the program. Hard to picture that.
8:16: There's a question about the separation of church and state, and I'm struck that Ron Paul says, "The most important things is the First Amendment: 'Congress shall write [sic] no laws,' which means Congress shall never prohibit the expression of your Christians' faith in a public place." Why specify Christians? And under the First Amendment, there's freedom of speech for all opinions, including religious opinions. I thought that was bad of Paul, but Meade said, no it was great, because he won a lot of votes saying that. There are plenty of voters who will respond precisely because he said "Christians."
9:40: A good debate. I'd say all of the candidates did reasonably well, but wasn't Romney the big winner? He seemed believable as a leader, made no missteps, and none of the others landed a significant blow.
"I feel like calling her back and smacking her around."
A Wisconsin recall candidate has a run-in with an overeager answering machine.
I don't know what's funnier. Clark's accidental recording or the gleeful exploitation of it by the other side:
IN THE COMMENTS: mccullough said:
I don't know what's funnier. Clark's accidental recording or the gleeful exploitation of it by the other side:
“This disturbing and inappropriate comment gives us an unfortunate glimpse of what Representative Clark is like when he thinks no one is listening. Domestic violence is a devastating problem in our state , and abuse is on the rise. To be able to so freely threaten violence against a woman, even in jest, shows a tremendous lack of character.”Everybody's a radical feminist.
IN THE COMMENTS: mccullough said:
Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules.
"Republican Debate Prep: What to Watch For in New Hampshire."
According to the NYT, you should look for:
* Romney vs. Obama...I would add: Look for live-blogging on Althouse! Is there any better place to hang out during the debate than in the comments here?
* Pawlenty vs. Romney... The only question for Monday night is whether Mr. Pawlenty goes after Mr. Romney in his first answer, or if he waits until later in the debate.
* Bachmann’s Introduction.... In her first debate appearance, the often bombastic, conservative lawmaker is hoping to present herself as a serious, viable alternative to the other candidates in the field....
* Newt’s Return.... Can a strong debate performance help reassure donors and supporters that his campaign is not teetering on the edge of collapse?
* The Lesser-Knowns.... Representative Ron Paul of Texas is often a crowd-pleaser, especially with libertarians. Herman Cain.... And Rick Santorum...
* The Sideshow.... The Democratic National Committee has assembled a “rapid response” team in Manchester... The Progressive Change Campaign Committee will run an ad on broadcast and cable television attacking Republicans for what they say are attempts to end Medicare. Another group, Protect Your Care, will do the same, showing ads that say “Stop the Republican Plan to Cut Medicare.”
Don't send 4-year-olds to school. Send them to work.
Says Cornell Anthropologist Meredith F. Small:
Small talks about how young children, working, contribute economically, and notes that we've lost that economic value to children, because we're not farmers. Ah, but confining very young children to classrooms is an economic concept in America. It's childcare, paid for by taxpayers who wouldn't accept paying for the childcare of parents who want (or need) to go to work. The children, unschooled, would be an economic burden on parents who would either purchase private childcare or forgo income from the second of 2 parents working.
If what's really going on is taxpayer-funded childcare, then not only are taxpayers tricked into accepting paying for something they would reject if they knew what it was, but also children are being run through hours and hours of confinement performing exercises that are not honestly premised on benefiting them.
ADDED: There's also that new study that says sitting is as bad as smoking. Since we wouldn't force kids to smoke, why are we forcing them to sit? We're even giving a lot of the kids drugs to overcome their disinclination to sit. It's like forcing kids to smoke and giving them drugs to help them smoke.
Look outside Western culture and watch children, even very small children, as they gather firewood, weed gardens, haul water, tend livestock, care for younger children and run errands. And no one complains because they are mostly outside and usually with other children....And then we think and think about why there's so much obesity.
When we were an agriculturally based nation, American children used to work just as hard and contribute in the same way. But now, Western children are trained intellectually, in school, where they are taught to think about things as the entree to adulthood...
Everyone sits quietly at their desks, thinking and thinking, just when they’d rather be out tending cows or weeding the garden.
Small talks about how young children, working, contribute economically, and notes that we've lost that economic value to children, because we're not farmers. Ah, but confining very young children to classrooms is an economic concept in America. It's childcare, paid for by taxpayers who wouldn't accept paying for the childcare of parents who want (or need) to go to work. The children, unschooled, would be an economic burden on parents who would either purchase private childcare or forgo income from the second of 2 parents working.
If what's really going on is taxpayer-funded childcare, then not only are taxpayers tricked into accepting paying for something they would reject if they knew what it was, but also children are being run through hours and hours of confinement performing exercises that are not honestly premised on benefiting them.
ADDED: There's also that new study that says sitting is as bad as smoking. Since we wouldn't force kids to smoke, why are we forcing them to sit? We're even giving a lot of the kids drugs to overcome their disinclination to sit. It's like forcing kids to smoke and giving them drugs to help them smoke.
New Hampshire — ranked #1 in freedom — ranks 50th in the level of education of its legislators.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Do you think it's funny that the level of freedom in the state is inversely correlated to the number of lawyers making the laws? I don't. And I went to law school. Went to law school, went back, and can't seem to leave. I've been in law school for 30 of the last 33 years. And it's easy for me to see why lawyers would produce laws that make us less free.
The layperson's idea of freedom is more free. Or... to be fair... more closely correlated to the definition of freedom used in the George Mason study.
