Friday, February 24, 2006

Free speech is so quaint


Morrissey was apparently been interviewed by the FBI and British intelliegence about his views about President Bush and the War on Terror. I for one am glad that we are spending scarce resources in the War on Terror interviewing celebrities. A truly brilliant idea!

Posted by jwb at 10:40 AM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Idol results


We were out tonight and missed it--though we've got it recorded for close scrutiny over the weekend--but I gather, from the Internets, that the following are gonzo:

Bobby Bennett and Patrick Hall. Bobby is not a surprise. Patrick is a little bit of a surprise--he was in my top 6 (guys), but I guess he was a little too boring for America. (Apparently Simon commented that he didn't stand out, which sounds about right.)

Becky O'Donoghue and Stevie Smith. Becky is a bit of a surprise. Perhaps the "she's really hot" vote is being split up too many ways at the moment. Stevie is not a surprise.

That is all--until next week.

Posted by jwb at 8:14 PM  · 0 Comments   

Idol dish

While we're on the topic, via Tyler Durden, here's some dishy stuff on Idol from TMZ. com (with Tyler's comments in parentheses):

Almost every female contestant is disgruntled over what they believe is a double standard - that (insanely hot) Becky O’Donohue has been criticized for her sexy pose in 'Maxim,' yet (effeminate mouse) Ace Young can strike sexy poses on the show but he's viewed as "cool."

(apparent contestant) Melissa McGhee is upset because she feels she's gotten less face time than her peers. But she's making up for that shortcoming by using her cell phone incessantly to vote for herself.

(Probably crazy) Kellie Pickler started out very nice, but the lowdown is that she's getting downright arrogant. Pickler told the chef, "You're lucky to be cooking for me." In fact, Pickler is so taken with herself that she belts out tunes in the hotel elevator.

On Monday night, (so dorky he’s cool) Taylor Hicks hibernated in his room, ordering steak and milk for dinner.

On Tuesday night, 10 of the contestants, including (insufferable fatty) Brenna Gethers gathered in the restaurant/bar to watch the show. When Gethers saw herself on TV, she jumped out of her seat and began dancing to her performance. When Simon panned her, Brenna began ranting at the screen. After that, she asked the chef to sprinkle some sugar on her dessert, commenting: "I need some sugar on here after all the remarks Simon gave me." She was also lobbying people in the bar for votes.

All of the contestants have Simon on the brain. No one talks about Randy or Paula.


According to Tyler, Vegas has Ace as a 7-2 favortite, followed by Katherine (4-1), and Paris (5-1).

Posted by jwb at 12:27 PM  · 0 Comments   

American Idol is back


After weeks of screwin' around, Idol is finally back. We watch it with more interest than is probably healthy in our house. Before they start dropping people, Jenn and I have put together our top 12. Here's mine: (I'll post Jenn's later.)

Guys:
1. Taylor Hicks
2. Ace Young
3. Chris Doughtry
4. Elliott Yamin
5. Will Makar
6. Patrick Hall

Girls:
1. Katherine McPhee
2. Lisa Tucker
3. Paris Bennett
4. Mandisa
5. Ayla Brown
6. Heather Cox

Some comments:

The 5 and 6 slots for the guys were tough because 1-4 were vastly superior to the rest. I wouldn't be surprised if Gedeon and Sway make it. Unless the people calling in are completely nuts--admittedly a possibility--there's no way Bucky, Bobby, David, or Kevin should make it.

As to the girls, Heather (see above) makes the cut not because she's the best singer among the rest but because she is smokin'. I would say that, of the rest, Melissa and Kinnik are the best. Brenna is really annoying--though perhaps that will appeal to certain deranged segments of the population. And there's just no way, absent much improvement, that Becky, Stevie, and (as cute as she is) Kellie Pickler will make it.

More on this very important topic later.

