Celebration: Thursday Photo Challenge

Seahorse in San Francisco
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

What Books Should Bush Be Reading?

Shakespeare's Sister

He is reading When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After The White House and Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground. The first is obvious; the second focuses on the current military deployments.

SS suggested Leadership for Dummies. Heehee.

I'd suggest the Constitution. Or perhaps Willard Sterne Randall's Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor, just as a more fitting guide to his post-presidential years than Teddy Roosevelt.

Fish In A Barrel - The American Family Association

AFAJournal.org

These are the guys that tried to flip Ford into the antigay category, only to be...DENIED!

Well, Ford isn't the only one in their sights:

On another front, we learned in November that Walgreens has made a $100,000 donation to support the 2006 Gay Games to be held in Chicago in July. If you don’t already know, the Gay Games are basically a mockery of the Olympic Games with homosexual and lesbian participants.

Whooohooo! No homosexuals in the original Olympic Games!

What Bush Was Up To

Think Progress

It's becoming clearer what Bush was doing post-9/11.

Think Progress reminds us that contrary to Bush claims, FISA was easily amended after 9/11. The PATRIOT Act loosened requirements for obtaining surveillance in one of its more controversial provision.

Congress is being used as misdirection in the GWOT. It doesn't matter what Congress does - in fact, for Bush policies to work, it's best if Congress doesn't have any real connect to what's going on at all. It's best for Bush if Congress debates things just as if we had a democracy, as if Congressional acts mattered.

Because the truth is, right now, Congress doesn't matter. Congress is offline as far as power is concerned.

Remember this quote?

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Silly me - I just thought the Bushes meant the media. But no, they meant the Congress as well.

The Bush Administration has been one long exercise in dismantling the American government. They have allowed our enemies to attack us, sunk us into debt, tried time after time to disable successful policies like Social Security, lied us into war, and exacerbated the partisan gridlock of Congress in order to flank its Constitutional authority under the guise of national security.

This crap must end. These people must go.

FISA Was Modifying Warrant Requests

San Francisco Gate:

Government records show that the Bush administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court's approval.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.

The court's repeated intervention in Bush administration wiretap requests may explain why the president decided to bypass the court nearly four years ago to begin secret National Security Agency spying on hundreds and possibly thousands of Americans and foreigners inside the United States, according to James Bamford, an authority on the security agency that intercepts telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and Internet communications.

Let's look at the numbers. FISA has approved at least 18,740 applications for electronic surveillance since 1979 (records are available only up until 2004). 13,102 were approved over the first 22 years, and only two warrant applications were ever modified.

13,102 divided by 22 is an average of 596 a year.

"Since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5645 requests...by the Bush Administration."

5645 divided by 4 is 1411 a year. That's quite a spike in requests.

And according to the article, 173 of those were in 2003 and 2004. Only six were modified before.

And six requests were also rejected or deferred during those two years - "the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history".

When did the avoidance of FISA begin? Right after September 11, 2001. However, the reticience of the FISA court to approve warrants without modification began much later, as the numbers show. These number cannot be used to exonerate Bush. The difficulties with the court begin after his bypass. They can't be the cause of the bypass.

By the way, the modification rate from 2001 to 2004 is 3% of submitted and approved requests. Wow, that's such a burden on law enforcement.

But you can begin to see why the Bushies felt that the application process was "too cumbersome". They were submitting two and a third more requests than previous administrations. But rather than going to Congress to deal with the situation, they decided to flank the system and screw anyone who second-guessed them or complained about civil liberties.

Froomkin on Froomkin - Index of WaPo Columns

White House Briefing

A whole year worth of Dan Froomkin's take on the White House. Good stuff.

Eric Crafton Responds Again!!

While I was busy composing and sending out the response below, Eric found he had one more thing to say to my original email. Understand that. He fired off the first one, and then fired off the second one before I even had a chance to respond. Here it is:

From: Eric Crafton [mailto:craftonfamily@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2005 12:21 PM
To: Joseph
Subject: RE: Christmas - From Your Constituent

By the way, don't ever question my motives again. That's between me and the Lord. "judge not lest ye be judged." If you had any courage at all, you would stand up for your "so called" beliefs as well. Merry Christmas and Happy new year.

Still sending those from his family address, I see.

Well, I went out shopping, so I didn't get to see this until I got home. And sadly for Mr. Crafton, I had a chance to think about what I could have said. So when I got home, and found that little jewel in my inbox, well, I cut loose.

How you talk to your employer! I am correct about that, yes? You are the public servant and I am the taxpaying member of your constituency? Yes? I don’t know where you learned to address your boss like that, but you need a quick lesson in humility.

Which I am here to provide. In case you aren’t familiar with being an elected official, judging your motives is my primary right. I look at you and I decide whether or not you are in this for your own gain or for the gain of us, your electors. If I decide against you, then I get to talk about it all the live long day, in every venue I see fit. If this is something you’re not willing to put up with, then I suggest you not run for public office ever again. Try to intimidate me out of my First Amendment rights again, sir, and you will be sorry.

Now. How is it that I judge your motives, Mr. Crafton? What evidence do I have? Your actions. And right now, your actions are severely wanting. First of all, you tie into this War on Christmas nonsense. In this, you are guilty by association with the likes of Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson, panderers and hypocrites to the man. The company you keep, sir, is poor.

This is why I wrote you in the first place. It can’t be, said I to myself, that I voted – that I actually voted – for someone silly enough to fall for an obvious ploy for money. Gibson has his book to hawk, and both O’Reilly and Gibson have a news channel to promote. You are familiar with November sweeps? What better way for a news channel to boost their ratings than begin shilling for a wedge issue that appeals to their base, and antagonizes their political opponents? The War on Christmas is nothing but a cynical ploy for ratings and cash, and you have brought the ill will and tension that it engenders to Nashville.

And I voted for you!

So I wrote you, explaining a few facts, hoping that you and I could speak reasonably about this. The very first thing you do is switch email addresses on me. Instead of the governmental email address that I use, you answer me from a family email address, as if I took this discussion into your home. How saddening it is to see you play the victim here – because that means, far from falling for the cynical words of evil men, you do mean to play this to your political advantage, and that may be your only motive.

Furthermore, I asked you to provide some evidence in that first email. You declined to provide any Scriptural motivation for your actions, seeing that the celebration of Christmas isn’t contained in Scripture anywhere. So your proposition before the Metro Council, having no Christian well to spring from, again returns to the banal ones of a political operative manipulating the people for some cheap publicity.

So, sir, what evidence - what fruit from the tree of your heart – do I have, as a person who helped put you into office, to fully judge you? Only your actions in this matter, and from this angle, Mr. Crafton, you have been found severely wanting.

Happy Holidays,

Joseph

PS: Whatever could you mean about my lacking courage to stand up for my beliefs?

Whatever could he mean? He's not asking me to get in his face physically about this, is he? He's not challenging me to a fight?

