um, like ... dude!

In light of recent news, I'll revisit what I wrote a year ago, which any half-witted blogger could have predicted:

we see that Giuliani is outpolling the next three Republican candidates combined.

Once more, just so I’m clear about this, Giuliani will never never never win the Republican nomination for president in 2008. Never never never never. It’s simply not going to happen.

. . .

If he does manage to win the nomination, I will do a little celebratory dance in honor of Rudy, because it will mean that the Republican base has seen the error of its ways and agreed to relinquish the cultural direction of the country to Godless liberals like myself.

Of course, I apparently had my money on Brownback and Hagel. Looks like the Magic 8 Ball beats human powers of prediction once again.

Also, Clinton. Ick.

Sonata in Atrios, op. IOZ

Dear Jane,

They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t want to. They don’t share your priorities. They are not on your side. Cut them loose or lower your expectations.

Saludos,

yave

there will be blood

There will be interminable tedium. Consider yourself warned.

why lawyers are stoopid, or, why there's nothing ethical about legal ethics

Exhibit A:

For 10 years, Leslie P. Smith, a Virginia lawyer, reluctantly kept a secret because the authorities on legal ethics told him he had no choice, even though his information could save the life of a man on death row, one whose case had led to a landmark Supreme Court decision.

Mr. Smith believed that prosecutors had committed brazen misconduct by coaching a witness and hiding it from the defense, but the Virginia State Bar said he was bound by legal ethics rules not to bring up the matter. He shared his qualms and pangs of conscience with only one man, Timothy G. Clancy, who had worked on the case with him.

“Clancy and I, when we were alone together, would reminisce about this and more or less renew our vows of silence,” Mr. Smith told a judge last month. “We felt that there was nothing that could be done.”

But the situation changed last year, when Mr. Smith took one more run at the state bar’s ethics counsel. “I was upset by the conduct of the prosecutor,” Mr. Smith wrote in an anguished letter, “and the situation has bothered me ever since.”

Reversing course, the bar told Mr. Smith he could now talk, and he did. His testimony caused a state court judge in Yorktown, Va., to commute the death sentence of Daryl R. Atkins to life on Thursday, citing prosecutorial misconduct.

And I have to paste this next bit in the hope that the most improbably named law professor in the country gets quoted again sometime:

Ronald D. Rotunda, who teaches legal ethics at George Mason University, said the rules in Virginia were murky about what lawyers in Mr. Smith’s position could do. But if the bar’s initial advice was correct, Professor Rotunda added, “there is something wrong about the law, particularly if you are talking about execution or years in prison.”

I would have to agree.

a face in the crowd

Aw, shucks. If faithful Americans want to give their money to Creflo Dollar, I have no problem with that. It’s a free country, after all. What could be more American than enjoying the liberating experience of freely giving your money to a con man? Named with suspicious aptitude, this one has been particularly good at casting himself as a spiritual self-help guru. And yes, the reason I’m posting about this now is because I watched him for a bit on my teevee the other day. He is fascinating to listen to, and I say that in all seriousness. It makes me wish that Joseph Smith’s sermons could have been taped for posterity, so we could marvel today in the power and cleverness of his sheer, enveloping charisma. (Again being serious. Ok, now back to your normally scheduled sarcasm.) One wonders if Dollar will also manage to convince his congregants, as only the best of the pretenders have before him, that his favored position as God’s messenger endows him with a special exception to the blessed rule of monogamy imposed on the many.

If so, rest assured that you will read about it here shortly afterwards.

deep thoughts

First question: Is "rare show of bipartisanship" the dumbest phrase ever wrought by man or woman?

Discuss.

Second question: What prompts me from time to time to encourage my imaginary commenters to discuss these momentary but irrepressible convulsions of irritation known as blog posts, which they probably couldn't care less about and may not even understand? (assuming arguendo that these commenters existed at all):

(a) Unadulterated egomania, tempered by the distancing from normal life only achieved by the truly self-absorbed, and an endearing but pathetic tendency to adopt turns of phrase more meaningfully employed by bloggers with traffic on the scale of Texas/Canada rather than Uzbekistan/Wyoming.