Posted by jwb at 11:40 AM  · 1 Comments   

Dick Cheney has bad judgment

If there was still at this late date any reason for doubting that, the fact that he chose Washington hack Mary Matalin to be his primary defender in the media over Shotgungate should end the debate. Here are some excerpts from a 2001 "Slate" piece by Andrew Ferguson to remind us of just how incredibly hackish Matalin is, even by the immensely hackish standards of Washington:

Failing upward is a common form of getting ahead in certain corners of corporate America, but nowhere is the method as sure-fire as it is in Washington. Many of the capital's most recognizable personages sashay through town trailing a long history of fuck-ups. Think of Oliver North, whose idiocy and ineptitude almost destroyed the administration he worked for and who received, as compensation, a nightly TV show and five-figure speaking fees; or Warren Christopher, whose bungling of the Iranian hostage crisis under President Carter catapulted him to the job of secretary of state in the next Democratic administration; or think of the Monster of the Mess-Up, the Icon of Incompetence, the Big Bopper of the Blooper, Robert McNamara, whose achievements include not only blood-soaked rice paddies in Vietnam but also, and almost as bad, the Edsel. For this he was awarded the presidency of the World Bank, and we honor him still. In this company of stars, Mary Matalin holds a special place. So great is her success, so large (by Washington standards) is her fame, and so unidentifiable is her talent that the rest of the capital's strivers can only gawk in wonder....

Of course, political warriors in Washington like to pretend to the ideal of comity. "We're all friends after five o'clock" was the often quoted and utterly insincere motto of Tip O'Neill. In fact Democratic and Republican true believers cleave almost exclusively to their own—as unmingled as Hutus and Tutsis, though with better table manners. Why it should to be otherwise? If politics is truly the encompassing passion of your life, no one should be surprised if you seek friendship and conviviality and love (especially love) among people whose politics are similar to yours. They should be surprised if you don't. Solemnized a year after Election Day 1992 in an elaborate New Orleans wedding, the union of right-wing Mary and left-wing James thus raised an uncomfortable question. Which were they faking—the love or the politics? It would be unseemly to question their love, so let's assume the answer is politics, but with an important qualification. There are two kinds of politics. One involves the clash of dearly held ideas, a contest between defining views of the world. The other has to do with buzz and gamesmanship, tactics and maneuvering. In this second kind of politics, ideas and worldviews are mere instruments, a board game accessory, as exchangeable as Monopoly money.

By sheerest coincidence, James and Mary rose to celebrity just as cable TV was metastasizing a kind of chat show dedicated precisely to politics as they understood it. Following such '80s successes as Crossfire and The McLaughlin Group, it was the mission of Hardball and Talk Back Live and Hannity and Colmes—and to a lesser extent, the new Meet the Press, where they were soon appearing regularly—to trivialize politics into a compulsively entertaining freak show. It was a parody of idea politics. Two sharply drawn sides, conservative and liberal, sputter across a desk, and Carville and Matalin obliged by becoming the Battling Bickersons of the Beltway….

All this activity serves to obscure the important question of why Matalin and Carville should have become famous at all. It's a funny thing about failing up in Washington. People who fail up here are not failures in the conventional sense; they're failures only at what they're supposed to be good at. McNamara, for example, was held to be a genuis at "strategizing" (the term was new then) and organizing large bureaucracies; he failed miserably at both while excelling at the far more valuable art of bum-bussing and knowing whose bum to buss. Carville and Matalin are reputed to be crackerjack political operatives. The evidence is slim. Matalin's signature political experience was as an architect of George Bush's re-election campaign. Carville went from failure to failure as a consultant until he engineered the upset win of a Pennsylvania Senate seat, after which Bill Clinton plucked him from obscurity. In short, one of them helped design what is widely understood as the worst presidential campaign in modern memory, and the other ran against the worst presidential campaign in modern memory and managed to win only 43 percent of the vote….

Posted by jwb at 11:24 AM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Why are we in Iraq?

Fafblog is wondering why we are in Iraq:

Q. Why are we in Iraq?
A. For freedom! Recent intelligence informs us it is on the march.
Q. Hooray! Where's it marching to?
A. To set up a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and held in check by strict adherence to the laws of Islam.
Q. Huh! Freedom sounds strangely like theocracy.
A. No it doesn’t! It is representative godocracy, in which laws are written by the legislative branch, enforced by the executive branch, and interpreted by an all-powerful all-knowing deity which manifests its will through a panel of senior clerics.
Q. Whew! Is democracy on the march?
A. Democracy was on the march. Sadly, freedom and democracy were caught in a blizzard and freedom was forced to eat democracy to survive.
Q. It died as it lived: sautéed in garlic sauce with a side of scalloped potatoes.
A. Democracy is survived by sectarian violence and fanaticism. In lieu of flowers, please send a coherent exit strategy.