Nah. He'll explain himself, if he writes back.

And yes, as I considered it, I'm fairly certain I voted for the man. Nashville Metro elections don't have a Democrat-Republican designation. I can't find anywhere online that gives him a certain designation as a Republican, but I did find a few references to his doing the bidding of the local Republican party, and this War on Christmas stand clinches it.

"Don't ever question my motives again..." - the very idea! The nerve of this guy!

Eric Crafton Responds

I emailed my Metro representative right before Christmas about his Bill O'Reilly inspired stand against the forces of darkness that threaten to engulf Christmas. The letter I posted here.

Well, lo and behold, he responded. I emailed him at his governmental address, but the sly fox responded from a home address: craftonfamily@comcast.net . What a snarky little thing to do - now I'm attacking his family, in his mind.

Here's his response:

You missed the whole point. I didn't agree with government's saying that individuals working in government could not say Merry Christmas or Christmas, even in the proper context. As a I Christian, I have the right to say Merry Christmas, regardless what day we agree to celebrate it, just as much as people have the right to mention other holidays. Christmas is a nationally recognized holiday. If you want to let yourself be restricted in what you can say, that's fine. I am not. You are wrong on this issue.

Eric Crafton

I didn't even get a Merry Christmas from him. Of course, it was yesterday. But how he thinks I let myself be restricted in what I can say, when I wished him a Merry Christmas, I don't know. Perhaps we're not dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Here's my reply:

When has anyone in the Nashville government said that individuals working in government could not say Christmas?

Your proposal stated that the use of Christmas was “affirmed and supported”, not that it had been banned in any way and that it was being reinstated. No one has ever limited your right to say whatever you feel. You’re just looking for some free coattail publicity.

Anyone that’s offended by the phrase “Happy Holidays” certainly doesn’t possess the meek spirit of Christ.

Happy New Year,

Joseph

Maybe he's just miffed that he didn't get the Gummy Bear Award first. He's making a fine case for this week's.

Gummy Bear of the Week: TN State Senator Jeff Miller!

I think I want to have my very own award. Atrios has the Wanker of the Day/Week, and other names I'd like to use might get a little descriptive - and I have to remember, my mama is the only one reading this thing! So I thought to myself - Cog - Monkey Wrench - Gumming up the Works - oh, yeah - Gum - Gummy - Gummy Bears!

The Gummy Bear - a chewy little gelatinous blob. What better symbol for some tireless devoted servant of public attention that manages to show off how idiotic we can get as monkeys let loose with language?

And who better for this inaugeral award than Jeff Miller, the anti-gay Tennessee State Senator? You might think, there's only one anti-gay Tennessee State Senator? You would be wrong. But Jeffie's an exception. He's got a gay brother, and he campaigns relentlessly against gay rights. He's very adamant about marriage being between one man and one woman. But it turns out he's not too picky about the one woman being the same woman.

Jeff's been having an affair. His wife filed for divorce. He decided to not contest the divorce, but showed up in town to sign the papers with the girl he was cheating on his wife with.

When the local paper exposed his hypocrisy and nerve, Jeff threatened to retaliate against its advertisers. When the local paper showed up at his public office to ask him about this threat, he sent them a letter promising to arrest them for trespassing if they ever showed up there again!!

What a gummy bear! So icky sweet while you chew.

Oh, yeah, Jeffrey. Nice beard.

My Letter To My Metro Council Representative

Mr. Crafton:

You’re my representative. I live in Bellevue in the Post Ridge apartment complex. So I hope that you will take what I say to heart.

I find myself extremely embarrassed by your recent actions concerning the holiday of Christmas. Can you be that uninformed as to the origins of Christmas?

I enjoin you, as a Bible-believing Baptist, to produce any Scriptural requirement for the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Where in the Bible is there any mention of such a ceremony celebrated by the first-century church? It isn’t there. They didn’t do it. It is nowhere on the lists of feasts of church fathers, for centuries.

It was only in the fourth century that Christian officials began celebrating the birth of Christ as a religious holiday. (Only then did they have any kind of political authority to do such a thing.) They chose to co-opt the birthday of Mithra, a celebration long observed in the Roman world. It occurred on December 25th. This date also allowed them to redirect the emotions of the Saturnalia festival into the birth festival of Christ. Because of this, many of the traditions of these other holidays attached themselves to Christmas.

Before then, the birth of Jesus was commonly held to be January 6th, the date also believed to be that of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. There were many heated debates about moving it, but finally a compromise was reached. You may have heard of it: the Twelve Days of Christmas. Count them. The 25th to the 5th are twelve days, culminating in Epiphany.

This isn’t something I expect you to be familiar with. Your Metro page identifies you as a Baptist, and like my native Church of Christ, you don’t follow the traditional church calendar. This is because your recent religious ancestors, as mine, viewed any such thing as an innovation of the Roman Catholic Church, as it most certainly was. Luckily, today, we both know that there’s nothing wrong with being a Catholic, or even celebrating the birth of Christ however we see fit. But should we lash out in ignorance at our enemies, either religiously or politically?

Ask yourself: what in the world does a decorated tree have to do with Christ’s birth? Did they even have pine trees in Palestine? This is a holdover from a pagan ceremony, Mr. Crafton, where a phallic idol was raised, decorated, and worshipped. The evergreen tree became an obvious symbol of fertility, and thus became a great phallic substitute. That’s what you have in your home right now, Mr. Crafton: a pagan phallic symbol promising the incredible bounteous gifts of crop fertility soon to be enjoyed once again now that the winter solstice is passed and the days are growing longer. It was knowledge like this that led the early Pilgrims to ban the celebration of Christmas. They felt the revelry (inherited from the Saturnalia) interfered with any true religious devotion, and since they could not determine the date of Jesus’ birth from the Bible, they banned and fined any public celebration.

Might I direct your attention to a final passage of Scripture?

“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

If standing up in the middle of a town council meeting and proclaiming a defense of the completely-not-under-attack holiday of Christmas isn’t what Jesus is talking about here, then the Bible doesn’t mean anything. You may yet reap the reward of further political gain in your posturing, but the Father who sees in secret won’t feel the need to further your reward in the afterlife.

Merry Christmas,

Joseph Nobles
Bellevue AL

The Democratic Plan for A Stronger America (If They'll Just Listen)

Thomas P.M. Barnett

Ever since I saw a remarkable C-Span presentation of Thomas Barnett's brief called The Pentagon's New Map, I've been hooked. I bought his book, and I've read it cover to cover. This is a Democratic thinker with a fantastic idea to confront the threats to a connected and stable world today (read: the GWOT).

He sees the world divided into what he calls the Core and the Gap. Core nations are connected and trade partners. They cooperate for maximum economic benefit to all. The Gap is threatened by this cooperation and connection and returns the threat in the form of terrorism and disconnectedness. America's problem thus far has been to be only the firefighters of the world - but when we act as empowering agents of reconstruction as well, we expand economic and social opportunities for all (read: the Marshall Plan). By reshaping the US military into both firefighting function (the Leviathan force) and reconstruction function (the System Administration force), we could keep a world peace, shrink the Gap, and have everyone enjoy the prosperity.

