Fables of the reconstruction

The Psychological Stages of the Housing Price Bubble

The Irvine Housing Blog, via L.A. Land:

The above graph is an excellent depiction of the psychological stages of a market bubble. It is fairly easy to put time frames to each of these stages as displayed by our local [SoCal] housing market:
    •     Take off: 1998-1999
    •     First Sell Off: 2000
    •     Media Attention: 2001-2002
    •     Enthusiasm: 2003
    •     Greed: 2004-2005
    •     Delusion: 2006
    •     Denial: 2007
    •     Fear: 2008
    •     Capitulation: 2009-2010
    •     Despair: 2011-2013
    •     Return to the Mean: 2014

Obviously, the past is easier to document than the future, so we may reach future stages sooner or later than shown above, but we will reach them. ...

 Right now, we are in the denial stage. Prices have not dropped enough to cause real fear. Denial is apparent in polls like this one: Out of touch with realty reality where 85 percent believe their home will rise in value during the next five years, and 63 percent believe a house is a good investment. That is serious denial.

Okay, so it's SoCal, where everything is overblown, but I think it's interesting and potentially applicable to other markets. As for the timing, I am a little surprised and disappointed he thinks it will take 7 years to shake out.

 

QOTD

Scott Lemieux:

[T]he first term demonstrates Roberts and Alito to be doctrinaire conservatives just as their records predicted, and the most likely effect of their "minimalism" is to do most of what Scalia and Thomas want to do in a more politically palatable manner.

Your Uterus is State Property

(Cross-posted at Gloria Brame's.)

Religious conservatives seek policies to make the maximum number of women into mothers dependent on a man for their and their child's life.

They're quite ruthless in pursuit of this goal. On one hand, they work to make it harder for women to gain access to sexual health information and contraception, because they know that will lead to the maximum number of pregnant women. They make it difficult to get an abortion. They cut funding for any sort of assistance that would enable the woman to live independently from a man. The push marriage policies that punish women who do not get married. They don't care if the women die in childbirth or by abusive men or the children die after they're born, so long as there are other women who can become mothers to take their place. It's God's will, after all.

As part of this effort to control women and make them nothing more than child-bearing servants, a particularly nasty policy has come along: Punishing women who are drug addicts and alcoholics if they fail to get sober when they are pregnant.

Bean from Lawyers, Guns & Money:

Take, by way of example, the case of Theresa Hernandez. Ms. Hernandez, who lives in Oklahoma, is being tried for first degree murder for suffering a stillbirth at 32 weeks of pregnancy. The prosecution is based on a "highly questionable" (according to NAPW) claim that Ms. Hernandez's use of illicit drugs during her pregnancy caused the pregnancy loss.

My "common sense" tells me that prosecutions like these -- which have taken place in the majority of states and have affected the lives of almost 1000 women -- are bad for public health. As Dr. Dana Stone, the Oklahoma head of American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains it in a National Advocates for Pregnant Women press release out today:

"Stillbirths and miscarriages are unfortunately a risk of pregnancy for all women. Prosecuting women for pregnancy loss based on what they allegedly did or didn't do will only deter women from seeking prenatal care and drug treatment, and that's ultimately bad for babies."

over 150 other medical professionals back her up and oppose criminal justice responses to drug addiction during pregnancy.

In addition to the doctors' concern that prosecutions drive the women most in need of prenatal care away from it, is the simple fact that any prosecutor interested in protecting fetal health would try to keep a woman as far away as possible from a jail cell. Not only are drugs as widely available in prisons as outside (if not more widely so), but jails are also notorious for providing appallingly bad prenatal and delivery care, including the shackling of women during labor and delivery.

The point of policies like Oklahoma's is to instill the feeling of being controlled into women. Once they become fertile, and especially once they become pregnant, they are to learn that they no longer are autonomous persons - they are instruments to be used for a greater good.

More from National Advocates for Pregnant Women:

By combining drug war propaganda with claims of fetal rights, new and significant violations of civil liberties and human rights are occurring. In the last twenty years, hundreds of pregnant women and new mothers have been arrested, based on the argument that a pregnant woman’s drug use is a form of abuse or neglect. In 1997, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that a pregnant woman who used cocaine and who gave birth to a healthy baby could be convicted of child abuse. More recently, a pregnant woman who used cocaine and suffered a stillbirth that was caused by an infection-- has been convicted of homicide by child abuse in South Carolina. More than eighteen states now address the issue of pregnant women’s drug use in their civil child neglect laws, and a growing number of these states make it possible to remove a child based on nothing more than a single positive drug test. Like other applications of the war on drugs, the punishment of pregnant women targets vulnerable, low-income women of color—those with the least access to health care or legal defense.