More here.

Posted by jwb at 9:33 AM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Eva Green is the new Bond girl


Contrary to the commentary I've seen about this on the web so far, I actually think this--if true--is a good call. Eva Green is very sexy--go rent Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" if you doubt this. And there's something a little dangerous about her, something common to many of the great Bond girls--Pussy Galore and Tracy are my favorites. If the movie is halfway decent, I don't think the fact that she's not very well known will be that big a deal.

Bond geeks: Discuss amongst yourselves.

UPDATE: It appears to be true. In possibly even better news, Jeffrey Wright has been cast as Felix Leiter.

Posted by jwb at 10:16 AM  · 0 Comments   

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Peppered is what you do to a caesar salad

Yes, Dick Cheney is still dangerous. But we already knew that. The Daily Show was very funny on this last night:

Jon Stewart: "Yes, as you've just heard, a near-tragedy over the weekend in south Texas. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a man during a quail hunt at a political supporter's ranch. Making 78-year-old Harry Whittington the first person shot by a sitting VP since Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, of course, shot in a duel with Aaron Burr over issues of honor, integrity and political maneuvering. Whittington? Mistaken for a bird."


This exchange with Rob Corddry is priceless:

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do … coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people … to get him some sort of mask."


In less humorous news, the poor guy--Whittington, not Cheney--has now had a heart attack.

Posted by jwb at 2:30 PM  · 0 Comments   

Dick Cheney is dangerous

I see, via Defamer, that "hunting accident" is not listed among the 10 Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You.

Posted by jwb at 9:30 AM  · 0 Comments   

Monday, February 13, 2006

Ricky Bobby

Alas, we'll have to wait until August until the new Will Ferrell extravaganza is out. However, the preview is up. Check it out.

That is all.

Posted by jwb at 2:10 PM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, February 10, 2006

More on the separation of powers

Yale law professor Jack Balkin, the major domo of one of the better blogs on con law issues, has a good post today on the likelihood that Congress will any time soon overcome its reluctance to perform its traditional role of oversight on the other branches of government, particularly the executive branch.

Congressional Oversight, Party Loyalty, and Separation of Powers

There are at least two different explanations for resistance among Republicans to the President's NSA program. The first is that there are some public spirited public officials who genuinely believe that the program violates the law and/or the Constitution, and are worried that the Administration is dangerously aggrandizing power, and are willing to risk the disfavor of the Administration in saying so. The second is that Republican members of Congress increasingly understand that their political fortunes are not tied to that of the Bush administration and that what is good for their interests in reelection may differ from the Administration's. This President, after all, will never run for reelection while Congressmen and Senators must continually do so.

Our constitutional system is premised on the idea that the first explanation-- of simple public spiritedness and courage--will not always be sufficient and that the second explanation--of political self-interest—will often be necessary to counteract overreaching by another branch of government.

The problem, however, is that in contemporary politics party loyalty has often proved much stronger than institutional rivalry between Congress and the President. After the Republican Party succeeded in capturing both Houses of Congress and the Presidency (not to mention a majority of the Supreme Court), the basic strategy was for the political branches to work together. Karl Rove used 9-11 and the War on Terror to create a new set of themes that Republicans could unite around and run on to the disadvantage of Democrats.

To a significant extent, the Administration is still using that same playbook-- repeatedly sending the message that Republicans are serious about protecting Americans, while Democrats are not. Using these themes, the President ran on behalf of Republican candidates in 2002 with considerable success, and he managed to increase Congressional margins in 2004.

As a result, Republicans in Congress have, until recently, been unwilling to perform the function of Congress in a system of separated powers--to oversee, expose, or push back against Administration overreaching, bad judgment or incompetence. Because this natural check and balance of the political system has been overcome by party politics, the result has been repeated instances of all three--overreaching, bad judgment and incompetence.

Many have worried that the successful political strategies we have seen in this Administration mean that the logic of the constitutional system is breaking down and that we can no longer depend on separation of powers to check the other branches. That is why the recent developments are so important. They suggest that although a movement party like the Republicans can work together for a while, at some point repeated election cycles drive a wedge between the interests of Congress and the President controlled by the same party, particularly when the Administration is a lame duck Administration.

