Windmill Tilter

The new Green Day album just kills me. At the same time raw and creative and somehow as good as the Clash. The best is a beautiful masterpiece in the middle called Jesus of Suburbia that is an ode to seventies arena rock with its change of pace and lyric structure. And better. I haven't been this excited to listen to an album since Siamese Dream. So both subtely and overtly political. He even sings like Ben Folds at one point in the song. This part of Jesus of Suburbia is a perfect explanation of a bad person finally realizing he is bad. The shame we all feel for the minor things we do, blown up to George W. Bush size.

To live and not to breathe, Is to die In tragedy

To run, to run away, To find what you believe

And I leave behind, This hurricane of fucking lies

I lost my faith to this, This town that don't exist

So I run I run away, To the light of masochist

And I leave behind, This hurricane of fucking lies

And I walked this line, A million and one fucking times, But not this time

This album is as great (and GOOD) as any ever. They somehow managed to take the next step that so many bands are expected to take but never do. I am just in awe of anyone who can do anything this well.

I really think there is a distinction between the Hitler remarks made by Byrd and Santorum. Byrd makes a decent, if awkward, reductio ad absurdam-esque type point, while Santorum makes a completely gratuitous comparison between two unrelated things.

Santorum said on the Senate floor May 19 that Democratic complaints about the "nuclear option" to ban judicial filibusters are "the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying: I'm in Paris, how dare you invade me, how dare you bomb my city. It's mine." Even after co-host Alan Colmes quoted the remark on the May 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes and former Reagan Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who appeared as a guest on the show, called it inappropriate, Hannity declined to condemn it. Rather, he accused Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) of having a "meltdown" for declaring in Senate debate that the "radical right" is seeking to "take over the independent judiciary," and rehashed disparaging remarks Kennedy made about Bork in 1987.

Byrd referenced Hitler in the filibuster debate on March 1 by exclaiming that, like proposed Republican efforts to ban judicial filibusters, "Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality. ... Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal." Hannity responded on the March 2 edition of Hannity & Colmes by calling Byrd "unhinged," condemning his Hitler remarks as "atrocious" and "disgraceful," asking, "Could a Republican ever get away with comparing Democrats to Adolf Hitler?"

At first this didn't strike me as that ridiculous, but I guess I'm just used to this kind of intermingling by now. The more I thought about it, though...

The associate commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Andrew Biggs – who’s currently on loan, working out of the White House – edited Max’s now-not-so-nonpartisan testimony, making corrections, ensuring it matched the Bush line. Max forgot to erase the evidence of White House involvement in his “independent” testimony.

One of the most straight-forward and convincing explanations of the "nucular option" I have seen from the great Talking Points Memo, in full:

As we wait on the sidelines for the seemingly inevitable chain reaction to take place on the senate floor, it is worth observing and considering the fact that every Republican senator certainly knows that the proposition they're about to attest to is quite simply a lie. Perhaps they have so twisted their reasoning as to imagine it is a noble lie. But it's a lie nonetheless. What do I mean? Whether you call it the 'nuclear option', the 'constitutional option' or whatever other phrase the GOP word-wizards come up with, what "it" actually is is this: the Republican caucus, along with the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, will find that filibustering judicial nominations is in fact in violation of the constitution. (Just to be crystal clear, what the senate is about to do is not changing their rules. They are about to find that their existing rules are unconstitutional, thus getting around the established procedures by which senate rules can be changed.) Their reasoning will be that the federal constitution requires that the president makes such nominations "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" and that that means an up or down vote by the full senate. Nobody believes that. Not Dick Cheney, not any member of the Republican Senate caucus. For that to be true stands not only the simple logic of the constitution, but two hundred years of our constitutional history, on its head. You don't even need to go into the fact that other judicial nominations have been filibustered, or that many others have been prevented from coming to a vote by invocation of various other senate rules, both formal and informal, or that almost countless numbers of presidential nominees of all kinds have simply never made it out of committee. Indeed, the whole senate committee system probably cannot withstand this novel and outlandish interpretation of the constitution, since one of its main functions is to review presidential appointees before passing them on to the full senate. Quite simply, the senate is empowered by the constitution to enact its own rules. You can think the filibuster is a terrible idea. And you may think that it should be abolished, as indeed it can be through the rules of the senate. And there are decent arguments to made on that count. But to assert that it is unconstitutional because each judge does not get an up or down vote by the entire senate you have to hold that the United States senate has been in more or less constant violation of the constitution for more than two centuries. For all the chaos and storm caused by this debate, and all that is likely to follow it, don't forget that the all of this will be done by fifty Republican senators quite knowingly invoking a demonstrably false claim of constitutionality to achieve something they couldn't manage by following the rules. This is about power; and, to them, the rules quite simply mean nothing.