The Mercatus Center at George Mason University undertook a study of personal liberty in each of the 50 states, based explicitly on “an individual-rights framework.”...And then, here's the study by the Chronicle of Higher Education:
New Hampshire is, by our count, the freest state in the country.... New Hampshire does much better on economic than personal freedom and on fiscal than regulatory policy. Under unified Democratic control in 2007–2008, the state saw a respectable increase in freedom. A smoking ban was enacted, but so were same-sex civil unions. Taxes, spending, and fiscal decentralization remain more than a standard deviation better than average, and government debt actually went down slightly. Gun laws are among the most liberal in the country, but carrying a firearm in a car requires a concealedcarry permit. Effective retail-tax rates on wine and spirits are zero. Marijuana laws are middling; lowlevel possession could be decriminalized like it is in Maine, while low-level cultivation could be made a misdemeanor like it is in both Maine and Vermont. New Hampshire is the only state in the country with no seatbelt law for adults. It lacks a motorcyclehelmet law but does have a bicycle-helmet law and authorizes sobriety checkpoints. State approval is required to open a private school. Homeschool laws are slightly worse than average; standardized testing and recordkeeping requirements are stricter than those in most states. Eminent-domain reforms have gone far. The state’s liability system is one of the best, but campaign-finance regulations are quite strict. The drug law-enforcement rate is low and dropping, while arrests for other victimless crimes are high and dropping. Asset-forfeiture law is definitely subpar, with potential for abuse.
The Chronicle has looked at where each of the 7,000-plus state legislators in America went to college—or whether they went at all. In doing so, we got a glimpse of how the citizens who hold these seats reflect the average American experience.New Hampshire is dead last, with only 53.4% of legislators having earned a bachelor's degree or higher. It's also 48th in the ranking of legislators who have law degrees. At 5.5%, only Delaware and North Dakota have state houses less packed with lawyers.
Do you think it's funny that the level of freedom in the state is inversely correlated to the number of lawyers making the laws? I don't. And I went to law school. Went to law school, went back, and can't seem to leave. I've been in law school for 30 of the last 33 years. And it's easy for me to see why lawyers would produce laws that make us less free.
The layperson's idea of freedom is more free. Or... to be fair... more closely correlated to the definition of freedom used in the George Mason study.
People who believed in the "Gay Girl in Damascus" need to explain why they believed this person was real and not fictional.
I'm not interested in the 40-year-old man who pretended to be young, Syrian, and lesbian. I'm interested in how intelligent people allowed themselves to be taken in.
For nearly a week, the world followed the saga of Amina Arraf, the blogger who was celebrated for her passionate, often intimate writings about the Syrian government’s crackdown on Arab Spring protesters. Those writings stopped abruptly last Monday, and in a posting on her blog, “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” a cousin said Amina had been hauled away by government security agents.Almost immediately... How slow on the uptake can you be and still get credit for catching on quickly. There are many ways to embarrass yourself in new media. Anthony Weiner made it very clear to us what one way is. He embarrassed himself. In the "Gay Girl in Damascus" incident, it is not the blogger (Tom MacMaster) who embarrassed himself. It's everyone who believed in the fiction and spread it around as truth without checking.
News of her disappearance became an Internet and media sensation. The U.S. State Department started an investigation. But almost immediately skeptics began asking: Had anyone ever actually met Amina? On Wednesday, pictures of her on the blog were revealed to have been taken from a London woman’s Facebook page.
News organizations around the world, including The Washington Post, reported on the blogger’s disappearance Tuesday.Mainstream media got played. Idiots!
"Republicans' support for Mitt Romney as their party's 2012 presidential nominee has increased significantly..."
"... to 24%, compared with 17% in late May."
Gallup finds.
Palin, in second place, has moved up too, but only one point, from 15% to 16%.
Gallup finds.
Palin, in second place, has moved up too, but only one point, from 15% to 16%.
"Heavy users of Twitter, as Weiner used to be (he hasn’t posted since June 1), play a complicated strategy game."
Writes Virginia Heffernan:
Like World of Warcraft and Halo, Twitter is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, but with higher real-world stakes. It is grounded in the first principles of game theory, including variations on the Prisoner’s Dilemma. You have to give to get; you have to get to give. Managing these ratios — deciding how much of your attention to expend to win attention to yourself, say — is the lion’s share of the Twitter action....
Anthony Weiner went from a junior congressman to a politician of national significance, thanks in large part to his use of new media. By following back some of his most ardent fans, the way a teen idol might oblige his fans with signed photos, and otherwise working the apparatus of Twitter to drive up his followers and get a hearing for his issues, he managed to create an online persona using the same tricks — digital versions of gerrymandering, triangulating and earmark — that politicians use. Twitter handsomely rewards those with a capacity for risk and an aptitude for the social sciences, especially economics, game theory, psychology and sociology....
Weiner on Twitter was like an amateur pianist on an improv tear....Well... there's a big difference between risky, edgy writing displayed to the entire public, and initiating private conversations. And when you're saying things in those private conversations that would be horribly embarrassing if they accidentally went out to everybody, then you're obviously in a different realm. You're no longer playing "the game of Twitter." You're doing something else, with somebody you met at the game.
Jonathan Chait on Michelle Bachmann: "she may be crazy, but she does have a strong grasp of political reality."
"The problem with so many radical candidates is that they lack political sense as well. Bachmann is a potent combination of substantively radical and politically shrewd, much like [Paul] Ryan. And if Ryan does not run, Bachmann could make some noise."
Subtext: Distinguish Bachmann and Palin on the sanity/intelligence axes. Palin is the stupid one, so Bachmann is the crazy one. With the negatives nailed down, we may concede that Bachmann is pretty smart (watch out!) and Palin is pretty sane (now, go home take care of your children).