Although I have not been a fan of the Twenty Second Amendment, which limits Presidential terms to two, it does have the unintended effect of helping to create this sort of wedge. Even if a movement party controlling both Congress and the Presidency can march in a relatively secure lockstep during a President's first term, differences will almost certainly arise in the second term. And of course, if the public becomes sufficiently aroused and unhappy with what the movement party has done, it may break up the constitutional trifecta and hand one House or the Presidency to the other party.

The question is whether this mechanism is enough to do all the work that the framers of the 1787 Constitution originally hoped it would. (We must remember that the framers didn't even believe that there would be political [sic] parties, so the fact that the system of separated powers has done much of the work it was intended to do is something of a miracle). Although the signs are hopeful, the jury, alas, is still out on this question. Republicans and Democrats alike have worked hard to ensure a large number of safe seats in the House; moreover, the contemporary system of campaign finance favors incumbents and allows Congressional leaders to keep Congressmen and Senators in marginal constituencies in line. Hence the Rovian model of a relatively disciplined party in which the President and Congressional Republicans work in lockstep may still have considerable staying power. And it is that Rovian model that has undermined the system of checks and balances that helps keep Presidents honest. Even though some Republicans are now objecting to this President's repeated acts of overreaching and incompetence, I am not yet convinced that the Congress as a whole will be able to perform its oversight function in a sustained fashion. Only time will tell.

Posted by jwb at 2:30 PM  · 0 Comments   

On the uses and abuses of the Bush Doctrine

Matthew Yglesias pithily summarizes the central problem of our current approach to foreign policy:

The problem with the foreign policies of Bush and Blair, by which I take it we mean the Iraq War, is twofold. One, the nature of the threat from the Iraqi regime was neither so large nor so acute as to make invading and occupying Iraq a reasonable method of enhancing American national security. Two, invading, conquering, occupying, and reconstructing medium-sized multi-ethnic polities ruled by long-entrenched dictators is neither an effective method of spreading liberal democracy nor an effective method of achieving humanitarian goals.

Posted by jwb at 11:40 AM  · 2 Comments   

The Federal Budget is a disaster

Via Professor Delong, I see that Paul Krugman, liberal economist and NYT columnist, is very harsh today, but you be the judge:

[W]e've had six years to grow accustomed to Bush budget chicanery... the sheer childishness of the administration's denials and deceptions.... [I]n 2001... Bush... insisted that its tax-cut plans wouldn't endanger the budget surplus.... [T]he Senate demanded a cap on the tax cut.... The administration met this requirement... by "sunsetting" the tax cut, making the whole thing expire at the end of 2010.

This was obviously silly... the law as written... no federal tax on the estates of wealthy people who die in 2010... estate tax will return in 2011.... I suggested, back in 2001, that the legislation be renamed the Throw Momma From the Train Act.

It was also obvious that the administration... would try to eliminate the sunset clause and make the tax cuts permanent. But it quickly became clear that the budget forecasts... were wildly overoptimistic.... Making the tax cut permanent would greatly worsen those future deficits. What were budget officials to do? You almost have to admire their brazenness: they made the future disappear. Clinton-era budgets offered 10-year projections of spending and revenues. But the Bush administration slashed the budget horizon to five years... since budget analyses no longer covered the years after 2010, the revenue losses from extending the tax cut became invisible.

But now it's 2006, and even a five-year projection covers the period from 2007 to 2011, which means including a year in which making the Bush tax cuts permanent will cost a lot of revenue -- $119.7 billion... a standard table titled "Impact of Budget Policy"... this year, that table is missing....

The administration has no idea how to make its tax cuts feasible in the long run. Yet it has never, as far as I can tell, allowed unfavorable facts to affect its determination... it has devoted all its efforts to hiding those awkward facts from public view. (Any resemblance to, say, its Iraq strategy is no coincidence.)

At this point the administration's budget strategy seems to be simply to ignore reality. The 2007 budget makes it clear, once and for all, that the tax cuts can't be offset with spending cuts. But Bush officials have decided to ignore that unpleasant fact, and let some future administration deal with the mess they have created.