(b) The maddening propensity of political reporters to seek compromise in every instance without respect to substance or principle, their habitual preference for coded cliché over concise transmission of useful information, their infuriating refusal to invert the pyramid (it’s supposed to be upside-down for a reason, goddammit), and their refusal to pick a fucking side once in a while.

(c) The New York Times is retarded.

(d) I am retarded.

(e) “Rare show of bipartisanship” is refreshing as the morning dew compared to the novel observation that “Mr. Bush’s approval ratings may be low, but the ratings of Congress are even lower.”

Turn your answers in when you're done and then you can leave early.

(Hint: It’s not D.)

shit, let's bomb 'em anyway

Via IOZ comes the revelation that the Hormuz incident may have stemmed from a prank:

A threatening radio message at the end of a video showing Iranian patrol boats swarming near U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf may have come from a prankster rather than from the Iranian vessels, the Navy Times newspaper has reported.

If this is true, two possibilities present themselves, neither very flattering to the military juggernaut we know and love:

(1) a nameless radio hacker fooled the best and smartest armed forces in the world into thinking he represented the government of Iran; or

(2) we weren't quite sure who was talking or what was going on but we stood ready to unleash massive, unprovoked destruction anyway, a la Joe Horn.

I'm sure we'll have another chance to start a new war in the Middle East soon enough. As it turns out, any excuse to pull the trigger (or none at all) will do just fine.

objectively pro-Franco

John Holbo makes the expected case for Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism as an exercise in projection. Here he quotes Jeet Heer:

Since its founding in 1955, National Review has been a haven for writers who are, if not fascists tout court, certainly fascist fellow travellers.

Let’s put it this way: if Woodrow Wilson and Hillary Clinton are fascists then what word do we have for those who admired Francisco Franco? When the Spanish tyrant died in 1975, National Review published two effusive obituaries. F.R. Buckley (brother to National Review founder William F. Buckley) hailed Franco as “a Spaniard out of the heroic annals of the nation, a giant. He will be truly mourned by Spain because with all his heart and might and soul, he loved his country, and in the vast context of Spanish history, did well by it.” James Burnham simply argued that “Francisco Franco was our century’s most successful ruler.” (Both quotes are from the November 21, 1975 issue). Aside from F.R. Buckley and Burnham, many of the early National Reviewers were ardent admirers of Franco’s Spain, which they saw as an authentically Catholic nation free from the vices supposedly gripping the United States and the northern European countries. National Review stalwarts like Frederick Wilhelmsen, Arnold Lunn, and L. Brent Bozell, Jr. made pilgrimages to Spain, finding spiritual nourishment in the dictatorship’s seemingly steadfast Catholicism.

The really twisted side National Review’s philo-fascism came through in 1961 when Israel captured Adolph Eichmann, a leading Nazi, and tried him for crimes against humanity. National Review did everything they could editorially to offer extenuating arguments against the prosecution of Eichmann, arguing that he was being subjected to a “show trial”, that this was post facto justice, that pursuing Nazi crimes would weaken the Western alliance and further the cause of communism. As the magazine editorialized on April 22, 1961, the trial of Eichmann was a “lurid extravaganza” leading to “bitterness, distrust, the refusal to forgive, the advancement of Communist aims, [and] the cultivation of pacifism.” (The editors didn’t consider that a mere 16 years after the death camps were liberated, a “refusal to forgive” the architects of genocide might be understandable).

Not to mention National Review’s odious editorializing through the years on race, and on race and genetics, in particular. And you don't have to go back very far at all to find a wholesale defense of Pinochet from several NRO contributors.

On one level, it’s ridiculous to participate in a discussion about such a ridiculous book, lending it some quota of buzzworthiness. But for a group of people who idealize the past so thoroughly, is it too much to ask that they not whitewash their own published not-so-distant history?

our Pakistan policy

Here are some disquieting thoughts from Jim Henley concerning bin Laden, Pakistan, and the absence of terrorist attacks [clarifying: attacks in the U.S.] since 2001.

top 10 movies of 2007

It's a relief to come back from the Christmas break to high-speed internet. I didn't realize how much I rely on it until I only had intermittent access to it for about a week.

