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In what can only be decribed as a ballsy act of political hubris, Nancy Pelosi has appointed William Jefferson to the Homeland Security Committee. This is the same dude that got kicked off the House Ways & Means Committee after getting busted with $80,000 in cash in his freezer. Why he is still in office, much less serving on arguably the most powerful committee in the House, is a testimate to the current neutered status of the House Ethics committe.
How does this make sense? What possible advantage can this provide the party or the country? This is a bizarre display of ‘us vs them’ mentality on the part of the Democratic leadership. I feel ashamed of my ostensible party, but not particularly surprised.
Additionally, here’s a friggin mouse in my kitchen right now. He keeps running back under the stove when I make a move towards him, but then re-emerges to sniff at the dog’s waterbowl. The buildup to an epic battle looms. The question I’m asking myself is whether or not my mouse (who’s got at most another 24 hours to live before I trap his ass) would be a more moral, intellectually honest leader for these troubled times? My money’s on the squeaky little bastard.
I wouldn’t be the least bit sad if Dick Cheney dropped dead of a heart attack or OD’d with a stripper in his lap, but I’m extremely glad the vice-president wasn’t hurt in the assassination attempt in Bagram. The last thing we need is another world-wide demonstration of violence begetting regime change. Given our country’s recent behavior, we’ve been fortunate to have only home-grown assassins knocking off our leaders; the precedent this would have set had it been successful would have been destabilizing to an extreme.
Continue reading Target Cheney
From Tempus Fugit…
Clever souls, our founding fathers anticipated that authoritarian assholes like Alberto Gonzales would come along one day and say “wait a second, it doesn’t say that the people have [some right]” and then proceed to take that right away. They covered that base with the 9th Amendment.
From February 7th Washington Post.
"The attorney general's appointment authority has not and will not be used to circumvent the confirmation process," McNulty said. "All accusations in this regard are contrary to the clear factual record."
Not that is a new phenomenon. Check out his demonstrably false assertions on the Patriot Act’s Section 215.
A new psychological exercise. Here’s a series of words (in the order they were originally written) excerpted from an email I was bcc’d on this morning. Your task? Reconstruct the context!
assist loaded rocking last best Boston count Nan stinking plans wild millions world good time birthday bringing travel pack safer especially drunk heavy carry myself weigh twice both missing warm cold Bean Town
Sounds like fun.
The search term “harvardphilic” returns zero results!?? Make it one baby!!
I was told Friday I wasn’t qualified for a job that closely parallels what I do in my current position because my degree was from BU rather than from Harvard. Maybe I didn’t sell myself, adequately demonstrate my abilities, or maybe I just didn’t smile enough. Maybe it’s just that I’ve got f’ed up teeth – I’d much rather have been told any of those things. This pro-Harvard-to-the-exclusion-of-anywhere-else mentality though – this only leads to blood-thinning inbreeding and subsequent random hemorrhages people. Is it not bad enough that Harvard’s buying half my town? You don’t need to make me feel three feet tall in the process.
UPDATE: Maybe I’m using the wrong term here. What construction is appropriate for preference of one characteristic to exclusion of all alternatives? I’m accepting suggestions.
UPDATE 2: It’s not tinklepee. Although that suggests trying “harvard fetish” – 38 hits!
What’s interesting about this case isn’t so much the facts itself, but the way the reaction of the prime minister to this Sunni woman’s claims. This is the mindset of the failed government Americans are dying to keep in power.
From the NYTimes.
That was also the first response of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who issued a statement soon after the woman appeared on television on Monday, promising a full investigation and the most severe punishment for anyone involved.
Only hours later, however, Mr. Maliki reversed himself. His office released a second statement after midnight, that one calling the woman a liar and a wanted criminal and going on to praise the officers involved.
This is almost a parody of bad government. Let’s fire those who complain!
From the LA Times.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fired a top Sunni official Wednesday after he called for an international investigation into the rape allegations leveled by a Sunni Arab woman against three members of the Shiite-dominated security forces.
How could we make this more bizarre? I know, trump up some charges against the victim.
In his Tuesday statement, al-Maliki said the woman “had not been subjected to any sexual attack” and that three outstanding warrants had been issued against her for unspecified charges.
Stay tuned for her eventual arrest and prosecution, assuming she’s not killed outright by either the police or in an ‘honor’ killing by her family members.
Tonight, open screen at Coolidge Corner. My current entry is on evilmorsel, or below. I shot this over the course of a month with my cell phone camera.
I don’t understand why the switch from dollar bills to dollar coins is such a big deal. Every time this topic comes up newspapers refer to the ‘failure’ of previous attempts (the Sacagawea dollar, the Susan B. Anthony dollar), as though the US population had somehow rejected them. How can you reject a coin that you never see? If anything, the failure of previous dollar coins to catch on is due to the inability of the US Mint to commit to putting a sufficient number into circulation such that it would become commonplace. If dollar coins are cheaper (over their 30 year lifespan) to make, compared to the equivalent number of dollar bills (~20, at 18 months each) then any proponent of good governance should question why the Mint is still making these low denomination bills.
All that said: this is some of the dumbest looking art on coinage I’ve ever seen.
ps. Kill the penny too while you’re at it.
A little Valentine’s Day love for you.
“You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don’t like gay people and I don’t like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don’t like it. It shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”
“He was the bravest lad in the world – but his death was at the hands of idiots. The last four years have been a real battle and the MoD, who repeatedly told us this recording didn’t exist, just lied and lied to us. My Matty had more honour in his little finger.”
-Richard Hull, Matt’s father
Continue reading On the death of Matt Hull
The game was error ridden and the commercials sucked*, but halftime didn’t disappoint me at all. His Purply Princeness played in a downpour and for the first time I can remember it looked like the crowd they let in to surround the stage were really excited to be there. For me though, the most interesting thing was what I take to be a coded message by CBS and the superbowl people that we’ve finally left the post-Justin/Janet puritanism behind. If you missed it, the stage designers used a large sheet and a shillouette effect that, in conjunction with his bizarre guitar looked decidedly like a phallus and devil tail. Awesome.
*semi-decent
Annual resolutions don’t do it for me, I can’t follow through. For 2007 I decided to do all my resolutions on a month-by-month basis. Here’s my top four for the short cold month of February.
1) To bed by 10pm twice a week.
2) 10 new job applications.
3) 4 grants.
4) 1 paying design gig.
If the Boston public officials responsible for public safety can’t differentiate between a Lite-Brite based marketing technique and terrorist devices, how can we expect them to differentiate between any legitimate terrorist threat and it’s comically dissimilar visual analog? The short answer is you can’t, and that more of this type of overreaction is going to continue to be the norm. If Boston has anything to be thankful about, it’s that no one was summarily executed during the process of putting these ads in place. Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian national gunned down in London for the crime of not understanding English would have been so lucky.
For those unfamiliar with the general idea of LED throwies (which I have to assume this ad campaign is an outgrowth of), see Graffiti Research and their video of young terrorists at work.
An amusing aside, Fantent points out how the wire services think a Mooninite middle finger is not just an explosive danger, but a moral one as well.
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