Posted by jwb at 9:30 AM  · 0 Comments   

Thursday, February 09, 2006

The Schrutes have thirsty babies


On a lighter note--Senator Brownback would certainly not approve--Dwight Schrute, of Dunder Mifflin, a paper company in Scranton, PA, has his own blog. Some highlights:

1. Dwight on Canada: "In Canada it is always winter. Sometimes the sun never rises in Canada. Harp seals abound until they are brutally slaughtered by Canadians. They worship maple syrup, hockey and Alanis Morisette. I hate Canadians."

2. Dwight on what makes women tick: "Dear readers of Schrute-Space (many, many of whom are women) I need help in understanding what makes chicks tick. For instance, I will hear a certain girl say "Do I look fat?" And I will respond, "What do you mean by fat? In some cultures, (bush pygmies), you would be considered 'hefty' or 'chunky' even. But to others (wisconsin) you would be as skinny as an anorexic." My observations are true and correct and yet I'm the one who has to apologize and buy 8 dozen roses and a dinner at Red Lobster in order to make up for it. As Science officers Spock or Data would say, "highly illogical, Captain.""

3. Though a little too long to reprint here, Dwight on inequality among the sexes is very funny. Click here.

4. Dwight's New Year's wish: "Question: why is there not world peace? We are the most powerful nation in the world with the armaments to enforce total world peace lockdown. Let's all pray for a total world peace lockdown enforcement in 2006!" Actually, come to think of it. Senator Brownback might approve of that sentiment.

For "Office" addicts, Jenna Fischer (Pam) has her own blog, as well. Click here. Now get back to work.

Posted by jwb at 3:00 PM  · 1 Comments   

We're on a mission from God


Sam Brownback is a US Senator from Kansas. He is also a real piece of work--endowed with both a massive sense of self-regard and a real authoritarian streak. By all accounts, he plans on running for president in 2008. For some reason, he thought it was a good idea to sit down for an interview with Rolling Stone. The results are not pretty. Some excerpts:

Just six years ago, winning the evangelical vote required only a veneer of bland normalcy, nothing more than George Bush's vague assurance that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. Now, Brownback seeks something far more radical: not faith-based politics but faith in place of politics. In his dream America, the one he believes both the Bible and the Constitution promise, the state will simply wither away. In its place will be a country so suffused with God and the free market that the social fabric of the last hundred years -- schools, Social Security, welfare -- will be privatized or simply done away with. There will be no abortions; sex will be confined to heterosexual marriage. Men will lead families, mothers will tend children, and big business and the church will take care of all….

He tells a story about a chaplain who challenged a group of senators to reconsider their conception of democracy. "How many constituents do you have?" the chaplain asked. The senators answered: 4 million, 9 million, 12 million. "May I suggest," the chaplain replied, "that you have only one constituent?" Brownback pauses. That moment, he declares, changed his life. "This" -- being senator, running for president, waving the flag of a Christian nation -- "is about serving one constituent." He raises a hand and points above him….

The nation's leading evangelicals have already lined up behind Brownback, a feat in itself. A decade ago, evangelical support for a Catholic would have been unthinkable. Many evangelicals viewed the Pope as the Antichrist and the Roman Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon. But Brownback is the beneficiary of a strategy known as co-belligerency -- a united front between conservative Catholics and evangelicals in the culture war.…


Senator Brownback thinks sex is icky:

Sex, in all its various forms, is at the center of Brownback's agenda. America, he believes, has divorced sexuality from what is sacred. "It's not that we think too much about sex," he says, "it's that we don't think enough of it." The senator would gladly roll back the sexual revolution altogether if he could, but he knows he can't, so instead he dreams of something better: a culture of "faith-based" eroticism in which premarital passion plays out not in flesh but in prayer.


He doesn’t like gays either:

During a recent broadcast Brownback explains that with the help of the VAT [Values Action Team}, he's working to defeat a measure that would stiffen penalties for violent attacks on gays and lesbians. Members of VAT help by mobilizing their flocks: An e-mail sent out by the Family Research Council warned that the hate-crime bill would lead, inexorably, to the criminalization of Christianity….