To celebrate my personal gratitude for cable internet, here are my top 10 Movies of 2007 (in no particular order):

• Hot Fuzz
• American Gangster
• Lust, Caution
• Superbad
• Eastern Promises
• No Country for Old Men
• Ratatouille
• King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
• Knocked Up
• Tears of the Black Tiger (U.S. release)

Honorable Mention:

• Grindhouse
• Sicko
• Killer of Sheep (re-release)
• Taste of Tea

Haven’t yet seen, but want to:

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Once
• Rescue Dawn
• Fido
• There Will Be Blood
• Redacted
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Also, unrelatedly, I'll remark that Daft Punk's recent live album, fittingly titled "Alive," came into my possession yesterday and it's pretty freakin' cool. It replicates the concert at Coney Island I attended this summer, which was a mind-altering, religious experience of the sort that makes you feel like a teenager again, but in a good way. I hope they turn out to be the kind of band that stays around for decades, milking their glory days to sold-out crowds of balding middle managers, accountants, and attorneys. If they are that band, I will certainly be there, jiggling my paunch and waving my hands in the air with abandon.

Adding that I'll outsource the top albums of 2007 to my wife, who has probably already forgotten more about pop/rock music than I will ever manage to learn.

"shoot me in the head"

The best case for libertarianism I’ve seen so far, aside from the existence of Ioz’s blog, comes from the thread to this Dave Weigel Reason post on immigration and the GOP (via Immigration Prof Blog):

Taktix® | December 11, 2007, 6:51pm |

A Republican who pledges to put proximity mines on the border

No no no. Anyone who's played GoldenEye knows you have to put the mines on the bottom of platforms so the other players can't see them.

Duh!

No wonder Tancredo's polling so badly. He has no deathmatch skillz!

----------------------

Anonymo the Anonymous | December 11, 2007, 6:58pm |

Taktix, even that won't help us if the illegals find that grenade launcher hidden in the middle of the temple. That's why America must redouble our efforts to develop the Golden Gun.

----------------------

Taktix® | December 11, 2007, 7:00pm |

Taktix, even that won't help us if the illegals find that grenade launcher hidden in the middle of the temple. That's why America must redouble our efforts to develop the Golden Gun.

If only the government had invested in the Klobb, we'd all be better off...

Woe to the sad sap who got stuck with the Klobb against the RC-Pro or the laser. Every group of friends probably had one player who dominated the game. So did we—his name was Evan. He would hone his skills on his brothers. Around the house, he called the game “Shoot ‘em in the head,” while his brothers referred to it as “Shoot me in the head.” I played the game from the brothers’ perspective and spent most of my game time trying to avoid my friend and shoot the weaker players before he did (assuming there were any weaker than me, which wasn't always a valid assumption). Good times . . . I still remember the time my brother called in sick to work so we could play Goldeneye all afternoon.

hi, my name is Elder Jensen, and this is my companion, Elder Christensen

The missionaries came to my workplace the other day. They had heard through the grapevine that I had roots in Utah or was possibly an inactive member or whatever. They showed up at reception prepared to reestablish contact and bring me back into the fold. Or maybe they just had run out of more promising referrals for the week.

They were pitifully young—just babies, really. All my young life, I had thought of the missionaries as the pinnacle of manhood, full-fledged adults. Once you had completed a mission, nothing fazed you anymore, you could do anything. But the other day talking with them in my cubicle, I realized how young they are—just 19 or 20—barely out of high school. Hardly prepared for what they had been thrust into.

After they left, I told my coworker I felt like I’d been living the last ten years in the witness protection program, always looking over my shoulder for the mob, wondering if this would be the place they’d find me. In a way, I was relieved that they had finally caught up to me, and part of me wondered why it had taken so long. Was I really that easy to let go? I can see how having someone pay attention to you can be a powerful attraction. It’s like that guy everybody knows who hits on every woman he sees and 1 out of 20 responds favorably just because someone—anyone—is paying attention for once, and he’s so persistent, and he’s not that bad looking, it’s easier just to say yes …

Of course there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to their Christmas party. But it was nice of them to ask, if a bit creepy. I even turned the tables and made a pitch to them, handing them a bunch of my cards to give to their contacts and ward members. If I’m not mistaken, I thought as they left they might have been as relieved as I that our encounter was as brief as it was.