Link:

So now there's a bunch of right-wingers who are pitching the desecrated Koran riot story with the line "Newsweek Lied, People Died." Get it? It's funny, because it's making fun of what all the anti-war people said when 1,700 Americans were killed based on lies they were warned about but didn't listen to. What, don't you have a fucking sense of humor? This isn't even not caring. It's beyond not caring. It's taking pride in not caring.

This morning Air America played a promo for the station recorded by Charles Barkley. I really hope this makes Rush Limbaugh seethe. Years ago, when I was an avid listener of Rush (which lasted pretty much up until a couple of years ago) Rush talked approvingly of Barkley and one of his many un-PC statements (probably regarding the fact that he lived in Phoenix while Arizona did not have a MLK holiday and didn't care). Rush seemed desperate to recruit/brand Barkley as a conservative. I remember thinking, "Has Rush ever listened to this guy talk when he's saying non-conservative things?" Rush even went so far as to call him a "milk dud" and to opine that Barkley should hire an agent named "Whitey". Rush on Letterman:

LIMBAUGH: So, but I learned how the real world worked. I met people I would have otherwise not met. I've gotten to know Charles Barkley of the Phoenix Suns, Paul Westphal.

LETTERMAN: This seems like an unlikely combination, you and Charles Barkley. Here is a guy --

LIMBAUGH: Milk Dud Head. (laughter) That's what he calls himself. You've got to know him to be able to call him that, and I do, so I can get away with it.

LETTERMAN: But he's got kind of an attitude. Every two or three weeks he's punching somebody.

LIMBAUGH: No. Let me tell you about Charles Barkley. He's become the best at what he is and what he does. He did it without any help, he did it overcoming a lot of obstacles, and he admires others who have done that, and, of course, I am one, and so we have this natural affinity for one another. We have a lot of things -- well, I've overcome my obstacles too, and am still in the process of overcoming them -- some in this audience, it sounds like -- but that's all right, that's all right. (laughter and applause)

LETTERMAN: See, I don't think you want to know. Everything is fine. Don't do that. Because then, you know, the next thing you know, we'll be wrestling up here, and we don't want to be wrestling, do we?

LIMBAUGH: No. Why would we do that? Not with you.

LETTERMAN: All right. So now so tell me about Charles Barkley -- No, no, not with me. Oh, never mind. -- Charles Barkley, your relationship with Charles, and he is interested in politics.

LIMBAUGH: He wants to run for Governor of Alabama. Now, it's interesting about Charles, one thing you've got to understand, when he says things like, "I'm thinking of quitting," or, "I want to run for Governor of Alabama," at that moment his agent is upstairs renegotiating an extension of his contract.

LETTERMAN: Right, of course.

LIMBAUGH: But if he is serious about this, I would like to pledge my services to him. I would like to be his campaign manager, and I think if he is going to go to Alabama and run for governor, he needs a guy named Whitey. I will change my name to Whitey, and I will be his campaign manager, and I'll let him run for governor, and we'll win, we'll win.

LETTERMAN: Okay, all right, okay.

LIMBAUGH: Now, you can do that with Charles, you see, you can do that.

He might as well just say, "See, I have a black friend, I can't be racist!" The fact is that Barkley is an incredibly nuanced and savvy public figure who played Rush. It seems to me that he is evolving into a more progressive person. Take this from 2002:

Asked whether women deserve to be members at Augusta National Golf Course, Barkley said, "No, because it's a private club. It's not a public place. Most of the golf courses I play have no black members, a lot of them don't have Jewish members, and some of them don't have women. They don't want them. I mean, that is the ultimate good-old-boy network." Not exactly The Fire Next Time.

And compare it to what he said on Costas NOW this week on HBO. No transcript available so I'll summarize. Costas confronted him with a quote Barkley uttered about the golf establishment trying to keep down Tiger Woods because he's black by lengthening the courses. When Costas pointed out that this probably helped Tiger more than hit hurt him and asked Barkley if he wanted to retract what he said, Barkley said that he would never take back a criticism of golf's racism.

So it turns out that Ridge was just another clown in the administration who was saying and doing whatever was necessary to not piss off his bosses:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says. Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

Just as others have done, he moved into an industry which he played a hand in enriching while he was in office:

In February 2005, Tom Ridge was named to the board of Home Depot. Critics of Ridge question this move, noting that Home Depot experienced a highly profitable run on duct tape and plastic sheeting after Ridge's controversial 2003 announcement proclaiming these items to be viable protection from chemical weapons. Many Home Depot stores set up Homeland Security product displays near the front of the store in response.