Sitting in his corner office in the Senate, Brownback returns to one of his favorite subjects: the scourge of homosexuality.… On Brownback's desk, adrift at the far end of the room, there's a Bible open to the Gospel of John. It doesn't bother Brownback that most Bible scholars challenge the idea that Scripture opposes homosexuality. "It's pretty clear," he says, "what we know in our hearts." This, he says, is "natural law," derived from observation of the world, but the logic is circular: It's wrong because he observes himself believing it's wrong. He has worldly proof, too. "You look at the social impact of the countries that have engaged in homosexual marriage." He shakes his head in sorrow, thinking of Sweden, which Christian conservatives believe has been made by "social engineering" into an outer ring of hell. "You'll know 'em by their fruits," Brownback says. He pauses, and an awkward silence fills the room. He was citing scripture -- Matthew 7:16 -- but he just called gay Swedes "fruits."


He belongs to a cultish group of other fundamentalist bigwigs who have lots of ideas:

They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing" -- a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It's a good old boy's club blessed by God….

The most bluntly theocratic effort, however, is the Constitution Restoration Act, …. If passed, it will strip the Supreme Court of the ability to even hear cases in which citizens protest faith-based abuses of power. Say the mayor of your town decides to declare Jesus lord and fire anyone who refuses to do so; or the principal of your local high school decides to read a fundamentalist prayer over the PA every morning; or the president declares the United States a Christian nation. Under the Constitution Restoration Act, that'll all be just fine….


These ideas seem mainly to involve all sorts of new regulations of personal behavior and few, if any, regulations of the more traditional kind:

His biggest financial backer is Koch Industries, an oil company that ranks among America's largest privately held companies. "The Koch folks," as they're known around the senator's office, are among the nation's worst polluters. In 2000, the company was slapped with the largest environmental civil penalty in U.S. history for illegally discharging 3 million gallons of crude oil in six states. That same year Koch was indicted for lying about its emissions of benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia, and dodged criminal charges in return for a $20 million settlement. Brownback has received nearly $100,000 from Koch and its employees, and during his neck-and-neck race in 1996, a mysterious shell company called Triad Management provided $410,000 for last-minute advertising on Brownback's behalf. A Senate investigative committee later determined that the money came from the two brothers who run Koch Industries.

Brownback has been a staunch opponent of environmental regulations that Koch finds annoying, fighting fuel-efficiency standards and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. But for the senator, there's no real divide between the predatory economic interests of his corporate backers and his own moral passions. He received more money funneled through Jack Abramoff, the GOP lobbyist under investigation for bilking Indian tribes of more than $80 million, than all but four other senators -- and he blocked a casino that Abramoff's clients viewed as a competitor. But getting Brownback to vote against gambling doesn't take bribes; he would have done so regardless of the money.


Watergate felon Chuck Colson is Brownback’s idea of an intellectual:

Although Brownback converted to Catholicism in 2002 through Opus Dei, an ultraorthodox order that, like the Fellowship, specializes in cultivating the rich and powerful, the source of much of his religious and political thinking is Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide who served seven months in prison for his attempt to cover up Watergate. A "key figure," says Brownback, in the power structure of Christian Washington, Colson is widely acknowledged as the Christian right's leading intellectual. He is the architect behind faith-based initiatives, the negotiator who forged the Catholic-evangelical unity known as co-belligerency, and the man who drove sexual morality to the top of the movement's agenda….

Colson taught that abortion is only a "threshold" issue, a wedge with which to introduce fundamentalism into every question. The two men soon grew close, and began coordinating their efforts: Colson provides the strategy, and Brownback translates it into policy. "Sam has been at the meetings I called, and I've been at the meetings he called," Colson says….

And yet compassionate conservatism, as Colson conceives it and Brownback implements it, is strikingly similar to plain old authoritarian conservatism. In place of liberation, it offers as an ideal what Colson calls "biblical obedience" and what Brownback terms "submission." The concept is derived from Romans 13, the scripture by which Brownback and Colson understand their power as God-given: "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."

To Brownback, the verse is not dictatorial -- it's simply one of the demands of spiritual war, the "worldwide spiritual offensive" that the Fellowship declared a half-century ago…. Given to framing his own faith in terms of battles, he believes that secularists and Muslims are fighting a worldwide war against Christians -- sometimes in concert. "Religious freedom" is one of his top priorities, and securing it may require force. He's sponsored legislation that could lead to "regime change" in Iran, and has proposed sending combat troops to the Philippines, where Islamic rebels killed a Kansas missionary.