Subtext: Distinguish Bachmann and Palin on the sanity/intelligence axes. Palin is the stupid one, so Bachmann is the crazy one. With the negatives nailed down, we may concede that Bachmann is pretty smart (watch out!) and Palin is pretty sane (now, go home take care of your children).
June 12, 2011
Russ Feingold: "This game's not over until we win."
He was trying to stir up the crowd in Walkerville today.
He had a really gruff, angry edge to his voice.
But afterwards, people looked really lackluster.
ADDED: Here's the entire Feingold speech:
He had a really gruff, angry edge to his voice.
But afterwards, people looked really lackluster.
ADDED: Here's the entire Feingold speech:
Why isn't anyone protesting this new abomination from the Wisconsin state senate?
It has passed a bill making the cream puff the official state dessert. The cream puff!
"The Senate’s Education Committee recently endorsed the new symbol. It was first suggested by Janine Coley’s fourth-grade class in Mukwonago. Their senator, Republican Mary Lazich, introduced the cream puff bill – but only after the youngsters studied the history of the confection, and had supporters sign petitions on Facebook."
The Education Committee?! School children studied the history of the confection?!
Where does that go on Michelle Obama's "food plate"? Dairy?
ADDED: Here's the "Make cream puffs the official dessert of Wisconsin" Facebook page.
AND: Speaking of Wisconsin's kid-oriented, milk-related politics, with Herb Kohl's impending retirement from the U.S. Senate....
ALSO: If the bill passes the Assembly and is signed by the governor, the cream puff will join all the other state symbols, including the state fossil (trilobite), the state soil (Antigo silt loam), the state dance (the polka), and the state animal (guess!).
"The Senate’s Education Committee recently endorsed the new symbol. It was first suggested by Janine Coley’s fourth-grade class in Mukwonago. Their senator, Republican Mary Lazich, introduced the cream puff bill – but only after the youngsters studied the history of the confection, and had supporters sign petitions on Facebook."
The Education Committee?! School children studied the history of the confection?!
Where does that go on Michelle Obama's "food plate"? Dairy?
ADDED: Here's the "Make cream puffs the official dessert of Wisconsin" Facebook page.
AND: Speaking of Wisconsin's kid-oriented, milk-related politics, with Herb Kohl's impending retirement from the U.S. Senate....
What about the flavored milks at State Fair?!... Relax, Dairylanders. Herb's Superb Milk House will go on, even after the four-term senator turns in his congressional badge."It has no expiration date," he said.
ALSO: If the bill passes the Assembly and is signed by the governor, the cream puff will join all the other state symbols, including the state fossil (trilobite), the state soil (Antigo silt loam), the state dance (the polka), and the state animal (guess!).
At the Greenhouse Café...
... fill a cup and take a cookie.
(Enlarge for detail. Picture taken inside the "Hosta Hut," seen here yesterday.)
"Rep. Weiner Used Congressional Gym As Backdrop."
And he used his cock as a frontdrop.
And photos of his D.C. condo — which is for sale — are up on line too. It's awfully neat and clean, I must say. And I love the "H" and "A" throw pillows on the bed. You can spell "HA" or "AH," depending on your mood.
(Links via Memeorandum.)
ADDED: I'll bet the pillows were both Huma's from her single days. It's just by chance that his first name begins with the same letter as her last name, Abedin.
By the way, add spaces to the name Abedin and you get a bed in. Remember when John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a bed in?
Ah! (Ha!) Back then "acorn" meant something else.
Maybe Anthony and Huma could have a bed in.... if they need another idea of how to redirect the public dialogue. Imagine!
And photos of his D.C. condo — which is for sale — are up on line too. It's awfully neat and clean, I must say. And I love the "H" and "A" throw pillows on the bed. You can spell "HA" or "AH," depending on your mood.
(Links via Memeorandum.)
ADDED: I'll bet the pillows were both Huma's from her single days. It's just by chance that his first name begins with the same letter as her last name, Abedin.
By the way, add spaces to the name Abedin and you get a bed in. Remember when John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a bed in?
Ah! (Ha!) Back then "acorn" meant something else.
Maybe Anthony and Huma could have a bed in.... if they need another idea of how to redirect the public dialogue. Imagine!
Obama in long pants. Boehner in shorts. [CORRECTION ADDED: I got played by the NYT!]
Obama won the "Golf Summit." In my book.
You've got a big photo-op golf game with the President of the United States? Wear pants!
Don't the Republicans like to portray themselves as the adults? Put on a pair of pants! A man in shorts looks like a ridiculously enlarged boy.
CORRECTION: The golf summit is next weekend. The photos are just what the NYT selected to illustrate its article about the future event. Unfair to Boehner! I expect both men to wear pants for the summit.
You've got a big photo-op golf game with the President of the United States? Wear pants!
Don't the Republicans like to portray themselves as the adults? Put on a pair of pants! A man in shorts looks like a ridiculously enlarged boy.
CORRECTION: The golf summit is next weekend. The photos are just what the NYT selected to illustrate its article about the future event. Unfair to Boehner! I expect both men to wear pants for the summit.
"10 Artworks Made with the Artist’s Own Bodily Fluids."
Yes, yes, ho-hum. We've heard it all before. Yawn. That's where I was until I got to #9.
The 6 Possible Meanings of Anthony Weiner's Announcement that He's Checking into Treatment.
1. Anthony Weiner has realized, in all sincerity, that his masturbatory use of the internet is an illness for which there is effective professional treatment, to which he will submit because he desires wellness, because wellness is good and because he needs to be well to do his duty to his wife, his expected child, and his constituents.
2. Anthony Weiner would like to deprive us of the capacity to criticize and mock him him, and if he can successfully impose the illness template on the controversy, the mockers and critiques will — instead of him — seem like the bad people. He hopes.