And apropos of nothing in particular, check out these RMs (“returned missionaries”) fully half-naked—it’s the Mormons Exposed pin-up calendar. My wife loves it! (Seriously, she bought one.)

evil yave

Well, I thought I'd put my email address up on the sidebar so people could email me if they wanted to. But now some numbnut has decided to use it to impersonate me to leave comments on other blogs. So down it comes until I figure out some other approach.

Q: Is there anything more frightening . . .

. . . than the four-foot tall animatronic Santa currently stationed in front of the olive bar at my grocery store?

Scary Santa
Originally uploaded by Jo Salmon
A: No, but the children seem to love it. When you walk by, he starts wobbling lecherously from side to side and singing “Up on the Rooftop,” in a terrifying basso profondo. Then any children within earshot stand transfixed while their parents remark how creepy Santa is this year.

I’ve seen the Pied Piper, and its name is Animatronic Santa.

Romney as Nephi

Here is a Romney "Mormon speech" react from a jaded Mormon who isn't me.

He's got some good points, but I'm more inclined towards Ezra's take. There should be no religious test for public office, full stop. I don't care what faith my elected officials belong to and I don't want to hear them talking about it on the job.

they can have my Eagle Scout medal back now

Boy Scout Memorial
Originally uploaded by jparakilas

The city of Philadelphia has terminated the Boy Scouts’ taxpayer-subsidized lease because of the group’s odious prohibition on gay members and atheists.

My advice to any Scout leaders in Philly who are contemplating litigation against the city: make sure you haven’t been touching your Scouts’ little soldiers, or you may achieve notoriety of the sort you may wish to avoid.

faithless

Another project born from Bush's mythical compassionate conservatism is struggling:

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a federal agency set up almost four years ago to reinvent foreign aid, has taken far longer to help poor, well-governed countries than its supporters expected or its critics say is reasonable.

The agency, a rare Bush administration proposal to be enacted with bipartisan support, has spent only $155 million of the $4.8 billion it has approved for ambitious projects in 15 countries in Africa, Central America and other regions.

Since the project has been so slow to get off the ground, the Senate is having second thoughts about approving funds that have already been promised to poor countries to encourage them to reform stagnant and corrupt oligarchic economies (qualifier: more stagnant, corrupt, and oligarchic than our own). It’s all about incentives, you see.

“Do we cut maternal health?” [Senator Leahy] asked. “AIDS? Malaria? Do we cut refugees? The only thing that’s got a blank check is the war in Iraq.”

One might almost draw the conclusion that the announcement of the formation of the MCC a few years ago with great fanfare and bipartisan acclaim was geared more towards eliciting great fanfare and bipartisan acclaim than improving the effectiveness of foreign aid.

But that’s silly, because Bush’s faith tells him to give to the poor, and he is a faithful man.

thank you, NRA . . .

[Image: AP Photo/Yearbook photo via KETV-TV and Philly.com]

. . . for making sure Robert Hawkins had access to an AK-47-style semi-automatic weapon with which to spread Christmas cheer at a mall in Omaha.

Mr. Hawkins fired about 30 shots from an AK-47-style semi-automatic weapon that the police said he stole from his stepfather. He had two magazines with 30 rounds each, the chief said, that “had the capacity to fire multiple rounds in a short period of time.”

. . .

Meanwhile, some customers and employees used cell phones to call their families and the authorities. The chief said the first call to 911 came at 1:43 p.m. local time, and the first officer arrived at the scene six minutes later. By the time the police descended on the mall in full force, the shooter had ended his rampage.

“It doesn’t appear there was an opportunity for mall security nor police officers to interrupt this incident,” he said.

If only each of the “retired ‘well-educated’ older women who worked at the well-appointed [Von Maur] store ‘for the discount’” had had an AK-47 of her own strapped inside her garter, one of them could have stopped this madman in his tracks.

More guns are exactly what we need to prevent further outbursts of senseless violence. It makes perfect sense. And how can we defend ourselves against the bad guys if we aren’t armed ourselves?

Thankfully, we’ve finally reached national consensus on this once contentious issue.