My explanation is far too simplified. The book or the talk is where to get the best explanation. Everything I read confirms Barnett's conclusion and gets me all anxious to have his plan become a reality.

Take for example, the blog post I linked to above. It's about how the military-industrial complex is resisting the increasing need to focus away from China as a dire threat and toward the kind of weaponry we need to develop in the threats of today's world. Why do they resist? Because they make their money selling the US weapons to fight China. We fall more and more into the threats of asymetrical opponents while the Pentagon concentrates on fighting the Next Big One. It's how 9/11 happened, and still they cut brigade after brigade to pay for the next big war platform.

If you're going to be serious about a global war on terrorism, you're going to have larger numbers of ground troops, both active and reserve. There is no way to get around that. That will mean less money for acquisitions, not just asking more money from Congress for supplementals for actual operations. The reason why the cost of manpower has gone up so much is that the Defense Department has recently sought to correct a lot of low compensation and quality of life issues for the troops, fearing unacceptable losses in enlistment and reenlistment rates. This is proper and good and shouldn't then be used as an argument against keeping those troops.

The only reason why our force structure ages and gets worn out is that we insist on buying only the highest of high tech, or weapons systems and platforms whose high-end use can only be justified by very high-end warfare against high-end opponents, i.e., the Big War rationale, which isn't just alive and kicking...

The lack of a SysAdmin force is vitally illustrated in Iraq. The US took Iraq in the palm of its hand. But without a mobile coordinating force to organize a global act of reconstruction (not just a coalition of the willing deed - everyone), Iraq has reeled headlong from disaster to disaster. We still don't have electricity running all day long in the country! SysAdmin takes care of that - they rebuild the bridges, they paint the schools. They're subject to the ICC in Barnett's view. They actualize the American Dream.

I'm rambling. But I find I share Barnett's frustration with yet another round of defense spending being approved that slices the men on the ground and funds another year of pork barrel spending on a war with China that might never happen. Especially when there's a historic opportunity right here, waiting for the right leader to pick it up and march into history.

Here's hoping Wesley Clark gets a copy or two of Barnett's book.

The Noble Lie

James Wolcott

Big fan of Mr. Wolcott, and he needs to get himself on the blogroll over there. He will, someday. But for now, here's a link to his blogging of John Derbyshire's savaging of IDists among us. Here's Derbyshire, who begins by quoting another article:

"A year ago, I asked Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, 'I don't believe in God, I have faith in God.' Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that 'that is a stupid question,' and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, 'it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion.'"

[Derb continues:] Here we have a guy who plainly doesn't believe in God, but who thinks that well-padded intellectual elitists like himself ought to evade the issue in public for fear of demoralizing the proles and perhaps jeopardizing some padding thereby. I can't think of anything nice to say about that; and in fact, the only things I CAN think of to say would not be suitable for a family website...

These are the people who are pushing 'intelligent design' in the conservative movement. Not only am I glad and proud to have spoken out against this preposterous hoax, I wish I had done so more forthrightly. These are people filled up to their meritocratic nose-holes with contempt for ordinary people. That's conservatism? Ptui, I spit.

That strikes me in a most peculiar way, because I have always been Pauline enough to hold back the things I believe, in order to not offend or shake someone's world view.

It happened to me, you see, and it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

But I'm also glad I made it through to this side. To consider my current withholding of opinion a noble lie is sobering. Derbyshire's right: it is elitist of me to be that way. I abhor elitism.

I think I've figured something out about myself. A basic confusion, if you will. I'll ruminate on it and perhaps blog on it as well. It's not a subject to approach or blog lightly or spontaneously.

So anyway, back to ID. I don't think that the people pushing ID are intellectual elites keeping the proles ignorant, not most of them, anyway. I think it's more about people intentionally keeping themselves blind. ID is a way to get creationism into the science class, where it doesn't belong. It's an innoculation against the evolution meme. That's why they don't come up with any research possibilities when offered money - it's not about science. It's about clouding the clear path that science is showing, because their overly rigid approach to the holy texts of monotheism is threatened by scientific scrutiny of the physical world.

Parents don't want to think their kids are going to hell. A belief in evolution is something that's going to set their kids down a path of eternal damnation, and who can bear to think of their child being eternally damned? So of course, they're going to look for some way to counter evolution. That's so much easier than confronting the harder questions - after all, who's got time for that? Most people work all day, take care of the kids, and try to get a little sleep. Confronting the deeper questions of reality is something that shakes all that up.

And trying to reconcile a literal belief in Genesis 1-3 and evolution is far too much cognitive dissonance for anybody. You can present a model of God as a fellow playing pool, who strikes the cue ball in such a way that it flies around the table, sinking every single ball on the first shot. What a remarkable shot! It's much more impressive than someone who sinks shot after shot, one by one, until the table is cleared - which is like God spliting up his creative work into days. But if the Bible says days, then by gummy, it means days. And any statement of science that contradicts that is undermining the authority of the Bible. And if the authority of the Bible is undermined, then somebody's kids are going to hell, pool player or no.

ID is a Trojan horse. It has no place in a science class. Innoculate your kids yourself if you have to. But it's the duty of teachers to teach their students he best they can, with the best and most up-to-date knowledge they can. They don't need people throwing stumbling block in front of everyone, just because some irate misguided parent can't be bothered to listen to reason.

Test of Blogger Email Posting

Just to see how it works. When I go on the trip, I want to keep posting, and
the easiest way may be to email the site. It may be a question of speed,
too, so by composing my blogs first, and then cutting and pasting to email,
I will probably escape the worst of the draconian Internet charges on the
ship.

How does this look? I don't know; Blogger appears to be down at the moment,
although I can access the Dashboard. Even status.blogger.com is down - wow!
That's supposed to be a different server all together!

Maybe I should think about one of the other blogging tools...one that I can
load the interface onto my computer...hmmm.

Well, I guess this is long enough. Oh, yes, a link. <a
href="http://www.truthdig.com">TruthDig.com</a> is a great new e-zine. I'll
get it into the blogroll soon. Bye for now!

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

On edit: wow! First off, my link is rewritten into code so it doesn't appear as a link. Second, the unremovable footer from Hotmail gets printed as well. This isn't going to work at all...not with Hotmail. Yahoo mail gets those ads in as well.

Well, that gives me something to ponder...

President Carter on Daily Show

Love the ad - I believe the copy goes something like this:

Pictures of Carter and Bush

"Which president is coming to the Daily Show tonight? He's from a Southern state..."

Green checkmarks by both pictures - DING!

"He's got an embarassing brother..."

A picture of Carter with Billy appears beside one of George with Jeb - green checkmarks, DING!