3. After the "Huma is pregnant" gambit failed to turn off the criticism, Weiner had to move beyond the manly, dignified insistence on privacy and on to the more pathetic, humble cry to be left alone.
4. If he's in treatment, he's physically out of sight. He's off somewhere, and that might work to close the door. Perhaps we'll wait until he emerges again. Time will have passed. Things will have cooled off. And the reemerging Weiner will be the new Weiner, the after-treatment Weiner, and people will — he hopes — speak about who this new man is.
5. Pelosi, Wasserman Schultz, and other Democratic Party leaders told him he had to get the hell out of sight, and he followed orders.
6. Weiner is not really going into treatment. He just needs some time by himself, with his computer, and his wiener.
2. Anthony Weiner would like to deprive us of the capacity to criticize and mock him him, and if he can successfully impose the illness template on the controversy, the mockers and critiques will — instead of him — seem like the bad people. He hopes.
3. After the "Huma is pregnant" gambit failed to turn off the criticism, Weiner had to move beyond the manly, dignified insistence on privacy and on to the more pathetic, humble cry to be left alone.
4. If he's in treatment, he's physically out of sight. He's off somewhere, and that might work to close the door. Perhaps we'll wait until he emerges again. Time will have passed. Things will have cooled off. And the reemerging Weiner will be the new Weiner, the after-treatment Weiner, and people will — he hopes — speak about who this new man is.
5. Pelosi, Wasserman Schultz, and other Democratic Party leaders told him he had to get the hell out of sight, and he followed orders.
6. Weiner is not really going into treatment. He just needs some time by himself, with his computer, and his wiener.
"Woo Hoo! Feingold at Walkerville tonight, maybe my other honey Jon Erpenbach will be there too!"
"I do love rubbing up against those two!"
In light of Weiner's Twitter troubles, it's fascinating to read a tweet like that.
ADDED: "A 5pm visit by former WI Sen/rockstar Russ Feingold will result in streets overflowing w/adulation."
So it's at 5. I'll try to get some pics of the idolators... and the rubbers-up-against.
IN THE COMMENTS: Shouting Thomas said:
In light of Weiner's Twitter troubles, it's fascinating to read a tweet like that.
ADDED: "A 5pm visit by former WI Sen/rockstar Russ Feingold will result in streets overflowing w/adulation."
So it's at 5. I'll try to get some pics of the idolators... and the rubbers-up-against.
IN THE COMMENTS: Shouting Thomas said:
Haven't read it, but this brings to mind the theme of Ann Coulter's new book, Demonic.Having heard Coulter discuss this book on the radio the other day, I'd had the same thought as I was writing this post. So I bought the book — you can buy it here — to extract some relevant material.
Manifestly, liberals fanatically worship their leaders. FDR, JFK, Clinton, Obama, even Hillary, Liz Holtzman, and John Lindsay—they’re all “rock stars” to Democrats. They’re the Beatles, Elvis, or Jesus, depending on which cliché liberals are searching for. As Le Bon says, the “primitive” black-and-white emotions of a crowd slip easily into “infatuation for an individual.”Le Bon is Gustave Le Bon, who wrote a book "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" (1895), which Coulter relies on heavily. Back to Coulter:
The most Reagan-besotted conservative would never seriously refer to his presidency with something as hokey as “Camelot.” But in the bizarro-world of the Democrats’ Camelot cult, all we ever hear about is the youth, the vigor, the glamour, the “Kennedy mystique,” and the rest of the cant.... Bill Clinton was called a rock star often, the expression “rock star” [is] the most irritating cliché of the century....
Eleanor Clift described the doughy Clinton-Gore team as “the all-beefcake ticket,” gasping that she was “struck by the expanse of their chests”... The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn said women identified with Clinton because of “the softness, the sensitivity, the vulnerability, that kind of thing.”... An infatuated Jonathan Alter babbled in Newsweek about the Clinton hug: “Bill Clinton hugs other men. It’s not a bear hug, usually—more like a Full Shoulder Squeeze. Women get it, too, but the gesture is more striking in its generational freshness when applied to the same sex....”
When Obama came along, guess who liberals started having sex dreams about?... The New York Times’s Judith Warner reported, “Many women—not too surprisingly—were dreaming about sex with the president.”... The Obamas, Warner wrote, were “a beacon of hope, inspiration and ‘demigodlikeness.’ ”...
NBC’s Matt Lauer noted that “people” have called Obama “ ‘The Savior,’ ‘The Messiah,’ ‘The Messenger of Change.’ ” Try to imagine conservatives coming up with such honorifics for Dwight Eisenhower. Being rational individuals, conservatives don’t turn their political leaders into religious icons. Liberals, by contrast, having all the primitive behaviors of a mob, idolize politicians.
Dog Fight in China.
It's eaters vs. lovers in a melee on the highway:
The mutts were destined for the dinner table - all 520 of them crammed onto a truck hurtling down a Beijing highway toward waiting restaurants in northeastern China.In China, poor people have been eating dogs for a long time and keeping a pet dog is an activity associated with the rich. Rescuing dogs might seem to us like championing the weak, but in China, the strong vs. weak argument is flipped, because the dog eaters are the poor, and the dog lovers are the pet-owning rich. Or so it seems.
Then fate intervened in the form of a passing driver, an animal lover who spotted the truck and angrily forced it off the road.
From there, things began spiraling out of control. News of the confrontation hit the Chinese blogosphere, sending more than 200 animal activists flocking immediately to the highway. Traffic on the road slowed to a standstill. Dozens of police officers were called in. Animal activists, however, kept arriving with reinforcements, carrying water, dog food, even trained veterinarians for a siege that ended up lasting 15 hours....