These cases represent a significant expansion of the war on drugs. Pregnant women who are addicts can go to jail, despite Supreme Court rulings that treat addiction as a disease --and punishment for it as a violation of the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Similarly, despite the fact that people who are treated for drug related health problems are supposed to have extra protections under the federal drug treatment confidentiality statute, S.C., by reinterpreting drug use as child abuse, creates a devastating exception to the statute’s privacy protections.

Good people who are appalled by this and the theoconservatives who push it have no common ground. When we talk about what's best for mothers and children in a utilitarian, empirical way, as bean does, it falls on deaf ears. When we talk about civil liberties and human rights, it falls on deaf ears. To our opponents, our enemies, all of those things are secondary to what is good and right, and what is good and right is dictated by their bibles, not by science or law. There is nothing to discuss with these people.  All we can do is defeat them politically.

American Sex Stats

(Cross-posted from Gloria Brame's blog.)

These results surprised me:

The average American man has sex with seven women during his lifetime, compared with four male sexual partners for the average woman, according to a new federal survey that used high-tech methods to solicit candid answers on sexual activity and illegal drug use.

The average man has only seven female sex partners in his life? And the average woman has sex with four men during her whole life?

I know a lot of above-average people.

Men are far more apt to play the field when it comes to sex, the survey found; 29 percent of them reported having 15 or more female sexual partners in a lifetime, while 9 percent of women reported having sex with 15 or more men. ...

Fifteen? Fifteen is the "a lot" number? Fifteen? I crossed that in college. And didn't feel that unusual.

Though the survey results were presented by the CDC without subjective comment, they will likely provide ammunition to various parties in the national debate over sex education, cohabitation and access to birth control. The survey found about 11 percent of never-married adults had remained chaste.

Yeah! Let's get that "chaste" number down to zero! Woo hoo! Wait, that's not what the people in government have in mind?

Among the other findings:

About 96 percent of U.S. adults have had sex.

Sixteen percent of adults first had sex before age 15, while 15 percent abstained until at least age 21.

The proportion of adults who first had sex before age 15 was highest for non-Hispanic blacks (28 percent) compared with 14 percent for both Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites.

Six percent of blacks abstained from sex until age 21 or older, fewer than Mexican Americans (17 percent) or non-Hispanic whites (15 percent).

Twenty-five percent of women and 17 percent of men reported having one partner in their lifetime.

Despite the "high-tech methods" mentioned in the story, I think a whole lot of lying was going on here.

Supreme Court Rules For Corporate Free Speech, Against Individual Free Speech and In Favor of Government-Sponsored Religion

Scotusblog:

In the second decision of the day, ... written by Alito and again dividing the Court 5-4, the Justices ruled that taxpayers do not have standing to sue to challenge the White House program on federal aid to faith-based organizations. The Court did not overrule Flast v. Cohen [which held to the contrary], also [sic] two Justices in the majority urged it to do so.

And:

The fourth ruling, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., over three full dissents and one partial dissent, declared that public school officials do not violate a student's free speech rights by punishing the student for words or actions that promote a drug message. The ruling also should count as a 5-4 decision because Justice Stephen G. Breyer would have decided the case on qualified immunity grounds, and not reached the First Amendment issue.

And:

The Court issued its fifth ruling of the day, concluding that a Wisconsin abortion rights group had a First Amendment right to aid during election season campaign ads that named a candidate running for the Senate. Three of the five Justices in the majority urged the Court to overturn the part of a 2003 ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the federal law restricting such radio and TV ads close to elections. The Chief Justice's main opinion, joined fully by Justice Alito, said the case did not provide an occasion to revisit that ruling. Justice Souter recited at length from the bench for the four dissenters -- who were in the minority on four of the five rulings on Monday.

Shorter conservative Supreme Court justices [sic]:

Religion in government is good. Political contributions are good. Individual free speech is bad.

They're all 5-4. They're by Roberts or Alito (Thanks Mr. Nader!). They're all subrosa overrulings of recent precedent, so they don't have to take responsibility for being so unprincipled.

The Court will next issue decisions on Thursday, when it is expected to complete its current Term with four rulings -- counting as two the school integration cases. The others are a case on executing mentally disturbed criminals and on the standard for judging antitrust violations.

Can't wait.

(Via ACSBlog.)

That's a Bad Kitty

Say you're a 62-year-old Vietnam vet on your back porch at your home north of Tampa, Florida.