"...and he's won an Nobel Peace Prize!"

Carter gets a checkmark, Bush gets a red x - HONK!

Sad picture of Bush...

"Well, he's got three more years."

Me laugh long time. Daily Show's tonight, followed by Colbert.

Project Pterosaur

From the minds of those that brought you anti-triclavianism:

The goal of Project Pterosaur is to mount an expedition to locate and bring back to the United States living specimens of pterosaurs or their fertile eggs, which will be displayed in a Pterosaur Rookery that will be the center piece of the planned Fellowship Creation Science Museum and Research Institute (FCSMRI). Furthermore, the rookery facility will establish a breeding colony of pterosaurs in order to produce specimens that could then be put on display by other regional institutions or church groups.

The link is here. Objective: Christian Ministries is also working to reclaim Hallowe'en. They have t-shirts available (LOL! Love Our Lord!) as well. Have fun...

Welcome to the Blogroll.

In Political Sites: The Booman Tribune

In Political Blogs: AmericaBlog and the Wandering Hillbilly (both are must-reads)

In Memetic: DilbertBlog (Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert, blogs about nutty things and important in his own little Dilbert/Dogbert way)

Enjoy!

Ford's Institutionalized Homophobia

Advocate.com

The antigay American Family Association claimed a cultural victory on Thursday and called off its threatened boycott of Ford Motor Co. On Friday, Ford spokesman Mike Moran confirmed to Advocate.com that the company will stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover brands in gay publications but insisted it was strictly a business decision.

The Dearborn, Mich., automaker came under fire from the AFA in May for its longtime efforts to increase LGBT workplace diversity and support gay rights causes. Ford has long been a regular advertiser within gay media, including The Advocate, and has donated significant sums to LGBT causes and nonprofit groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.

Threatened with a boycott by the Mississippi-based AFA, Ford and some of its dealers agreed to negotiate, and the AFA announced in June that it would hold off on its planned action. On Thursday, AFA announced the boycott would be canceled altogether.

"They've heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns. We are pleased with where we are," said Donald Wildmon, AFA’s chairman, in a statement. "Obviously there are still some small matters of difference, as people will always have, but generally speaking, we are pleased with the results—and therefore the boycott that had been suspended [is] now officially ended."

One of these days, separations between people for stupid reasons like sexual preference or race or religion will be one of those small matters of difference, Mr. Wildmon. But as long as your merry band of wingnuts feel the need to blame someone for their children being gay, we're going to have to deal with it.

How they pulled it off: Ford has dialogues with every interest group they feel they need to. They've been talking to AFA off and on for some time.

These talks weren't going anywhere. So AFA started a boycott and a website. They documented contributions and support of gay pride events. They even got documentation of managers having to attend diversity training.

But suddenly a group of dealers contacted them and became go-betweens in the discussions:

The AFA founder says in a press release that those dealers played a key role in the process. "The dealers were very helpful in bridging a gap and opening up a line of communication between AFA and Ford," he states. "The dealers are basically our kind of people who share many of our concerns."

Which is exactly where all of AFA's documentation had to come from - some disgruntled employees who were hacked off at having to put up with gay people.

Not all divisions and brands of Ford's line advertise in gay media. According to the article, Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury never used gay media. Of the three that did, only Volvo will continue their ads, because they remain "effective". Jaguar and Land Rover will cease ads. We have only Ford's word that it was the ineffectiveness of those ads that led to their becoming a sop to the fundies.

Another demand of Wildmon's group is that Ford stop contributions to gay pride events, etc. Ford has declined comment on whether that's going to happen.

So that's where it ends, right? The gay-hating employees are happy. The gay-hating AFA is happy enough. And now Ford's doing damage control on the gay market.

Not if John Aravosis has anything to do with it. He blogs AmericaBlog.com, and he's up in arms. He just posted the history of Henry Ford's enormity of anti-Semitism on the main page there, and he's taking names and telephone numbers. He's already organized successful campaigns against Dr. Laura and Microsoft. Somewhere there's going to be a gay employee of Ford Motor Company that lets the corporate directory slip to John, and then all hell's going to break loose.

Meanwhile, buy Volvo.

51 Years Ago Today: McCarthy Censured By Congress

Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1954)

Now Bill O'Reilly making a list and checking it twice. Ann Coulter's idolizing him. And George Clooney made a picture about him. Clooney can't help all the modern day parallels. If only he could find one in the media of today...

PhotoFriday: Experimental

Marc and Angela Bungee Jump
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

Angie's birthday in Acapulco. She bungee jumped in tandem with Marc, a croupier from Boston. Later on in the evening, she bungeed alone.

It's Official: I'm Going On the World Cruise

Have I not blogged this yet? It's happening. Hate me now, I'm going to the fiery side of Hades, but yes, I'm going to be an actor for Crystal Cruises' 2006 World Cruise.

We will do a total of ten different shows (heading out with three ready to go, and coming up with the other seven while cruising). Also, acting workshops, lectures, and a rock-em, sock-em murder mystery event in April. We are going to be working a bit more on this contract than my last one (and Lord, it's about time). But the places we are going will stagger you.

I won't list them out. I've been doing that with friends, and by the time I get to Tahiti and New Zealand, they aren't my friends anymore. My special treat, of all the places we're going, is to a little Egyptian town called Safaga. We're overnighting there. Why? Because it's a three hour bus trip away from Karnak and Luxor. The Valley of the Kings. Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir-el-Bahri. The Hypostyle Hall of Raames II.

And then a stop at Alexandria, a bus ride to Cairo, and we're taking in the Egyptian museum and Giza. I am going to work very, very hard so that Egypt is mine, all mine.

No technicolor dreamcoat jokes, please.

Meet Hurricane #14: Epsilon

Reuters.com

It probably won't land, and probably won't be a hurricane for long, but this is the season that we learned what happens when they run out of the official names for a year. They start using Greek alphabet letters.

Welcome to global warming. Please check your hat and roof.

Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal

Washington Post

Ka, meet Boom.

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded.

...But the Texas legislature proceeded with the new map anyway because it would maximize the number of Republican federal lawmakers in the state, the memo said. The redistricting was approved in 2003, and Texas Republicans gained five seats in the U.S. House in the 2004 elections, solidifying GOP control of Congress.

Watch Bush's world go into shambles all around him. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Rove To Cooper To V. Novak To Luskin To Rove To Fitzpatrick

firedoglake

This post regards the ongoing Plamegate-Fitzmas scandal. I'm going to assume that you know what's up, and say that recently Viveca Novak was called to testify about conversations she had with Luskin.

So this is the deal. Rove can't be charged with perjury if he recants his testimony upon recalling the actual story. So Rove tells Cooper (the "I've already said too much" interview). Cooper lets it slip in a conversation with Viveca that Rove's his source. Viveca tells her buddy Luskin, Rove's lawyer. Luskin heads to Rove, who searches his records and then recants his previous testimony to Fitzgerald.