The mob of dog lovers finally won the standoff by pooling together more than $17,000 to pay off the truck driver. But their victory was quickly eclipsed when they soon realized they had no idea where to house the hundreds of loud, wild and decidedly not-housebroken canines....
[D]og transporter Hao Xiaomao said he lost a small fortune, more than $3,000, after being forced into the deal. Worst of all, because he failed to deliver, no one has been willing to hire him since.
"I still don't understand what was immoral about my shipment. People also eat cow and sheep. What's the difference?" he asked. "They were just a group of rich bullies who own pets and have nothing better to do."...
June 11, 2011
Nancy Pelosi and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz call on Weiner to resign.
CNN reports.
UPDATE: "Rep. Anthony Weiner is asking for a temporary leave of absence from the House while he seeks professional treatment in the wake of his Twitter scandal. A spokeswoman for the New York Democrat says he has left for professional treatment and will focus on 'becoming a better husband and healthier person.'"
Oh! He went into treatment mode! The old "it's a addiction" gambit.
AND: Please remember that I said it at 2:12 p.m., Central Time, on June 6th, the moment I heard that Weiner was going to do that press conference that turned out to be his confession:
ALSO: Here's 13 seconds of me giving that credit:
UPDATE: "Rep. Anthony Weiner is asking for a temporary leave of absence from the House while he seeks professional treatment in the wake of his Twitter scandal. A spokeswoman for the New York Democrat says he has left for professional treatment and will focus on 'becoming a better husband and healthier person.'"
Oh! He went into treatment mode! The old "it's a addiction" gambit.
AND: Please remember that I said it at 2:12 p.m., Central Time, on June 6th, the moment I heard that Weiner was going to do that press conference that turned out to be his confession:
My prediction — and you heard it here first! — is that he'll announce he's entering treatment for sex addiction.Then, when he did not do that I said, that day:
I think Weiner did a fine job of coming clean, taking responsibility, and apologizing. I had predicted that he would "announce he's entering treatment for sex addiction. Possibly with a grim/stoical Huma Abedin at his side." I'm glad he didn't do that. He didn't blame anybody else or any "outside force." He didn't use the nonapology "sorry if you were offended" form.But there was something more, and he needed to do more, and went ahead and did what I predicted he'd do and what I'd given him credit for not doing.
Now, it seemed pretty obvious that he would have continued deceiving us if he could have gotten away with it, but having made the decision to confess and apologize, he did that well. Of course, I'm assuming that there is nothing more to this story than what he spilled today.
ALSO: Here's 13 seconds of me giving that credit:
"A huge chunk of affordable housing progress will be wiped out with just this one bill... This is very, very bad."
The GOP state legislature is about to trump Madison's restrictions on landlords:
The bill's critics say the loss of these protections will reverse decades of efforts to help people in Madison afford decent housing and avoid homelessness. They say that the city regulations helped keep the actions of inconsiderate, unscrupulous and even biased property owners who cared more about milking the value of their properties than the rights of their tenants in check, especially important given the high numbers of young student renters here....The newspaper — The Capital Times — passes along an assertion about how landlords "typically view" people. With "minorities" thrown in as if state and federal law didn't clearly make it illegal for landlords to discriminate based on race and ethnicity.
Advocates predict that bigger landlords in the city with more desirable housing stock will use the screening tools handed to them by the new state law to “keep certain people out,” as Konkel puts it, while smaller landlords with deteriorating properties will accept the tenants nobody else wants.
People typically viewed as problem tenants include minorities with criminal records, undocumented immigrants without Social Security numbers, people on public assistance, and people with disabilities on fixed incomes, say advocates.
Women in shorts.
In the office. These are supposed to be business suits. Presented seriously by the Wall Street Journal.
If you're getting this dressed up, what is the advantage of shorts? It makes no sense. And it looks awful even on these hyper-skinny models. (Also: Are legs like that considered attractive now? How did that happen?)
If you're getting this dressed up, what is the advantage of shorts? It makes no sense. And it looks awful even on these hyper-skinny models. (Also: Are legs like that considered attractive now? How did that happen?)
"We were advised to start dressing him like a girl, at the age of six! We didn't know where to start."
Intersexed in Kenya.
"Sometimes I feel like committing suicide because it is very difficult when you are rejected by a whole community and also I am jobless," [says the father of the child]....
Having no stable source of income, he sought help from the American embassy.
A doctor came in 2009 from the United States to perform the surgery on young Wesley who required multiple surgeries. The doctor was supposed to return last year to complete the surgery but he didn't.
"[I]n case you were wondering where the domestic-surveillance component of Wisconsin's continued slouch toward East Berlin was, there you are."
Anti-Walkerites are disturbed that Wisconsin law enforcement is monitoring social media to learn of plans to for direct action like storming the state Capitol. But I think it would be incompetent not to pay attention to these things.
Hey, people, Twitter and Facebook are public speech — quite visible and searchable. The notion that you have an expectation of privacy there is sheer lunacy.
Ask Anthony Weiner.
Hey, people, Twitter and Facebook are public speech — quite visible and searchable. The notion that you have an expectation of privacy there is sheer lunacy.
Ask Anthony Weiner.
"Norman Redlich, Ex-Dean of N.Y.U. Law School, Dies at 85."
The NYT reports. Redlich was the Dean of the law school when I was a student there, and he was my teacher in Conlaw2 (a course I now teach). From the obituary:
RIP.