And then say you're attacked by a rabid bobcat. What do you do?

If you're one Dale Rippy, you struggle with it while it bites and claws you, then you strangle it to death:

Rippy said it was clear the crazed bobcat had to be stopped.

“I was bleeding everyplace,” Rippy said of the May 30 attack. “If that cat had attacked a child, it would’ve been really bad. It wouldn’t have quit.”

Rippy’s neighbors in the suburban Central Florida neighborhood called for help. Tests showed the dead bobcat was rabid. Rippy was treated for exposure to rabies, and several bites and cuts.

Authorities praised Rippy for clear thinking under pressure.

“We give this guy a lot of credit for what he did,” said Pasco County Animal Control Manager Denise Hilton. “The man was definitely using his head when he did that. If he let the cat go, we could have had more victims.”

Wow.

(Via David Pescovitz at Boing^2).

Go Fuck Yourself, Ralph

Shorter Ralph Nader to the Democratic Party:

*cracks knuckles* Nice little locked-up election you got here. Shame if anything should happen to it. *holds out hand*

Which is an empty threat. You think the Green Party will give him another platform? You think anyone above pissant level of Democratic donor is going to give him as much as a dime? Still think Al Gore is George Bush in earth tones? Go to hell. You think people forgot what happened last time?

(Via Scott Lemieux at LG&M.)

QOTD

John Cole:

At some point, this administration ceased to be a political entity and morphed into the Gambino crime family.

Yes, except Gotti was more ethical.

People Who Need to Work Out Power Issues: The Surrendered Wife

(Cross posted from Gloria Brame's.)

Jessica Valenti at feministing:

Remember that book, The Surrendered Wife, that came out a while ago and got all sorts of press because it basically told women that the key to happiness in marriage was to shut-the-fuck-up?

Well it seems that some folks are taking it wa-ay seriously.  This Australian version of 60 minutes covers women "who really do love, honour and obey. Especially obey."  Yeah.  Watch the video--it is fucking disturbing.

The short version: Women in "surrendered" marriages are just SO much happier because they don't have pesky things like opinions. Much better that only one person in a marriage have decision-making abilities.

The video features women who essentially have husbands that run their lives: one husband picks out his wife's outfits and hairstyles, another insists that she shave his face and put his toothpaste on his toothbrush, there is even one woman who is blindfolded when she and her husband drive so she's not tempted to offer help with directions.

Poor men. No, I really mean it. Poor men. A load of us can't get through life without needing a book like this to try to make our spouses submit to us, because those men can't take control in the way that they want to. It's a perfect example of what I call crotch-level politics: Rightwing, culturally conservative, religious Republican politics is entirely the result of sexual confusion and frustration. The men for whom The Surrendered Wife was written for, and their wives who will buy it to try to please them, are pitiful people. These men can't find it within themselves to treat their partners or themselves with compassion, humanity, or understanding. They can't accept themselves for who they are sexually, so they replace that acceptance with hierarchy and a rigid, gender-based paradigm of domination and submission. By doing so, they diminish themselves and their partners, and cut off or dull their experience of life as something to be enjoyed. Poor men.

Simulacrum

The Unporny Valley, from The Reverse Cowgirl:

Fear of Touch

This is just bizarre:

Fairfax County middle school student Hal Beaulieu hopped up from his lunch table one day a few months ago, sat next to his girlfriend and slipped his arm around her shoulder. That landed him a trip to the school office.

Among his crimes: hugging.

All touching -- not only fighting or inappropriate touching -- is against the rules at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna. Hand-holding, handshakes and high-fives? Banned. The rule has been conveyed to students this way: "NO PHYSICAL CONTACT!!!!!"

School officials say the rule helps keep crowded hallways and lunchrooms safe and orderly, and ensures that all students are comfortable. But Hal, 13, and his parents think the school's hands-off approach goes too far, and they are lobbying for a change.

"I think hugging is a good thing," said Hal, a seventh-grader, a few days before the end of the school year. "I put my arm around her. It was like for 15 seconds. I didn't think it would be a big deal."

Is there something about running a middle school that turns your brain to mush?

Deborah Hernandez, Kilmer's principal, said the rule makes sense in a school that was built for 850 students but houses 1,100. She said that students should have their personal space protected and that many lack the maturity to understand what is acceptable or welcome.