Here's my question, and I hope Fitzgerald asks it: who initiated the conversation about Cooper's source - Viveca or Cooper? I doubt Cooper just brought it up. But if Viveca (an admitted friend of Luskin) was the one who grilled Cooper, maybe, just maybe, she did it because Luskin asked her to.

Was this an ingenious way of flanking a perjury charge? This way, Rove can commit perjury and lie about what he said. As Bush said in his news conference, the reporters have a way of protecting the sources, so who knows if we'll ever find out who the senior administration official was? If the reporters dig in and things cool down, life goes on. But Fitzgerald keeps pushing, and it becomes clear that he's getting the reporters to cooperate. Rove feels that draft around his backside. So he gets his lawyer to get his friend, Cooper's co-worker, to initiate "Operation Memory Jog."

Is there a way to prove this? Probably not. It's just speculation on my part. But it's definitely plausible.

Thursday Photo Challenge: Sweet

Catherine and My Ugly Smile
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

Acapulco. Just had a drink spilled on me. Good friend Catherine did it. Good friend Alexei taking the picture. Nice sunset. Great weather. Good times.

The Holiday Turkey Recipe Which Must Be Seen To Be Believed

The Poor Man

I think a quote of the ingredients alone demand you click over...

Basic Needs:
• 16-20 lb whole turkey
• 4-5 lb Tofurkey Holiday Roast
• 3-4 lb whole chicken
• corn bread dressing
• sausage stuffing

Yes, it all ends up in the same food mass. The writing's so spot-on, I can't tell whether they actually do this or not. It makes me laugh to think of several people (it takes at least two) making this monstrocity. Enjoy...

The Mosquito and the Bottle - On Sickle Cell Anemia and Malaria

The Loom

File this under Non-Intelligent Design. People with a single copy of the sickle cell anemia gene are less likely to contract malaria by a factor of ten. It's an evolutionary tradeoff. Over time, the population in a malaria-ridden area will grow because of the sickle cell trait, and that's what natural selection is all about.

New Scalito Document Welcomes Opportunity to Overturn Roe V. Wade

People For the American Way

This man is not the person to replace Sandra Day O'Connor:

In the memo (available here), Alito advises the Administration to:
- file a brief in the case, even though the Administration was not a party to In the memo (available here), Alito advises the Administration to:
- file a brief in the case, even though the Administration was not a party to the suit, and had no role to play save for ideology.

- use the brief to promote “the goals of bringing about the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects.”

- “make clear” to the Supreme Court that we “disagree with Roe v Wade,” and “would welcome” the opportunity to brief the issue of overturning it.

- support the tactic of using extremely restrictive state laws such as those in Pennsylvania to discourage women from seeking safe, legal abortions. (In fact, the Supreme Court said that provisions of the Pennsylvania law “comes close to being state medicine imposed upon the woman.”)the suit, and had no role to play save for ideology.

- use the brief to promote “the goals of bringing about the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects.”

- “make clear” to the Supreme Court that we “disagree with Roe v Wade,” and “would welcome” the opportunity to brief the issue of overturning it.

- support the tactic of using extremely restrictive state laws such as those in Pennsylvania to discourage women from seeking safe, legal abortions. (In fact, the Supreme Court said that provisions of the Pennsylvania law “comes close to being state medicine imposed upon the woman.”)

Scalito, meet Mr. Buster - Mr. Phil A. Buster.

Nothing Like The Moral High Ground

The Washington Monthly > WaPo
Pace v. Rumsfeld:

When UPI's Pam Hess asked about torture by Iraqi authorities, Rumsfeld replied that "obviously, the United States does not have a responsibility" other than to voice disapproval.

But Pace had a different view. "It is the absolute responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene, to stop it," the general said.

Rumsfeld interjected: "I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it."

But Pace meant what he said. "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it," he said, firmly.

Also, Rumsfeld doesn't want them called "insurgents" anymore. That lends them legitmacy, you see. So he sent out the word to the press to come up with a better word. Pace (the new Head JCOS) "couldn't think of a better word right now" (his words).

I think I like this guy.

Lipstick on a Pig: Bush's Latest Try

You're kidding me. You're honest-to-God kidding me. This set looks like some glorified version of Mystery Date. And behind the punchout, pieced together door is our dream Strategy for Victory in Iraq - the same thing we've been doing. Which is the definition of insanity, right?

We've got to get a message to George. This is beyond "trying to get his message across to us one more time". This is "send W down the river without a paddle". Everybody in his administration knows that somebody's going to be the fall guy for it all. There's a poster for this administration looking for a child. And whoever approved this set is going to make damn sure it is not them.

Mr. President? These people trying to "help" you? They are not your friends.

The "Axis of Libel"

O'Reilly: "We will expose those media which pass along the vicious personal attacks" of "far-left smear sites" [Media Matters]

If you're unfamilar with all this, here's the deal. Every year, a growing War for Christmas is being conducted by Fox News. This is because it plays well to Fox News' base. Some Christians feel threatened by a retail store clerk saying "Happy Holidays" to them. It's as if they've been thrown to the lions for their belief. The rest of us (including a great number of Christians) would like to tell these modern martyrs to suck it up and get over themselves. Yet Fox News knows how to sell ad space, and they've got the faithful watching. So the ever present "War on Christmas" continues to be reported.

Nice, isn't it, how they can report on the War on Terrorism and the War on Christmas at the same time? It's like Bush using every pre-war speech possible to put Saddam and al-Qaeda into the same sentence. It gives a level of plausible deniability ("Hey! We didn't say that Saddam and al-Qaeda had links", though they did.), and the idea gets across. The vast majority of American believed that Saddam had given some kind of assistance to the 9/11 attack. That was pure hokum, perpetrated by the weaselly words of PR, and it's that very same technique being used now by Fox, dang their hides. Bill is calling for a "coalition of the willing" to fight this secular movement.

During the November 28 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly decried what he described as the abandonment of the phrase "Merry Christmas" and called for "a coalition of the willing to fight against this secular movement." He accused financiers George Soros and Peter Lewis of being "the money men behind the secular curtain," because they "have financed a number of websites which routinely attack those with whom they disagree in the most vile ways." O'Reilly then threatened to "expose those media which pass along the vicious personal attacks." He predicted that "[t]he defamation pipeline that has been cleverly devised will collapse," and then stated, "This is what the culture war is all about."

O'Reilly made a similar threat in the wake of Media Matters for America's exposure of his remarks regarding the city of San Francisco. In discussing a resolution San Francisco voters passed on November 8 to discourage military recruitment on campuses of public schools and colleges, O'Reilly said: "[I]f Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." In response to the firestorm of protest against these comments, O'Reilly blamed "far-left smear websites" and "Internet guttersnipes" for reporting his statements. He stated: "[H]ere's what I'm going to do, ladies and gentlemen, every minion that does that, every one is going to be exposed on The Radio Factor, the television Factor, and on our website, BillOReilly.com. Every one who carries their water, I'm going to put their face up there, their name up there, and tell you exactly what they're doing. So you know in your town who's doing it."