It's not the most serious transgression, and it strikes one as amateurish (especially when compared to cynically profiting off of a war, and of course there is the inverse), but he should nonetheless be commended for trying. Good effort Mr. Ridge.

a very long time ago:

The "Hillary moves to the center" story line dovetails perfectly with this character attack. How far will Clinton "go to become president"? So far that she'll radically change what she believes. When Clinton recently said that religion played a central role in her life, New York Conservative Party leader Michael Long told the New York Times, "All of a sudden she is saying she has these deep convictions. . . . I don't believe that. It's clear to me that she is getting ready to launch her candidacy for presidency, and she will become whatever she has to become to appeal to centrist voters." Implicitly endorsing that view, the Times headline read, "As Clinton Shifts Themes, Debate Arises On Her Motives." But she wasn't shifting themes at all. In May 1993, in a long profile in the same New York Times, Clinton spoke at length about her Christian youth group, about theologians such as Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and about her guest sermons for the United Methodist Church. "She is moved," wrote Michael Kelly, "by the impatient conviction that moderates and liberals have wanly surrendered the adjective 'religious' to the right." That was 12 years ago.

Recently, a few people have asked me if I think Hillary would be a good candidate in '08, and I think I feel exactly this way:

Enough is enough. On a purely tactical level, I think Senator Clinton is disastrous. As Peter Beinart writes, she's always been a centrist sort. But as Tim Graham makes clear, she'll never get any credit for it from anyone.

I would add only that part of the reason it would be disastrous is because she would be painted as a power-hungry feminist, which is right up there with a power-hungry gay man, in terms of the level of threat to the whacko agenda/definition of manliness. At least she'll be in her second term when she runs.

I don't care who you are, even if you're his son, you DON'T MESS WITH YAZ!

The son of Red Sox Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski stole his father's identity and ran up thousands of dollars in debt before he died last year.

I have the pleasure of working with the most paranoid person on the planet. He's also a rabid fundamentalist. I guess the two are unconnected. But this is a website, called spychips.com, he wanted me to check out, so I'm passing on his gift. According to my co-worker, this is how the Papal led worldwide devil conspiracy is going to control peoples' brains. I wish I were exaggerating. A little sample:

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification, a technology that uses tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track items at a distance. RFID "spy chips" have been hidden in the packaging of Gillette razor products and in other products you might buy at a local Wal-Mart, Target, or Tesco - and they are already being used to spy on people. ... This technology is rapidly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. Now RFID spy chips can even be printed, meaning the dot on a printed letter "i" could be used to track you. In addition, the tell-tale copper antennas commonly seen attached to RFID chips can now be printed with conductive ink, making them nearly imperceptible. Companies are even experimenting with making the product packages themselves serve as antennas.

No one said that "most rank and file troops" would commit the crimes Delgado saw. These pro-war advocates only want to believe it is so as to demonize us anti-american complainers. The issue is whether this behavior is acceptable and what the leadership should do to prevent it, and there should be more of a focus on the leadership's lack of accountability. But I suppose I hate our troops.

for the soldiers' actions with the coke bottles. The most common is that it's an isolated incident. Of course it is, if you only look for wide spread occurances of coke bottle-over-the-head-smashing. It cannot be denied anymore that abuses as a category (not the limited categories of pantie-head-placing, waterboarding, sleep depravation and the aforementioned coke bottle-over-the-head-smashing) are rampant. But I guess that's ok as long as you mix it up to keep it fresh.

If this is the level of proof that is required, it's no wonder that Fox News is popular. Outside the Beltway 'attacked' the Delgado story this way:

By his own admission, he didn't fit in well with his unit and it's not inconceivable that his tales are embellished. The fact that the unit in question is the 320th Military Police Company, though, gives credence to his account; they were involved in the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib.

This echoing monkey actually called the above 'analysis' a discrediting of Aidan Delgado's story.

As Malkin points out, a lot of bloggers have already discredited these stories. (See, for example, OTB, Juliette Ochieng and Blackfive.) I can't add to this and I won't go there. ... It's going to take a lot more than Delgado to make me believe that our armed forces are sadistic nutcases.

Here's a little tip: rational people don't believe that the armed forces as a whole are sadistic nutcases. But there is a reality here that must be faced, that being the fact that abuses are inevitable in ALL wars, especially under a leadership that condones it, so we should be reluctant to subject other peoples and ourselves to that reality. And when that leadership lies on top of all of that, well, it's just a no-brainer. I guess they never heard this definition of stupidity: doing the same thing, but expecting different results.

This man enlisted on Sept. 11 (although before the attacks), and their first response is to doubt him. The only way their doubts could be seen as rational is if there was no precident for this. Oh, now I remember, the Abu Ghraib scandal never happened or was just fraternity pranks. If this isn't the mark of a bully, what is? Here is a translation into rational people language: "Shut up, complainer. Why do you hate America? Why can't you just be the same?" I guess they won't be happy until the military is completely homoginous in its sensibility. No room for dissenters.

How can anyone feel deeply in their heart, as some I know do, that gwb can be trusted? He long ago lost the competence competition. What else does he have, a purdy haircut?

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States was too busy with wall-to-wall coverage of a "runaway bride" to cover a bombshell report out of the British newspapers," Conyers writes. "The London Times Reports that the British government and the United States government had secretly agreed to attack Iraq in 2002, before authorization was sought for such an attack in Congress, and had discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."