"You get into shades of gray," Hernandez said. "The kids say, 'If he can high-five, then I can do this.' "

She has seen a poke escalate into a fight and a handshake that is a gang sign. Some students -- and these are friends -- play "bloody knuckles," which involves slamming their knuckles together as hard as they can. Counselors have heard from girls who are uncomfortable hugging boys but embarrassed to tell anyone. And in a culturally diverse school, officials say, families might have different views of what is appropriate.

You know that's bullshit. The real fear is of teen and pre-teen sex. So long as they can't see them being affectionate with each other, they can tell themselves all their abstinence-only bullshit is working.

(Via Ogged at Unfogged.)

QOTD

Bitch, Ph.D.:

The worst thing about women flashing their tits or playing the minx on the internets is that in doing so, they're demonstrating that they trust other people. To realize that it's all in good fun, that they can be sexual beings and still fully human, that enjoying the power of physical attraction doesn't mean losing all one's other complicated attributes.

And really, that kind of basic trust that other people are decent human beings is a good thing. If there's anything that needs to be analyzed, condemned, or regretted, it's that there are so many people out there who betray it.

Is It Just Me, or Is Anyone Else Having Trouble Commenting?

I can't seem to post comments to my own blog. Is anyone else encountering this difficulty? Email me.

Update: I turned off the captcha, and it works. But if I get spammed, it goes back on. But turning it on and off requires republishing the whole frickin' site. So ... yeah.

Hey, remember when bloggered was a verb?

Porn Industry Blames the Internet for its Ills

(Cross-posted from Gloria Brame's blog.)

There was a NYTimes.com article on the porn business from earlier in the month that I have been meaning to talk about:

The online availability of free or low-cost photos and videos has begun to take a fierce toll on sales of X-rated DVDs. Inexpensive digital technology has paved the way for aspiring amateur pornographers, who are flooding the market, while everyone in the industry is giving away more material to lure paying customers.

And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer’s house.

After years of essentially steady increases, sales and rentals of pornographic videos were $3.62 billion in 2006, down from $4.28 billion in 2005, according to estimates by AVN, an industry trade publication. If the situation does not change, the overall $13 billion sex-related entertainment market may shrink this year, said Paul Fishbein, president of AVN Media Network, the magazine’s publisher. The industry’s online revenue is substantial but is not growing quickly enough to make up for the drop in video income.

I think the analysis here is fundamentally wrong. Read this passage closely:

It is an unusual twist on the Internet-transforms-industry story. The Internet quickly presented a challenge to some businesses, like recorded music and newspapers. But initially, the digital age led to a kind of mainstreaming of pornography by providing easy and anonymous access online.

The spread of high-speed Internet access promised even further growth. Instead, faster connections have simply allowed people to download free movies more quickly, and allowed amateur moviemakers to upload their creations easily.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the market continues to be flooded with new video releases, both online and on disc. Mr. Fishbein said that this year he expected to see more than 1,000 X-rated DVDs a month produced for retail sale, a figure driven in part by the new spate of low-budget filmmakers.

Last things first: It's not counterintuitive at all that even with falling sales, the industry would still be cranking out discs. In fact, it's exactly what you would expect, since each individual movie is still profitable; they're trying to make up lost margin with volume.

Second, skip back up to the first quoted section: "unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones". Wait a minute. Doesn't Myspace exist? Aren't people checking out bands that have no record deal exactly because the internet disintermediates? Aren't people buying or swiping single songs from their favorite signed bands? Yes, yes and yes. So what "challenge" does the internet pose to the music industry? It challenges shitty music, that's what.

Music and porn are not commodities. The mere fact that the internet exists to give people a cheaper means of distribution does not transform them into commodities. That is to say, quality matters. The porn companies acknowledge as much:

Older companies in the industry are responding with better production values and more sophisticated Web offerings.

But production values are not enough. Think again of music. What's the problem? That the recording quality - the production values - of most music isn't good enough? No, it's that the music sucks. Don't confuse production values with quality. Mainstream porn's problem is not the internet; it's that mainstream porn sucks. The internet allows people to choose indie and amateur producers because those offerings are better from the customer's standpoint.

Mainstream porn came up with a creative formula a long time ago: big-fake-titted blonds with stupid high heels and IQs lower than their waist sizes getting pumped by cretins with monster cocks. You know, lowest common denominator. The industry then went and innovated in all the technical areas: multiple camera angles on the DVD, web offerings with streaming video and seamless online payment. It may be an American thing, but it seems like it's easier to innovate on the technical side because tech is simple to understand. What the mainstream porn industry really needs is innovation on the creative side, which is sorely lacking.