He helped Jane Jacobs defeat Robert Moses’ plan to build a four-lane highway through Washington Square Park in the late 1950s — brokering an unlikely alliance between Ms. Jacobs, the urban theorist, and Carmine De Sapio, the Tammany boss, that eventually saw not only Moses’ plan killed, but all vehicular traffic banished from the park.What a hero!
He negotiated the deal in which the City of New York bought and renovated Yankee Stadium in 1971, when the team’s owners had threatened to leave and Mayor John V. Lindsay resolved to make them stay.Again, a hero.
[In 1963, Redlich became] executive assistant to the Warren Commission’s chief counsel, J. Lee Rankin. In that job, he and several other staff lawyers, including Arlen Specter, the future Pennsylvania senator, devised the single-bullet theory...A more ambiguous accomplishment. It resolved everything, but the resolution could never be fully accepted.
The widespread doubt cast on the theory in later years caused Mr. Redlich to tell a Congressional subcommittee reviewing the commission’s findings in 1977, “I think there are simply a great many people who cannot accept what I believe to be the simple truth, that one rather insignificant person was able to assassinate the president of the United States.”
RIP.
"Democrats may join GOP in fielding 'fake' candidates in recalls."
Ha ha ha ha. After expressing outrage over a Republican tactic, the Democrats want to do it too.
A reading for the day. From Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":
A coalition of union groups active in state Senate recalls now advocates that Democrats field fake Republican candidates to run in primary elections against GOP state senators - just as Republicans are fielding fake Democrats to run against those who challenging GOP incumbents.Yeah, one option is to denounce the Republicans who use this nefarious tactic, and the other option is to use it yourself. Just weigh your options, and use the one that you think it more likely to work!
Friday evening, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin issued a statement that neither endorsed nor ruled out the idea, saying the party will "review the options available."
Adopting the fake-Republican strategy might be difficult for Democrats to explain.Well, the fact that you've already started using option #1 is one thing to take into account as you weigh your options. That adds weight to option #1, but option #2 might still weigh more heavily.
Just Thursday, the party sent a statement from Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) attacking Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) over the fact that a fake Democrat, Gladys Huber, had surfaced to run against Pasch in a Democratic primary July 12, potentially forcing an Aug. 9 general recall election.
"We deserve better than dirty tricks that would make Nixon proud," Pasch was quoted as saying. "Given how much taxpayer money will be wasted on this cynical ploy, Sen. Darling's hypocrisy is stunning."
***
A reading for the day. From Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals":
Life and how you live it is the story of means and ends. The end is what you want, and the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. The real arena is corrupt and bloody. Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
Romney and Huntsman — the 2 Mormons in the Republican race — are avoiding the Iowa straw poll.
As NYT presents it, they don't see the advantage in exposing themselves to the judgment of evangelical Christians:
But there are signs that [Iowa's] influence on the nominating process could be ebbing and that the nature of the voters who tend to turn out for the Republican caucuses — a heavy concentration of evangelical Christians and ideological conservatives overlaid with parochial interests — is discouraging some candidates from competing there....It's distressing to see this conflation of conservatism and prejudice. It's one thing if Iowan Republicans tend to go for someone with a stronger message of social conservatism, quite another if they are hostile to Mormons. Plenty of Mormons are social conservatives, and it just happens that the 2 Mormons in the race are not social conservatives. Can we get some serious research on this point? It's a dangerous thing to allow insinuations of religious bigotry to seep into the public consciousness. I can't tell if the Times is really against bigotry or not. If you portray Iowan religious conservatives as anti-Mormon, in one way, it seems anti-bigotry. But it's also inviting us to feel hostility toward the Iowan evangelicals.
[L]ike Mr. Romney, Mr. Huntsman is a Mormon, a religion viewed with wariness by some conservative Christians....
Mr. Romney’s decision, in particular, suggests that candidates who are viewed suspiciously by the state’s religious conservatives may stand little chance there....
June 10, 2011
New victims of the Joplin tornado have died with a rare fungal infection that is caused by dirt trapped under the skin.
Inadequately cleaned wounds were stitched up quickly, in makeshift facilities:
A week after the tornado, patients began arriving with fungal infections.
"We could visibly see mold in the wounds," Dr. [Uwe] Schmidt said. "It rapidly spread. The tissue dies off and becomes black. It doesn't have any circulation. It has to be removed."...
"This fungus invades the underlying tissue and actually invades the underlying blood vessels and cuts off the circulation to the skin," he said. "It's very invasive."
"Nate Thoma stood up in a Delaware bankruptcy court last December in a sharkskin suit and delivered a 24-minute argument that changed the course of one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history."
The Wall Street Journal reports on the 33-year-old investor with no legal experience who had thought Judge Mary Walrath wouldn't listen to what he had to say:
"But halfway through, I noticed she was paying attention," he says. "I realized she was going to let me go on, and I went for broke."...
But this battle is likely to be his last. He says that despite his success, his experience has left him disillusioned.
"The thrill is gone," he says. "It's such a big game, [individuals] just can't compete. I'm picking up freelance Web work again."
"Heart you, heart your passion, and as always, heart your balls!"
Another Weiner sexter is revealed.
UPDATE: "Anthony Weiner admits contact with girl, 17." He says that his messages with her were "neither explicit nor indecent."
UPDATE: "Anthony Weiner admits contact with girl, 17." He says that his messages with her were "neither explicit nor indecent."
"In a devastating act of ultimate revenge, a dying Elizabeth Edwards recorded a bombshell secret videotape for prosecutors..."
"... nailing her cheating husband John as he will stand trial on charges that could land him behind bars for 30 years."