Michigan slapped down by DNC

The Democratic National Committee has taken action against Michigan for scheduling an early primary to try to have some say in who gets the Democratic nomination for president, instead of ceding the decision to a few citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire as normally happens. In the face of rising national discontent with politics as usual, The DNC seems committed to continuing disproportionate representation of rural, conservative voters vis-à-vis urban, progressive voters. The candidates with the best chances of doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire are following suit, trying to knock Clinton from the lead or at least secure a VP nomination.

Democratic leaders voted Saturday to strip Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention next year as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules.

In spite of the vote, some party leaders and officials said they believed the delegates would eventually be seated at the convention.

Michigan, with 156 delegates, has scheduled a Jan. 15 primary. Democratic Party rules prohibit states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding nominating contests before Feb. 5. Florida was hit with a similar penalty in August for scheduling a Jan. 29 primary.

. . .

Saturday's vote further diminishes the significance of Michigan's Democratic primary. All the major Democratic candidates have already agreed not to campaign in either Michigan or Florida because the states violated party rules. And in Michigan, most of the major candidates won't even be on the ballot.

Democratic candidates John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden have withdrawn their names from the ballot to satisfy Iowa and New Hampshire, which were unhappy Michigan was challenging their leadoff status on the primary calendar.

. . .

Michigan officials defended their early primary, saying it helps provide geographic, racial and economic diversity early in the primary calendar. They also complained that other states that were allowed to hold early votes were receiving preferential treatment.

. . .

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said in a statement: ''The threat not to seat the delegates of Michigan and Florida at the Democratic convention is a hollow threat. They will be seated, and when they are, it will be plain for all to see that the privileged position that New Hampshire and Iowa have extracted through threats and pledges from candidates is on its last legs.''

. . .

With the DNC's work Saturday, the primary calendar appears to be set. The panel approved some final shifting of early contests, approving the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 8, and the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26.

The system as it exists privileges rural white voters—long framed in the media as more authentically American than urban voters or voters of color—and acts as a conservative shot in the arm at a crucial point in a heated presidential campaign to a party with purportedly progressive goals and values. But the risks of standing up to the Iowa/New Hampshire mafia and losing the nomination are apparently too great for anyone to challenge the status quo.

The only benefit I can see coming from Iowa/NH picking the nominee while the rest of us watch from the sidelines is a prediction I read in a post or comment thread the other day, I forget where. Given: (1) irrational hatred of godless communist/socialist/lesbian/feminazi Clinton among conservatives, (2) Iowa’s conservative bent, and (3) widespread belief that Clinton is far to the left of the other candidates, there is a good chance that Iowa will pick Edwards or Obama. This would give one of them a fighting chance at taking the nomination. Paradoxically, Iowa could give us a more progressive president than we would otherwise have.

urban guerillaz

The kids are unhappy again in France:

Rampaging youths rioted overnight in Paris' suburbs, hurling Molotov cocktails and setting fire to dozens of cars. At least 77 officers were injured and officers were fired at, a senior police union official said Tuesday.

The violence was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005, said the official, Patrice Ribeiro. Police were shot at and are facing ''genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons,'' Ribeiro said.

Who, nevertheless, didn't manage to kill a single officer. A prerequisite to attaining "genuine urban guerilla" status should be the ability to inflict at least one fatality. But it was scary business even so:

Some officers were hit by shotgun pellets, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said. She said there were six serious injuries, ''people who notably were struck in the face and close to the eyes."

Oh noes! This is why I keep saying you can't have that air rifle for Christmas--you'll shoot your eye out.

The riots were triggered by the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a town of public housing blocks home to a mix of Arab, black and white residents in Paris' northern suburbs.

Residents claimed that officers left the crash scene without helping the teens, whose motorbike collided with the car. Officials cast doubt on the claim, but the internal police oversight agency was investigating.

. . .

A recent study by the state auditor's office indicated that money poured into poor French suburbs in recent decades had done little to solve problems vividly exposed by the 2005 riots, including discrimination, unemployment and alienation from mainstream society.

While there's no excuse for shooting people, including the police, it seems official France is better at talking up threats than it is at solving problems in the banlieues.