Hail Mary, Full of Shit, May the Force Be With You

Responding to some Roger Cohen nonsense (that I can't read because it's Times Select), Duncan writes:

What drives me nuts about this residual force stuff, aside from how arbitrary it is, is that there's never any thought to exactly what these 50,000 should do. Basically, as the violence rages around them they're supposed to sit there to ensure that... there isn't even more violence raging around them. But it isn't really enough people to actually intervene, especially given that not even close to that many would be combat troops.

Let's start the morning with a little heresy to go with that titular blasphemy: Duncan Black is wrong! about there being no thought as to what the residual force will do. It's just that there are a few different scenarios, and none of them can be discussed in public without causing a great, big political uproar.  All of them are predicated on the analysis that Wesley Clark put forward: If you think things couldn't get worse if we withdraw, think again. The Saudis have lost faith in the ability of the U.S. to protect the Kingdom, so they have been arming Sunni militant groups, some with ties to al-Qaeda, in Syria, Iraq and Iran to give them a tool to use against Iranian-funded Shiite groups.  In the event of an American withdrawal, that support will go into overdrive, which will probably result in the Very Bad Outcome of (a) the outbreak of a regional proxy war between the Saudis and the Iranians, and (b) the effective legitimization of al-Qaeda by Saudi Arabia.

So, if you believe the foregoing, and you want to draw down U.S. force levels (because our mission has failed), then you have to make yourself believe that there are scenarios in which the foregoing will not happen. The possible scenarios involving a residual U.S. force of 50,000 personnel located on bases in Iraq outside of urban areas I can think of (I am sure there are others) are:

1. The Fairytale Official Story: As the U.S. withdraws, the Iraqi government comes to its senses and puts together a nonsectarian army and police force that restore order, then constitutional democracy breaks out. The residual force of the glorious liberating American Army remains as honored guests. Na gah na happen, but it's the only scenario that can be mentioned in polite company.
2. The Effective Partition: An oil-sharing plan is put into place, all the factions are bought off, and the Sunni, Shia and Kurds retreat to their respective political and geographical spheres of influence.  The residual force provides a little muscle to enforce the agreement and occupies bases through which additional force can brought in if the deal collapses.
3. Military Dictatorship: Civilian rule collapses, and a junta seizes power in the name of restoring order. The residual force is its air force and provides some airmobile ground support.

Now, are any of these scenarios likely to come true? No. They're possible outcomes which are better than the regional war scenario. Now, we got into this mess because a bunch of people engaged in fantasy wish-fulfillment rather than serious planning, and of course we run the risk of the same sort of fantasizing in planning the withdrawal. But there are no good options. Bush has well and truly fucked things up and all that we're left with is a hope and a prayer. The occupation has failed. The residual-force scenarios probably won't work, either. But if it fails, as it probably will, that just leaves us where we are now. A complete withdrawal is always the last option.

Update: Oh, I forgot to mention, the other reason why the "residual force" idea is politically palatable - and thus, may lend itself to more fantasizing - is that it is not "defeat and retreat." It gives the impression that all was not for naught, even though it was.

Ich Bin Ein Perv

(Cross-posted from Gloria Brame's blog.)

(Berlin Fetish Ball, via The Reverse Cowgirl.)

The Lush Life

The Sad Truth Is ...

Although it's a refreshing drink on a warm day, Woodchuck Cider tastes not so much like alcohol as something you put alcohol into. On a beach in the Caribbean.

Date Rapist Almost Gets Away With It

(Cross-posted from Gloria Brame's blog.)

The verdict in the trial of a date rapist here in Philadelphia came down this past Wednesday, and because of what I think is a toxic stew of sexism, racism and lingering social prejudice against online dating, the guy almost got away with it.

It was a pretty sensational case because Jeffrey Marsalis met six of his seven victims on Match.com, an online dating service, and posed as an emergency room doctor, a NASA astronaut, and/or a CIA assassin. Each of the victims reported that they had a drink or two with Marsalis, blacked out, and then Marsalis had sex with them. The defense consisted of calling all seven of them lying sluts who had gotten drunk and fucked on the first date, then cried rape afterward.

Largely, the jury bought it.

On Wednesday, Marsalis was acquitted on 33 of 35 charges, including 7 counts of rape. But in what is seen as a "compromise verdict", he was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault:

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated five days before announcing its verdict Wednesday. At one point, jurors were heard screaming at one another during deliberations.

I normally have a great respect for the work of juries, but this group just blew it. A compromise verdict means that there were some people on the jury who held out for a conviction, and they're to be thanked. But the rest screwed up. They preferred to think seven women were liars willing to put an innocent man in jail, rather than think one man was a serial rapist.