Says the National Enquirer. I don't see how this can this be admissible at trial, given the hearsay rule. It's not within the exception in the Federal Rules for a "Statement under belief of impending death":
Says the National Enquirer. I don't see how this can this be admissible at trial, given the hearsay rule. It's not within the exception in the Federal Rules for a "Statement under belief of impending death":
In a prosecution for homicide or in a civil action or proceeding, a statement made by a declarant while believing that the declarant's death was imminent, concerning the cause or circumstances of what the declarant believed to be impending death.Say what you will about John Edwards, he wasn't the cause of Elizabeth's death.
"Palin Wanted a Tanning Bed in the Governor's House."
The NYT is picking through the Sarah Palin email oeuvre, and that's the first nonscandal extracted from the 24,000 printed pages.
Sarah Palin's tanned good looks may have gotten a bit of help.The outrage! How can we trust a politician who would hide the source of her skin coloration?
An e-mail from the manager of the governor's house to Ms. Palin in early 2008 makes clear that Ms. Palin had inquired about the possibility of installing a tanning bed in the house.
"Even if scandal-stained Rep. Anthony Weiner didn't want to stay in office, he needs to stay in office."
The NY Post explains:
I think this means he'll stay in Congress, at least until 2012. I'm glad about that. I want politicians to weather these sexual scandals. There must be hundreds of them waiting to burst out, and if Weiner is destroyed, it means all those other men with their Twitter and Facebook peccadilloes are sweating it out and susceptible to blackmail and various other manipulations.
Unlike many of his peers in the House, Weiner doesn't have a business or even a law degree to fall back on.
Weiner, 46, took home $156,117 in 2010, according to his federal tax returns released by his staff. His humiliated wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, earned $154,000 in 2009, federal records show....Wow. Any ideas for jobs for him? Does this affect your analysis of whether Huma should leave him (if you stoop to analyzing things like that)?
[H]e could grovel to cable TV execs for talking-head "analyst" gigs...
I think this means he'll stay in Congress, at least until 2012. I'm glad about that. I want politicians to weather these sexual scandals. There must be hundreds of them waiting to burst out, and if Weiner is destroyed, it means all those other men with their Twitter and Facebook peccadilloes are sweating it out and susceptible to blackmail and various other manipulations.
When will this blog move out of Blogger onto the independent website at althou.se?
You may be wondering. We're ready to go except for the project of uploading all the old posts and comments onto the new Althouse. (The blog will still be called Althouse. It's just the URL that's changing to althou.se — instead of althouse.blogspot.com.)
Here's what's taking some time. I'm not just starting on a new site and leaving the old posts and comments back here. It will all be over there (and the old stuff will remain here too). The Althouse blog will remain a single, unified opus at the new site. You'll be able to search, click on tags, and browse the archive and get everything all the way back to January 14, 2004, the day this blog began.
At this point in the process of exporting the blog, the great people who are doing all the technical work for me have done nearly all the posts, but there are a whole lot more comments to go. They've exported 23,549 out of 23,599 post, but only 15,262 out of 989,369 comments. It's a big deal to move that much stuff, but moving it all is important to me. Not just the posts, but also the comments. We could go to the new blog much more quickly if I exported only the posts, and preserved the posts with the comments Blogger site, but I don't want that. There are tons of wonderful comments, and they're all coming with me to "Sweden." I'm not going without them. Which means we can't go live until next week.
Isn't it cool that there are nearly 1 million comments on this blog? I wonder what the best comment of all time. The most momentous one for me is: "Meade, this is HUGE! Meade....?" (Explained here.)
I think I will be able to identify the millionth comment, by the way, so keep commenting.
Here's what's taking some time. I'm not just starting on a new site and leaving the old posts and comments back here. It will all be over there (and the old stuff will remain here too). The Althouse blog will remain a single, unified opus at the new site. You'll be able to search, click on tags, and browse the archive and get everything all the way back to January 14, 2004, the day this blog began.
At this point in the process of exporting the blog, the great people who are doing all the technical work for me have done nearly all the posts, but there are a whole lot more comments to go. They've exported 23,549 out of 23,599 post, but only 15,262 out of 989,369 comments. It's a big deal to move that much stuff, but moving it all is important to me. Not just the posts, but also the comments. We could go to the new blog much more quickly if I exported only the posts, and preserved the posts with the comments Blogger site, but I don't want that. There are tons of wonderful comments, and they're all coming with me to "Sweden." I'm not going without them. Which means we can't go live until next week.
Isn't it cool that there are nearly 1 million comments on this blog? I wonder what the best comment of all time. The most momentous one for me is: "Meade, this is HUGE! Meade....?" (Explained here.)
I think I will be able to identify the millionth comment, by the way, so keep commenting.
Weiner "had a style that wore people down."
“So now, when he needs help, there is no one who is there, not even Democrats."
Says Peter T. King. Peter King. Here he is relating to Weiner last July:
Who would you rather have representing you?
Says Peter T. King. Peter King. Here he is relating to Weiner last July:
Who would you rather have representing you?
"And here’s the scintillating Bob Hope, whose theme song is 'Thanks for the Communist.'"
Leonard B. Stern, the creator of Mad Libs always remembered that one, from back in the 1950s.
Mad Libs was conceived in 1953, when Mr. Stern was writing a script for “The Honeymooners.” As he recounted in interviews afterward, he was casting about for a particular word. His friend Roger Price, a humor writer, happened by.Leonard Stern, dead at 88.
“I need an adjective,” Mr. Stern said.
Mr. Price obligingly supplied two: “clumsy” and “naked.”
Mr. Stern laughed out loud. The word was intended to describe the nose of Ralph Kramden’s boss.
His love for "I Only Have Eyes For You" by The Flamingos must be a kind of blind love.