Following up on his threat, O'Reilly has posted on his website a list of "media operations [that] have regularly helped distribute defamation and false information supplied by far left websites."

Could he be any more transparent? Sites like Media Matters have been a thorn in his side, precisely because they report the things that he says (always referenced to the transcript or the video tape - because transcripts sometimes get the memory hole treatment) and call him on it. Well, Bill O'Reilly has had enough of that. So in the name of protecting Christmas, Bill's going to get back at the people who are trying so desperately to keep him and other Fox correspondants honest.

His list is here, and it's small. As of this moment, there's only the New York Daily News, The St. Petersburg Times, and MSNBC on it. Only three "media operations [that] have regularly helped distribute defamation and false information supplied by far left websites"? Surely these are the most egregious of the three, an "Axis of Libel", if you will.

I'm worried, though. "Regularly distribute defamation and false information"? "Dishonest and not worth your time"? Sounds like somebody's asking for a lawsuit. But Bill's filed lawsuits before, and it hasn't gone well for him. He discovered at the hands of Al Franken that it's so much better to be the defendant in the lawsuit, particularly when he's just trying to defend the honor of Christmas. Being able to slander the people who record your every word and bust you on your outright spin and deception is strictly icing on the cake.

Bill O'Reilly: what a piece of work.

I Updated The Blogroll

I had just transferred the blogroll over from Bolo Boffin sight unseen. And it had been a year or so since I checked those links. So of course blogtopia (y!sctp!) has rolled on, in many various and unexpected ways.

The first thing I saw was the loss of several good blogs. Kuhwaver no longer chronicles, and idols of the marketplace is a domain up for sale. Hell, even the Quaker in a Basement threw up a Canadian calling card ad.

A second thing: what the hell was I thinking about some of these links? To wit: early on in my blogging life as Bolo, I ran across an interesting site. It looks very well put together, and it supported Israel. Well, I support Israel. I also support the Palestians, and I think that some way of getting along with each other can be found, even if it means locking up the extremists on both sides of the issue. So I linked to the site.

It was Little Green Footballs.

All I know is, I must have surfed by on their tamest day ever.

Now today I'm going through and I'm finding - well, not so egregious an error as LGF, but some dandies. War bloggers that openly deride the Democratic Party, mostly. I don't know why I ever linked to them. Maybe somebody got my password.

Also: sorting errors. Some of these blogs are hard to catagorize, especially in the areas I'm blogging. Mine would be mostly political, so that's where I'd expect to be. But I had Margeret Cho in Memetics, when she's clearly a political blogger. The same with Juan Cole, who was in Religion. Religion? Juan Cole? Gad, my brain...

Also, many blogs had shuffled around, much like me. ShiaPundit is now City of Brass, and the religious content is much more pronounced there, so it's in Religion. The Meme Machine is now titled Debate Unlimited. ReDefeatBush.org is now Left.org. The Hamster is now blogging for Al Franken. And the Republic of T has traded up for nicer looking digs.

And then the new additions: the straight-to-the-top-of-the-charts firedoglake, the inclusive TPMCafe, and Media Matters. Maybe Bill O'Reilly will put me on his enemies list. God knows I could use the publicity.

So anyway, the blogroll is current - all the links go somewhere that resembles what you think you'd find. Enjoy, and tell them the Inner Cog sent you...

PS: While clicking around, I discovered a new word. It's a religious one, about scholars and grad students blogging about the Christian scriptures. It's biblioblogging (y!wtfctp?). Ah, well...

Wanna Chuckle? Or Laugh Out Loud?

Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City

This site takes submission from people who overhear interesting things in New York. That's all it is. Here's a sample or two:

Teen boy: I did the stupidest thing yesterday.
Teen girl: What?
Teen boy: I went up to the cops with my bag open, and I was like,
"Wanna search me? Wanna search me?" and they were like, "Okay."
Teen girl: Ha, ha. You busted.
Teen boy: Yeah. They took half my condoms but they left everything
else.

--40th Street station

Counter guy: Who is next on line for a sandwich?...Anybody?...Does anybody want a sandwich?...Okay, who wants a salad?...Anybody waiting on line for a salad?....Anybody want anything?...You, what would you like?
JAP: Excuse me, I was next!

--EEE's, East 34th Street

Okay, it's not all funny. Some of it's shocking and sad, but it's all striking. Check it out...

Time To...Sa-ay Goodbye...

Crystal Harmony in Victoria
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

That song will be stuck in my head forever.

The last time we were in Victoria, I walked out along the seawall to get this shot at sunset. The Harmony is scheduled to arrive there tomorrow for dry dock, where I expect it will be in exactly the same place.

There the workers will gut the poor ship. They are probably already ripping out something as they sail. They'll be in Victoria for a month or so, and then take her over to Japan, where she'll be rechristened the Osaku II.

It certainly was a great ship, with an outstanding crew. I'm so lucky to have been a part of her history, even though they kicked me off the last cruise. Heehee!

Hope all of you Harmoniacs check in and say hello. Pass my info around, especially to people I couldn't find on my last day. I love and miss you all.

The Shift To Digital Libraries

FT.com

Will blog later - wanted to post now.

Friday Feast Seventy One

Appetizer

What did you look like when you were a teenager?
I was much thinner than I am now, but I've always felt this heavy.

Salad

Whose advice do you listen to?
I don't listen to a lot of advice. I hear a lot of advice, and I seek out advice giving. But more and more, I find myself only judging the emotional reaction that I might expect if I follow a certain course. Why I'm trying to anticipate emotional reactions, I don't know.

Mostly I look for proper authority and general evenhandedness in an advice giver. If someone just doesn't know what they're talking about, or if they betray wacky assumptions in broad areas of their life, it's hard to take their advice seriously. These are all the reasons that no one should ever listen to a word I say, by the way. I know I never do.

Soup

Name a book you would like to memorize.
On the practical side, the book I'd like to memorize hasn't been compiled yet. It would probably have the title Defining a Career: A Showcase of Plays for the Middle Aged and Older Actor. It would have Death of A Salesman and King Lear; probably Macbeth and The Dresser (for Sir) as well. That way, I could use what's left of my brain learning the roles that I might play in the future. It would be nice to be off book for all of those plays.

However, of the books that are out there right now, I suppose I would pick The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Or 1984 by George Orwell, which is about the same thing for the current American administration. Both books deal with manipulation of people and ideas, something that I am wary of. It's interesting to see how people conspire and wheedle and force others to do their bidding. Often people are blind to their own strategies.

I don't mean to sound as if I'm exempt from all this, and perhaps my choice of book creeps you out. Well, so be it. It's more a defensive choice than an aggressive attempt to learn how to manipulate. I want to know when I'm being manipulated. It helps me maintain a sense of freedom (illusionary or not).