There were several factors at play here, I think. First of all, sexism: The victims didn't behave as rape victims "should". They talked to Marsalis after the attacks. They didn't call police, but told friends they had been raped. They didn't go to the cops because they couldn't remember anything that happened, of course.

The second major factor: Marsalis and, presumably, his victims are white. In Philadelphia, you'd get a majority-black or even all-black jury, usually mainly middle-aged people. And we know that the jury was 8 women and 4 men. There is not a more sexually conservative cohort that I can think of than middle-aged black women in Philadelphia. The common prejudice against whites is that they are all unnatural perverts. Plus you get the disapproving perspective of middle-aged women against younger women who are putting themselves out there online.

So these women got assaulted twice, as the saying goes. First Marsalis drugs and rapes them, then they got a jury predisposed to believe that they were sluts for using an online dating service and drinking with a man they just met.

The Greenwich Village Project

(Cross-posted from Gloria Brame's blog.)

When I saw the headline, "Pentagon Confirms It Sought to Build a 'Gay Bomb'", the first thing I thought of was a neutron-bomb-like device that only killed gay and lesbian people. The truth is just as ridiculous and absurd:

A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.

Pentagon officials on Friday confirmed to CBS 5 that military leaders had considered, and then subsequently rejected, building the so-called "Gay Bomb."

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, had used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. ...

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviewing the documents. "The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay," explained Hammond.

The Pentagon told CBS 5 that the proposal was made by the Air Force in 1994.

"The Department of Defense is committed to identifying, researching and developing non-lethal weapons that will support our men and women in uniform," said a DOD spokesperson, who indicated that the "gay bomb" idea was quickly dismissed.

However, Hammond said the government records he obtained suggest the military gave the plan much stronger consideration than it has acknowledged. "The truth of the matter is it would have never come to my attention if it was dismissed at the time it was proposed," he said. "In fact, the Pentagon has used it repeatedly and subsequently in an effort to promote non-lethal weapons, and in fact they submitted it to the highest scientific review body in the country for them to consider."

Clearly, this tells us much more about the repressed fantasies of Air Force personnel than it does anything else.

(Via Pinkhaired Girl).

Footnote

Judge's order (pdf):

(Via Dr. Bitch.)

US Arming Iraqi Sunni Insurgents to Attack Al-Qaeda

I'm in sunny downtown Seattle:

Blogging will be light until Wednesday, but I just wanted to mention this:

U.S. forces have begun arming nationalist guerrillas and former Saddam Hussein loyalists -- and coordinating tactics -- in a marriage of convenience against al Qaeda radicals in one of Iraq's most violent provinces, senior U.S. commanders tell CNN.

This new alliance, a result of the deepening divisions among Iraqi insurgent factions, was on display earlier this week at a highway intersection in the town of Tahrir. There, a group of some 15 insurgents publicly chanted: "Death to al Qaeda."

"The al Qaeda organization has dominated and humiliated Sunnis, Shiites and jihadis. It has forced people from their homes. They can't get enough blood. They killed many honest scholars, preachers and loyal mujahedeen," one of the group's spokesmen read from a written manifesto.

First, it was inevitable that we would back Sunni militants against the Shia, so arming them putatively to attack al-Qaeda is a good enough fig leaf as any. Second, al-Qaeda in Iraq is a marginal force, so "defeating" them won't be a problem, but forming an organized counter to Shiite power is several orders of magnitude harder.

(Via Phillybits.)

The Criminal Color

It's 2003.  Some teenagers are having a party, and as teens today are wont, they are smoking pot, drinking, and fucking.

One of the attendees at the party was a 17-year-old boy. Another was a 15-year-old girl. A third was someone with a video camera.

Caught on video was much sexual activity, including the boy getting head from the girl. Curiously, at the time, a 17-year-old person having oral sex with a 15-year-old person was aggravated child molestation.  Fucking crazy.

So, off the 17-year-old goes to jail.  For 10 years, statutory minimum. Ever fucking crazier.

But wait!

In 2006, subsequent to the "crime", the law was changed to make the conduct a misdemeanor.  At most, a year in jail.

The kid has done 27 months already. So they're going to let him out, right?

Nope. Oh, I'm sorry, were you assuming he was white? No, he's the criminal color. Here's a pic of Genarlow Wilson at 17:

He's described as:

In 2003, Wilson was an honors student, standout athlete and homecoming king preparing for his SATs with an eye toward college.

True, but he's black, so he was born for jail. So sayeth the assistant attorney general on the case, one Paula Smith.