Jaltcoh says: "I almost regret finding this, since I've been watching it compulsively over and over. It might not be the best song ever, but it's at least in the running."
This lushly romantic old song makes an interesting soundtrack to the news of the last couple weeks. Why didn't Anthony Weiner only have eyes for Huma Abedin? You could say that if he'd stuck to sexting — i.e., writing — he'd have saved his eyes for her. But he only started the writing when he liked the woman's photograph.
Is there really any love so fixated on one woman that the man can't even see other women? What a grand fantasy of love! I have no idea if this is the best song ever, but it is surely in the running as the song that creates the most unrealistic expectation of what love will be like.
This lushly romantic old song makes an interesting soundtrack to the news of the last couple weeks. Why didn't Anthony Weiner only have eyes for Huma Abedin? You could say that if he'd stuck to sexting — i.e., writing — he'd have saved his eyes for her. But he only started the writing when he liked the woman's photograph.
Is there really any love so fixated on one woman that the man can't even see other women? What a grand fantasy of love! I have no idea if this is the best song ever, but it is surely in the running as the song that creates the most unrealistic expectation of what love will be like.
Gates to NATO: America is getting sick of fighting for you people who won't defend yourselves.
I'm paraphrasing. Actual quote:
The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress — and in the American body politic writ large — to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense
"Brooklyn thieves chop down sizeable shade tree to steal $50 bike."
That's the headline in the Daily News, for a story about a viral security-cam video. "Steal" should have been in quotes, because they don't even want the bike. One of them rides it for a 5 seconds then leaves it next to the chopped down ginkgo tree.
The sorry saga was captured on security camera video then posted on YouTube, where viewers from coast to coast posted unkind things about the Brooklyn boobs.I clicked through to see what people had written, but comments have been disabled, and all the old comments are all deleted.
June 9, 2011
"Weiner is the modern, high functioning man."
Writes Alec Baldwin:
[Weiner] is a very busy man.... He exists under a constant pressure cooker of self-analysis and public appraisal. Like other politicians, he needs something to take the edge off. For some people, regardless of occupation, that could mean booze, drugs, gambling, food or shopping. For high functioning men like Weiner and other officials who have lived through such scandals, who are constantly on the go, that leaves one tried and true source of a reliable high. The affirmation that comes when someone lets you know they want to sleep with you. Or even cyber-sleep with you.It's so sad, isn't it? Baldwin feels sorry for Weiner... and for the modern man.
This is sex for many people now.... No time for slowly moving toward one another with a combination of hope and caution, lust and integrity. One can push a button and get something beyond porn. Porn is essentially two dimensional. One sees and hears. Internet sexting can be perceived as three dimensional by adding the component of "feel", regardless of how cheap and unearned those feelings are. That person on the screen is doing whatever they're doing... just for you.....
We tell ourselves that these devices help us communicate more effectively. What they actually do is allow us to bypass the person lying right next to us, across the room from us or at an airport heading home to us, in order to meet our immediate, even inconvenient, needs. To bypass their moods, their current view of us and their own desires, or lack thereof.
"Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in talks to become the president of the World Bank..."
Hmmm.
ADDED: So... Hillary disaggregates herself from Obama, moves off to a lofty and distant place, from which she can observe American political events unfolding, and... if it becomes necessary, if Obama implodes or goes LBJ on us, she is there, ready to be the Democratic candidate for President in 2012.
ADDED: So... Hillary disaggregates herself from Obama, moves off to a lofty and distant place, from which she can observe American political events unfolding, and... if it becomes necessary, if Obama implodes or goes LBJ on us, she is there, ready to be the Democratic candidate for President in 2012.
At the Kafe Kohoutek...
... it's all so unexpected.
(The photograph is something the camera took on its own, as I was sliding the cover closed. It looks like comets so I called this café post "Kohoutek" after the wonderfully overhyped comet that seemed, at the time — do you remember? — to symbolize the lameness of Gerald Ford. I wrote Kafe Kohoutek instead of Kohoutek Café for this café post — a "café post" is just an open thread — because there used to be a really cool restaurant here in Madison called Kafe Kohoutek. That was back in the '90s. The name was a wry reference back to the fizzled comet, 90s nostalgia for the 70s. And here I am now, in the 10s, reminiscing about the 70s and the 90s, all because my camera had a mind of its own.)
Gingrich implodes.
"Newt Gingrich’s top staff quit en masse Thursday...."
ADDED: Roger L. Simon writes:
AND: Callista was the problem! So says Fred Barnes:
Gingrich was intent on using technology and standing out at debates to get traction while his advisers believed he needed to run a campaign that incorporated both traditional, grassroots techniques as well as new ideas.IN THE COMMENTS: EDH said: "Here's Calista Gingrich to tell us what she thinks":
One official said the last straw came when Gingrich went forward with taking a long-planned cruise with his wife last week in the Greek isles....
ADDED: Roger L. Simon writes:
Two of the key operatives who just left Gingrich’s staff -Dave Carney and Rob Johnson – have been major advisers to Gov. Rick Perry. Does this mean Perry is about to jump in the presidential race? Sure looks like it.
AND: Callista was the problem! So says Fred Barnes:
Aides to Newt Gingrich have resigned from his presidential campaign in protest of what they felt was a takeover by Callista Gingrich, the candidate’s wife since 2000.
"A Muslim woman from Saudi Arabia and a Jewish native of Brooklyn — 'the future of the world to be.'"
That was Bill Clinton's wedding toast to Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner last July.
Oh, that's an unfortunate prophecy for the world!
Oh, that's an unfortunate prophecy for the world!
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