Brownback doesn't demand that everyone believe in his God -- only that they bow down before Him. Part holy warrior, part holy fool, he preaches an odd mix of theological naivete and diplomatic savvy. The faith he wields in the public square is blunt, heavy, unsubtle; brass knuckles of the spirit. But the religion of his heart is that of the woman whose example led him deep into orthodoxy: Mother Teresa -- it is a kiss for the dying. He sees no tension between his intolerance and his tenderness. Indeed, their successful reconciliation in his political self is the miracle at the heart of the new fundamentalism, the fusion of hellfire and Hallmark.


There is more, much more. Click on through.

Posted by jwb at 2:20 PM  · 0 Comments   

Performance anxiety

The President gave a speech the other day in New Hampshire. One of his talking points was about how government programs that are not performing well should be "eliminated and/or trimmed back" [sic]. As such, the White House has set up a website, called expectmore.gov, where you can actually find out how government programs are doing according to various measureable criteria. Via First Draft, here are only a few of the many programs listed as "not performing" (meaning "ineffective" and "not demonstrating results"):

Dept of Homeland Security Border Patrol
Dept of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Automation Modernization Program
Dept of Homeland Security Science and Technology: Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Air Cargo Security Programs
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Aviation Regulation and Enforcement
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Baggage Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Federal Air Marshal Service

Corps of Engineers-Civil Works Coastal Storm Damage Reduction
Corps of Engineers-Civil Works Flood Damage Reduction

Federal Election Commission Federal Election Laws - Compliance and Enforcement

Office of Natl Drug Control Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign

Securities & Exchange Comm Enforcement
Securities & Exchange Comm Full Disclosure Program (Corporate Review)


Oddly, this isn't especially surprising.

Posted by jwb at 12:30 PM  · 0 Comments   

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

More on Bond


My slighly batty Canadian friend Marty had some interesting things to say about the never tired topic of who was the best Bond in the comments section of the post below on Vesper Lynd. I thought I would re-post them here since we have very few readers who venture into the comments section:

[O]f course Sean Connery is the best Bond of them all. Of course, Moore turned the franchise into a cheezy parody of itself (a fact redeemed only by Live and Let Die). Yeh, Dalton was a little static, but his dramatic gravitas was a bracing breath of fresh air after Moore. The last couple of flicks with Brosnan as Bond have sucked, its true. But the first couple he did were among the best in the series. The opening sequence of Tomorrow Never Dies is the best of them all.

I didn't actually mind Lazenby; he was a good, low-key Bond in one of the more low-key of the original Fleming novels (he even gets married to the Bond girl at the end!). What I like the most about Lazenby, though, is that he is Australian. This creates somewhat of a precedent for the next Bond being chosen from an unrepresented part of the British Commonwealth. Look at it this way: Connery is Scottish, Moore and Dalton are English, Brosnan is Irish. Surely, the pattern is clear: the next Bond has to be either a Canadian or a New Zealander. It's just too bad that Christopher Plumber is past his prime for this kind of role. Of course, he's not much older than David Niven was when he did the original (satirical version) of Casino Royale.

Now, before you start laughing at the idea of a Canadian Bond, there are plenty of valid historical reasons for making such a choice. Ian Fleming actually based his portrayal of Bond on a Canadian agent (the name of whom escapes me at present) he commanded while serving in the British Secret Service during World War II. This agent was well known by Fleming for his many feats of daring do, including several successful infiltrations behind German lines after the Nazi retreat from Normandy, where he captured several key secret weapons installations (V-I&II launching sites among them). Don't believe me? go look it up. It should also be noted that the renowned World War II spymaster, "A Man Called Intrepid", was none other than William Stevenson - a Canadian.

That all having been said, Let's hear it for the next Bond guy being a Canuck. I hear Paul Gross might be available. Any takers? Oh yeah, and Bond should never, EVER, drive anything other than an Aston Martin.

A Canadian Conservative in America


A few final thoughts:

My friend Raphael thinks that Dalton was closest to the way Bond is in the novels--dark and brooding, among other things.

I forget what the other thing was. Oh well. We'll undoubtedly return to this topic again.