The Georgia State Legislature is trying to pass a bill to free Wilson. But it's blocked by a top Republican (did you even need to be told?) senator, Eric Johnson:

It's too bad I don't live in Sen. Johnson's district, so I could stand on the motherfucker's desk myself. But anybody who does live down that way should be kicking his door in - in a very polite manner - to express themselves on the topic.

Or you can write to Sen. Johnson.

Or you can contact the Attorney General's office.

Or you can donate to the Genarlow Wilson Legal Defense Fund.

(Via Sally Hemings in Paris.)

 

Local Programming: Don't Send Your Kid to Great Valley Middle School in Malvern, PA

... unless you're willing to get charged with the crime of being a parent. Booman stepped up to get some stolen property back for his kid, and in the process, uncovered the complete fecklessness of his kid's school's principal, Stephen Swymer, and assistant principal, Tony Freeman:

And this kid continued to wear the sweatshirt to school.  It was driving CBtE [his son] crazy so he went to the vice-principal Mr. Anthony S. Freeman and showed him photographs of CBtE wearing the sweatshirt. The vice-principal blew him off and told his mother that the thief was an upstanding citizen, while her kid...not so much. ...

Lovely. So Booman goes to the school and removes the sweatshirt from the little juvenile delinquent who stole it. Then:

Now, this stupid punk thief decided to actually complain to the school administration about having his stolen property repossessed by its rightful owners. Mind you, the kid never claimed it was his sweatshirt when I took it back from him, and his parents promptly dropped the story that they had bought it for him. But that didn't matter to the jackass principal Dr. Stephen Swymer.  He wanted to expel CBtE and prosecute me for everything short of murder.

It all ends with Booman going to the local detectives office and getting tickets for disorderly conduct and trespassing. Good for him.

Gods and Monsters

Via Duncan, a sane examination of the Democrats' religion forum....

And then there is Get Religion, where it's all Dem-bashing, all the time:

According to unnamed Democratic strategists interviewed by the Post, Democrats are working hard to win back some portion of the religious vote. The say that the “goal is less about appealing to conservative white evangelicals — who according to exit polls cast almost 80 percent of their votes for Bush in 2004 — and more about capturing moderate Catholics and mainline Protestants.” But is talk and code words all that is necessary to win over that vote, however you want to define it?

Atlantic magazine political analyst Marc Ambinder makes the argument that the religious left is not defined by anything and that even the theme for the night — poverty — was hardly mentioned....

Yeah, by the moderators and the press, moron. See how "faith" works? It's sincere if it supports right-wing politics. It's insincere if it's liberal, or nonpartisan.

The comments are even worse:

Where is the upset in the leftist, atheistic blogosphere??

The atheists (who are not really atheistic, but antitheistic) have loudly condemned the Republicans for responding to questions with answers with a religious bent. Many have said they cannot vote for Republicans because of their interjection of religion into politics. Will these same antitheists reject all of the newly religious left?

And:

I think we would all be better served if those of faith spoke from the heart and those who had no faith just kept quiet. I dont want to be pandered too. I dont care how many consultants they have and how they study the buzz words and language — true believers can smell a rat.

A DemocRAT, geddit? This, at a website where my comments are deleted for too much "venom".

Maps and Legends

Philadelphia 2006 murder map.
Philadelphia 2007 murder map.
U.S. dead in Iraq:

My Nominee for Wanker of the Day

Bill Quick, the "guy who named the Blogosphere":

I think an unofficial “leave no prisoners behind” policy would work well, too.

Advocating that we summarily execute the detainees in Gitmo. I point out in his comments that the Pentagon doesn't even think most of the prisoners are dangerous enough to put on trial. Much sputtering and outrage ensues.

QOTD

I'm a little late to this party. From a May 16th washingtonpost.com op-ed, former Marine commandant Chuck Krulak and former CIC of Central Command Joseph Hoar:

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

(Via Fred Clark at slacktivist.)

American Extremists Hoping For Another 9/11

Who is sitting at home tonight, thinking, "I hope we have another terrorist attack like 9/11, because then my political party would be doing really well"?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the new chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas, Dennis Milligan:

He said he’s “150 percent” behind Bush on the war in Iraq.

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.

I'll leave open the possibility that his statement was misquoted or taken out of context, but I'm betting he said it and meant it. Republicans like him really do hope for more successful attacks because they miss the fear, the timidity, the gullibility of the American public that 9/11 engendered.

That is, they're insane.

(Via phillybits.)

