Fables of the reconstruction

Pink Haired Girl!

She's back for a visit after a triumphant first term at UCSD, and I got to buy her her first martini of the trip:

Naturally, it was dirty.

Update:  And here is her robot:

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays

Reuters:

Five people were shot to death on Sunday in an apparent murder-suicide at two homes in suburban Fairfax County, outside Washington, D.C., police said.

Last night while trying to fall asleep I heard someone screaming they were going to send someone else home to their mother.  Now that sounds like a threat.

Disinformation About Psy Ops Around the Cover Story

Washingtonpost.com: Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War.

No shit, sherlock. Here's the subhed:

U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage

Don't worry, the wapo is not going to start committing actual journalism about the war now.  The real subhed for this story is "We're Been Licking Pentagon Asshole for Three Years Now; Where's Our Check?".

L'etat, Cest Moi

Washingtonpost.com:

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. once argued that the nation's top law enforcement official deserves blanket protection from lawsuits when acting in the name of national security, even when those actions involve the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, documents released yesterday show.

As a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Alito said the attorney general must be free to take steps to protect the country from threats such as terrorism and espionage without fear of personal liability. But in a 1984 memo involving a case that dated to the Nixon administration, Alito also cautioned his superiors that the time may not be right to make that argument and urged a more incremental approach.

"I do not question that the Attorney General should have this immunity," Alito wrote. "But for tactical reasons, I would not raise the issue here."

A couple of unrelated points:

One, officials in this country hardly are ever held personally liable for violations of civil liberties and civil rights.  If the local cops beat the crap out of you and break into your house to search it illegally, nothing much happens to them as a matter of law - although they may get fired, which is a political rather than legal outcome.  If they happen to find your heroin stash in the process, then our system's somewhat weak protection is to exclude that evidence in any civil or criminal proceeding against you.  Really, big whoop.  You get broken ribs; the cops usually get a promotion.

Two, nevertheless, Alito sucks and deserves to be denied confirmation for this reason alone, along with the others.

Wish I Could Switch To Cavtel A Couple More Times

Republicans lie. Dog bites man. Verizon fucks people over:

First there was a letter from Verizon to the mayor about the dangers of illegal attachments to utility poles. It warned ''that posting of any signs, banners, Christmas decorations or balloons onto poles without permission is illegal and can be prosecuted as trespassing."

Then the Maryland State Highway Administration got involved. Town officials were informed that most of Lonaconing's poles were only 40 feet tall, instead of the required 45 feet, which would mean the Christmas lights would hang too low over Main Street.

''If a wire is hanging at 15 feet, a truck could snag it. It could snap a pole, and someone could get seriously injured," Verizon spokeswoman Sandra Arnette said. ''We never said the town should not hang the lights. But safety is the first thing."

Milo Minderbinder

The Big Blue Blogger:

Cheney says that if they had the authority they already had they could've stopped 9/11, despite doing nothing to do so, and that therefore they need to illegally spy on Americans even though they can legally do so.

The Camel's Nose or the Long Pole in the Tent?

The washingtonpost.com says that Reid Calls for Probe of Domestic Spying by Bush administration:

Bush acknowledged Saturday that since October 2001 he has authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international phone calls and e-mails of people within the United States without seeking warrants from courts.

And Reid is no fucking hero - he's known about this for months!  Motherfucker.

Who is going to stand up and be a real fucking American at this moment in history?  Not the frightened chestbeaters of the Republican party.  And not the frightened hairsplitters of the Democrats.  No heroes in office, so as usual:  We have to be our own fucking heroes.  That's really what this country is about.  Does anyone get that anymore?  We are our own bosses, we make our own rules, we decide our own fate.  Not the machismo of guns in the glove compartment and ribbons on the tailgate - I mean moral courage.  Real courage.  Dedication to liberty - mine, and the other guy who makes different choices.  That's fucking courage.  Have it?

Probably not.  Too busy watching fucking Entertainment Tonight.

Anyhoo, Mrs. Vader speaks:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that public disclosure of surveillance programs used to wage the war on terror damages those efforts.

Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser when the program began, acknowledged that she was aware of it.

I  love that - if you know what your government is up to, you are a fucking traitor. 

Condoleezza Rice - a straight-up, no-shit, modern-day fascist.

Rice said that listening to terror leader Osama bin Laden's telephone conversations had been successful until news reports disclosed it and bin Laden stopped using the phone.

Bullshit.  What a fucking lie.  A stupid lie.  Like her "mushroom cloud" crap, Condi is a fucking liar.  Bin Laden was using a phone?  Bullshit.  He knows what our sigint capabilities are, dumbasses, we trained him.  Remember?  He has watched the Israelis blow people's heads off with cell phones.  He doesn't allow anything electronic within miles of him, probably, down to watches and pdas.  Anything that emits can be tracked.  Fuckheads.

Rice could not cite the constitutional and other authority she contended allowed Bush to authorize the domestic spying. However, she said the program had been reviewed by administration lawyers and that congressional leaders had been briefed.

Can't cite what doesn't exist, asshole.  And those the same lawyers who passed on the torture thing?  I can't believe I applied to work with those fucksticks.

"This is a war where intelligence is the long pole in the tent," Rice said on "Meet the Press" on NBC.

What the fuck does that mean?  You need a long pole?  What kind of right-wing dick speak is that?  You can collect intelligence in accordance with the constitution and with the oversight of Congress and the American people, and still ward off terrorists.  And if you miss some, all they can do is kill some number of us, they can't kill what America stands for.  But you shitheads sure can.

Where are the fucking Americans?  Where did they go?

Nation of Laws

We had to destroy the country in order to save it, you fucking liberal pussy.

Disaffected Artist

I dreamed I met Jesus.

The meeting was set up by this guy who was both some sort of scholar who studied the life and times of JC and well-known as a good, moral person.  Apparently it was really hard to get a meeting with Christ and it had taken even this guy a long time to line it up. I don't really "do" celebrities, but curiousity got the best of me.

We sat at this wooden table - the scholar's main thing seemed to be making Christ feel at home (or showing off his knowledge, take your pick) by replicating things the way they were in Jesus' day. Both Jesus and the scholar brought bottles of wine, and apparently the tradition when two people met was for them to mix their wine in the glasses.  You were supposed to pretend you couldn't tell who had better wine.  Jesus didn't say much.  He didn't seem like a very happy dude.

Turn the Goddamn Thing Off

This has been said elsewhere and better, I am sure, but there is no such thing as "reality TV."

TV is a communication vehicle for certain essential lies.  The two main sorts of lies it transmits are economic and personal.  TV depicts people who are not just consumed with consumption, they are defined by what they consume.  It creates an identity between purchasing things and living.  Watch enough TV and you will, too - which is why it is there.

The personal lies that TV tells are about status and security, and norms of behavior.  The TV world is one in which people are always setting and enforcing norms of obedience and respectability.  Even the antiheroes have to conform to the mold.  An obedient, respectable audience is easy to control. TV breeds Republicans.  TV breeds sheep.  TV is unamerican.

Reality is anathema to TV because life trumps commerce.  Commerce serves life, not the other way around; commerce is almost irrelevant to life.  Only the smallest, meanest minds think money and possessions are the most important thing in life.  Reality is anathema to TV because we're all different and the actual norm we should be living up to is thinking for ourselves.   

People who watch TV all the time are more pathetic and disgusting than crack addicts.  I've lived with both and prefer the crackheads.  Turn the TV off and take the fucking pipe out of your mouth.