Posted by jwb at 12:50 PM  · 0 Comments   

Tom Brady in the news


This just in. According to the very disturbed people at The Superficial, Tom Brady and Bridget Moynihan may have split up. I guess that means no more Bridget sightings at the gym. Read on:

In light of the recent superbowl, it's only fitting to tackle a football related story, although this one might be of more interest to the ladies than the gents (Well, maybe not all the gents. You know who you are). It appears as though former Super Bowl MVP Tom Brady has called it off with his love of two years, Bridget Moynahan. Sources say that Brady was in Detroit over the weekend and "acting very single - going out to the parties and hitting on a lot of women."

Now, what they don't say is who these women were, or where these parties were, or whether there's any sort of actual evidence that any of this happened. And you know what that means - it's totally true. But Tom Brady was way too young to settle down anyway. If you're in your twenties, have won three superbowls, and look like a male model, they should be peeling girls off the side of your house. Now the only superbowl I've won is the superbowl of interpretive dance, but even that got me all kinds of girls. At least, I think they we're girls. Now that I think about it, they did have suspiciously deep voices. And beards. And penises. But I figured, you know, "steroids".

Posted by jwb at 12:30 PM  · 0 Comments   

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

The Iraq war is very expensive

The cost of our war in Mesopotamia inched passed the $300 billion mark yesterday. That's a lot of coin. Here's The New York Daily News for some background:

When the estimated cost of the Iraq war soared beyond $300 billion yesterday, White House officials said there were no regrets about humiliating two top aides who had accurately predicted the war's cost.

Retired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki and White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey had pegged the cost of the war at $200 billion. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it would cost only $50 billion.

Lindsey was fired and Shinseki was shunted aside.

Budget director Josh Bolten paused yesterday when asked if they were owed an apology.

" I don't think so. The costs of the war are what they are," he said.


I sometimes wonder how high level Bush officials like Bolten actually sleep at night. In Bolten's case, it's pretty clear that he's got absolutely no conscience whatsoever. What an ass!

Posted by jwb at 1:40 PM  · 0 Comments   

Monday, February 06, 2006

Nacho Libre


From the geniuses (I use the word loosely) behind "Napoleon Dynamite" and "School of Rock" comes Nacho Libre. Looks like it's going to be pretty funny.

Posted by jwb at 3:00 PM  · 0 Comments   

Nerd Patrol

Via The Onion--whoops, actually it's The New York Times:

President Bush spent the weekend in the warm winter sunshine at his Texas ranch, where he rode his bike, entertained friends and cleared his head. It had been a long week: the State of the Union address on Tuesday, then trips to pitch his "American competitiveness initiative" in Tennessee, Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas from Wednesday to Friday. Most of what Mr. Bush said was the CliffsNotes version of the State of the Union speech for local television markets. But he also wandered into an aside about why math and science students should not think of themselves as the "nerd patrol," declared once again that his foreign policy was in part based on an "Almighty" whose gift to the world was freedom, and mused about his age.

Posted by jwb at 2:30 PM  · 0 Comments   

Friday, February 03, 2006

Who is Vesper Lynd?

I've been a little disappointed by just about everything I've been hearing about the new Bond film. The actresses that have been mentioned as possible Bond girls are uninspiring and they've still got no villain. Egotatstic gets it about right:

"Um, this whole bond girl search is going to give me an aneurism. I don't understand what the freaking problem is. Oh, wait, maybe it's the fact that all the last James Bond films have sucked so majorly. Or maybe it's the fact that being a Bond Girl is a sure-fire method for career suicide. Maybe it's the fact that no one thinks they cast the right guy to play James Bond. Or maybe it's that the fact that the Bond producers are morons...."

Posted by jwb at 12:20 PM  · 1 Comments   

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

The 50 Most Loathsome People in America

A pretty good list. They're particularly astute about aleged political genius Karl Rove, who comes in at # 15: "A greasy pig whose only distinction in life is his total lack of decency. Rove is decidedly not a genius; he is simply missing the part of his soul that prevents the rest of us from kicking elderly women in the face. His admirers have elevated fanatical, amoral ambition to the status of a virtue, along with lying, cheating, and negligent homicide, all in the name of "values." Quite possibly the worst person in the worst White House in American history." Click here for the rest.

Via Political Theory Daily Review, an excellent, though exceptionally nerdy, website.

Posted by jwb at 5:00 PM  · 1 Comments