Main Course

How often are you sick?
I am almost never sick. I get head colds. In the past three years I've caught the flu, and dealt with a hacking cough for about a month afterwards. But that's about it. I rarely get headaches, although working for Dell last December, I had my first migrane ever that I'm aware of. The nurse I called about my symptoms had me go to the emergency room for a detached retina! Thankfully, it wasn't that.

But the last time I went to the doctor, he pronounced me obscenely healthy. That's lucky for me.

What a paltry main course!

Dessert

Do you like or dislike change?
I dislike change, but change is inevitable. It's much better to develop a consistent approach to dealing with change, than to resist change.

But isn't resistance to change itself a consistent way of dealing with change? Well, you have to resist it for a while. Change is the wind that will help you get where you want to go - but if you've found where you want to go, change is your enemy. Resistance to unnecessary change is what develops your character. But when the motivation for change becomes overwhelming, you have to lift anchor and navigate to a new harbor.

Change has been my constant companion all my life. I've never been anywhere long; even here in Nashville, going on nine years or so, I've moved around quite a bit. And now the end is near, even here. I'm tired of the ruts I'm in. It's time to find a new pair of ruts. So I must learn to love change once again.

Photo Friday Challenge: Yellow

Joseph Nobles, Intrepid Explorer
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

Juneau, Alaska: We were just about to get into inflatable rafts and ride the mighty Mendenhall. It had been raining, so the water was up - we experienced Class II rapids, with some Class III at stretches. I got water in the face no less than three times, and we're talking glacier-fed river here - cold!

Legally Free Scott Adams Book

God's Debris

Challenge your mind with this book from the author of the Dilbert comic strip. It's his book and he's giving it away in PDF form. It's for personal use alone, though, so I wouldn't recommend printing it off or anything. Just read it.

Greenhouse Gas at Highest Level in 650,000 Years

Telegraph | News

This news story is flying all over right now, but under different titles. The New York Times is running with Rise in Gases Unmatched by a History in Ancient Ice. The LA Times? Antarctic Ice Shows Long Period of Lower Greenhouse Gas Levels. Both of these are blunting the Telegraph's title, which, judging from Google News, is the title going out on the wire story.

Along with this is the story Oceans rise at record rate as industrial age gathers momentum from The Times (UK). It's to the point that Fox News has gotten Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to develop a special on global warming, called The Heat Is On: The Case of Global Warming. It should have been called Maybe There Is Something to All This Global Warming Stuff After All...Heh, Heh. Because the evidence is undeniable, and this story is a button on the whole affair.

Analysis of air bubbles trapped in ice taken from east Antarctica has revealed the stark comparison and the findings will be added to evidence of human interference in the Earth's climate, which has been collected for next week's United Nations' conference on global warming in Montreal, Canada.

The latest sample, or ice core, extends previous records by 210,000 years. It was obtained by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, and the findings are published in the journal Science today. The scientists, working in severe weather conditions, used a four-inch wide drill bit, in 10ft sections, to bring up ice that was deposited by snows that fell up to 650,000 years ago.

The analysis showed that today's atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, at 380 parts per million, is already 27 per cent greater than previous highs, said Prof Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland. "We have added another piece of information showing that the timescales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system."

We must examine the results of our industry. If these results are detrimental to our goals and/or our quality of life, we need to find a safer way to conduct our businesses. This is what responsibility means.

Thursday Challenge: Sound

Splash!
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

The Thursday Challenge for today is a picture that evokes the idea of sound. So I'm choosing this one: a humpback whale crashing back down after breaching.

Don't forget to hear the excited oohs and ahhs of the passengers. We found two whales who were just diving, but then they started breeching and they did so for twenty minutes straight. Everybody got a great picture.

Have whales learned to perform? Do they realize if they just jump around a while, we get all excited and then go away? Are they dislodging plankton after they've fed? Is it something that helps their digestion? Or is it just fun, a pasttime on a lazy warm Alaska afternoon? The whales ain't talking to us about it.

Jesus Going For the Hail Mary

Jesus Going For the Hail Mary
Originally uploaded by JoeWorldTraveler.

This is a test, actually, of the Flickr blogging function. Just to see what it looks like.

And that's really called "Jesus del Caracol" - "Jesus of the Snail?" - and it's in La Paz, Mexico. Yes, I took that picture. Yes, I was there. I'll tell you all about it sometime.

On edit: Well, that looks great. I really like that setup. So now I can also sort through all my photos at Flickr and blog about my world travels, if I'm hard up for a blog post. Excellent. Y'all behave.

Harry Potter - Ack!

Super Heavy Spoilers

Maybe this is just me. I had too many hopes for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a movie. The graveyard scene in particular - that I had all blocked out in my mind.

Okay, the sheer feat of working that incredibly long book into two and a half hours must be honored. Honor.

And I don't hate the movie either. I'm fighting my own version in my own head, so perhaps it hangs together better than I think. But I found it to be the second-best of the films. Azkaban gets the nod as a overall film experience and connection to the book.

The graveyard scene: I think Cedric should have died quicker, almost as soon as they landed. Give Harry just enough time to recognize the statue, and then wham! Cruciatus and wham! Avada Kevadra. Then let Harry realize Cedric is gone while Wormtail shuffles up with his burden. To me, it would be more shocking if it happens quickly, almost casually. That's the thing for Harry to learn: somebody as good and decent as Cedric Diggory is just an afterthought to Voldemort.

Snape: I've heard it said that Alan Rickman alone knows what the end of his character will be (well, besides J.K., of course). That's the only reason he must be hanging around. He is so WASTED in this movie. One scene, that ends weakly, one scene shows us the Snape we know and love to hate. Otherwise, he's playing Moe to Harry and Ron's Larry and Curly. ARGGGGH! The truly subversive thing in Movie 6: Make Snape the main character! Give this man something to do!

Voldemort: We need to hear that Lilly saved Harry by the old magic of her love. I think that Lord Voldemort telling us this is completely wrong. I think that's something he still doesn't get or simply dismisses.

That said, the celebrated misprint of Lilly and James' appearances out of the wand is handled nicely. Tom Gambon as Dumbledore is fantastic. I really like the way Newell emphasizes the scattershot nature of how the magical world operates. It's almost as if Harry's maturity is now allowing him to see how lame his mentors can be.

As always, just read the books. Blog out.

Welcome Back To Cable Internet

Hee, hee, hee...

The cable guy came today and hooked me back up. I'm mainlining the Internet again!

I've been away, as you know if you read this thing. I've been doing DSL lines in Mexico and Alaska, which were fine. Typing on a Mexican keyboard can be wild (hint: the Alt Grp key is your friend. Hold it down to get the @ sign whatever key the @ sign happens to be on - don't understand? You will if you ever type on a Mexican keyboard), and I've also been playing around with surfing via the wireless card on my Dell Axim 50v. It will do in a pinch, believe me. Just enough sites offer a PDA version to make it worthwhile (amazingly enough, a site that sells PDA software doesn't give a mobile version of their pages! weird...).

But typing on my regular keyboard, browsing with Firefox, and zooming away at cable speeds...there's nothing better. Wuv, twue wuv...

Home Again, Home Again

I'm sitting in my apartment in Nashville, TN.

It's nice to be back, though I need to find a job. Not much has changed: the kitty did want to associate with me, which was nice, and all my friends at ye olde Barn were most welcoming. I do miss the ship a bit, but it was a lot of fun, and here's hoping I can go out again...

Plus all of this Woodward/Murtha revelations. Wow, I'm in a good mood politically. It's nice to see other shoes finally dropping. Here's hoping that the Bush Administration doesn't destroy America while they self-destruct.

I'm on a slow dial-up connection right now, so the post will be lame. Also, I'm thinking, yet again, of shaking up the posting. Bolo Boffin as a Blogger site has file uploading grandfathered in, but none of the new sites I create (like this one) does. So I'm thinking of making Bolo Boffin something called the American Observer. I'd have to keep the boloboffin.blogspot.com address, but I could go register usobs.com somewhere, and use that to advertise the site. The approach would be international in outreach: a running commentary on why we Americans are so crazy. It would be mostly political, thought with the occasional apology for, say, calling green peas "English" peas, or lean round cuts of ham "Canadian Bacon".

Inner Cog would remain a strictly personal and travel blog. When I travel. Or get personal.

Anyway, I'm thinking about it.

Darwin Online

The writings of Charles Darwin on the Web

This is an almost complete collection not only of his books, but of his published essays.

The Last Port of Call

I've been working on a cruise ship now for about five months. It's been really great, and an eyeopening experience, and all that, but I have come to my final port of call - Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. I won't be able to get online until Saturday (maybe Friday, but that will have to be a quick moment in the airport). The cost of going online is prohibitively expensive - I have to pay ten dollars for every megabyte of information transferred...yikes! What a racket!

PV is nice. It's where I spent my birthday this year. My favorite city in Mexico was Loreto, however. A nice quiet beautiful sleepy little town. Plenty of outdoor activities, and no finer place for lying in a hammock, drinking tequila, and scratching your belly could be imagined. I would love to be able to split my year between Haines, AK and Loreto. Maybe one day...

Who knows what the future holds in store? Perhaps I shall come this way again. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for being on the World Cruise offered by Crystal in January. I am an Egypt nut and two different stops in Egypt are planned. Plus Sydney, New Zealand, Easter Island, Capetown (I've been promised a hellacious party if I ever get to Capetown), the Mediteranean, and London. Wow, oh, wow.

If not, a move will be in store for me. By hook or by crook, I've got to bid Nashville adios. Too much life out there to find...

Alito: "The Constitution Does Not Protect A Right To An Abortion"

firedoglake: Last Straw? > Washington Times

This was back in 1985. Alito said in this in a job application to Edwin Meese. It's easy to see why Alito would use such "direct, unambiguous language"; Meese originated the term "jurisprudence of original intent":

According to its adherents, original intent jurisprudence alone can prevent judges from imposing their own views on the Constitution. It does so, they argue, by directing judges to determine the Constitution's meaning not by referring to some "evolving" societal consensus, but simply by asking what the Framers would have thought about a particular constitutional question.

As the Findlaw article quoted goes on to state, originalism is a sham. The back-to-the-Constitution crowd practices just as much subjective rationalization to justify their viewpoints as anyone else.

Is all of this the continuing societal impulse that split the Catholic church then, way back in the days of Martin Luther, a wave of which I found myself involved four hundred years later? There's nothing more firmly planted in my memory than the idea BACK TO THE BIBLE, and the cultural importance of this phrase in America (much less the Christian world) had never adequately been explored, as far as I can find. It is this mindset - of having a ironclad infallible standard by which to guide your every decision - that's being expressed whenever you hear "original intent" or "strict constructionists".

God help us if they ever defeat the liberals. The Supreme Court will at once descend into discussion about grammar, dissecting every jot and tittle of the Constitution while extinguishing its spirit.

Thankfully, Judge Alito has given us a statement quite clear as to its meaning. There is no parsing this statement - Alito is committed to advancing the position that the Constitution grants no right to an abortion. He's now in an impossible position. Does he continue to agree with this statement? If he says yes, he's filibustered. If he says no, he can say hello to Harriet Myers. I wonder what facesaving withdrawal tactic the Bush team will use for this guy...

New Title: The Inner Cog

Okay, so I took my name JOSEPH, and substituted the letters one back, so I could get a couple of vowels. That became INRDOG. However, I went two back from E accidentally, so I thought it was INRCOG. I thought about that, or rather Inner Cog, for a while. It seems a little spiritual. It was definitely different, and easily remembered. I could become the Cogster, or something silly like that.

And then I realized it should be Inner Dog. And that left me a little cold. Are we all dogs at hearts, we men? Yeah, but I'm aspiring here. So Cog it shall remain.

Hey, I was only ever Bolo Boffin because I plugged my name into a Hobbit Name Generator the day before I found The Smirking Chimp and signed up there as my new hobbit name. Enjoy.

That's Not My Blog Title

Insert Witty Blog Title Here is just a reminder to me to actually come up with something. So the two or three of you that link to me because I've transferred my Bolo Boffin blogroll over here: wait a second. Let me come up with a better name.

Greetings and Salutations

It's my first post in my new blog. I used to be Bolo Boffin, but the hobbit routine was tired before I even tried it. Anyway, it's still acerbic little me.

I'm typing this in Santa Rosalia, Mexico. I'm traveling right now as an actor for the Crystal Harmony, the soon-to-be-non-existant ship in the Crystal Cruises cruiseline. Yes, it's a sweet gig. The auditions are in Nashville, Tennessee; drop on by, I'm sure they'd love to see you.

Anyway, I hate Bush. There, I've said it, I've got it out of the way. You know this going in. Why do I hate Bush? Well, there's the thing about the stolen election(s). And then the thing about running the country into the ground to get tax breaks for all his corporate bosses. And then the thing about lying us into war, in order to get really great no-bid contracts for all his corporate bosses. Oh, I could go on and on, and I will. But not now. Now's the time for hello.

Also, I'm rather leery of religion. I used to be a believer. I was a member of the churches of Christ, a loose organization of back-to-the-Bible folks that have managed to more or less agree with themselves what the Bible says. Now I am not. It has nothing to do with my being gay. That's just icing on the cake.

Oh, yeah. Gay. That's me. And single. And sorta looking, but not really, because I travel a lot right now, and I want a committed relationship, and that's not possible right now. So single and floating.


I might be moving soon, and I'll have weird times to post when on the road, but will be fairly frequent when at home. So enjoy me while you got me. That's what I say.