QOTD

PZ Myers at Pharyngula:

Remember, the people who want to end abortion aren't really pro-life—they are out to control women, nothing more.

Conservative Blog Reaction to Steve Gilliard's Death

The Good

Dean Barnett at Hugh Hewitt's Townhall blog:

Most of you have probably never heard of Steve Gilliard. Steve was a Daily Kos front-pager, and then when his time there expired he formed his own blog. I always thought he was the most gifted wordsmith in the left half of the blogosphere. I don’t mean that as a damning-with-faint-praise backhanded compliment. The guy could write, even though I virtually never agreed with what he wrote.

Steve Gilliard died yesterday. The eulogy of Steve that appeared in the Daily Kos referred to him as “hard-nosed, independent, (and) acerbic. Steve often pissed off the same readers he wowed with his take-no-prisoners style.” I read Gilliard every day, and I can attest to the accuracy of this summation. He wowed me, and he pissed me off, usually multiple times in the same post. As I made my daily virtual stroll through the lefty blogs, I always looked forward to hitting his site. He was profane, angry and offensive, but also intelligent and still somehow fun.

Steve was 41 years old. I’ll miss him. My condolences to his family and his thousands of friends.

That was not just good, that was great. 

Armed Liberal at Winds of Change:

The News Blog is very much a kind of Bizzaro Winds of Change; it's a progressive, antiwar site with an eye toward serious military knowledge. While we disagreed deeply on many many issues, it was a place where I went to see what smart antiwar people who weren't clueless about war had to say.

This weekend, Steve Gilliard, the founder of The News Blog died. He'd been profoundly ill for some time, and it was sad to go over and see what his co-bloggers were saying as his condition deteriorated.

We seldom agreed, never spoke or even emailed, but my world is smaller because he's gone.

Pajamasmedia:

"I say what I mean and mean what I say." -- Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, has passed away at the age of 41. Tributes abound across the Blogosphere.

Von:

I have certainly had my differences with Steve, but my thoughts this week are with his family, friends, and readers.

The Bad

Baldilocks:

When one's ideological opponent dies, it's sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to say nice things about him/her. However, the nicest thing that I can say about Steve is that I wish that he hadn't died so young and suffered so much along the way.

Go with God (hopefully), Steve.

Instahack:

STEVE GILLIARD has died.

The Ugly

Good Lt. at Jawa Report:

Hmm. I could say several really mean and vile things right now. But I'm not a liberal wingnut blogger.

So condolences. Hope his family will be all right.

The comments there are uglier.

Update 2 a.m.:

The Nothing

People with whom Steve had beefs but haven't even mentioned his death, which I just think is strange:

Jeff Jarvis, Malkin, Ed Morrisey, RedState, PowerLine. Nothing. If an ideological opponent and prominent, frequent critic of mine died, I'd say something. Wouldn't you? It's just weird not to. Inhuman.

Update December 29, 2007: The NYTimes has a tribute. Jarvis, Malkin, Morrisey, RedState and Powerline still have not even mentioned his death (per a google search of those sites.)

BDSM and Adult Personals Sites

(Crossposted from Gloria Brame's site.) 

Let's just say you're the kinky type, you're on the web and you're looking for ... someone. A play partner, a date, a short-term thing, or a long-term thing, it might be anything so long as the person has BDSM interests that complement yours. Where do you look on the web?

There are seemingly a lot of choices. The adult online dating market is dominated by Adultfriendfinder.com (or "AFF"), which claims about 24 million members.  Although it bills itself as "the world's largest adult and swingers sex personals site", its profile builder gives you the options Bondage & Discipline, Sadism & Masochism, Cross-Dressing and Miscellaneous Fetishes, so it actually delivers more kink per click than some BDSM-specific sites. Those other sites include Alt.com ("A supportive alternative lifestyle community" - how friendly) and Bondage.com ("the world's largest BDSM community and the most exciting bondage and fetish website" - unsupported claims, but you admire the enthusiasm). Other adult personals sites that have BDSM components are Passion.com ("sexy personals for passionate singles" - meaning, I want to get laid but not be so blunt about it) and Outpersonals.com ("worldwide gay personals" and "get laid today" - gay men go for the blunt).  Taken together, these sites have about 2.3 million unique US visitors a day, with AFF comprising 1.75 million of that.

But in fact these are all the same choice. AFF, Alt, Bondage, Passion and Outpersonals are all owned by one company, Various, Inc. The Various family of sites dwarfs the competition in the adult personals market segment, like Sexsearch.com, IWantU.com ("where you are wanted" - catchy), Collarme.com ("the largest BDSM community on the planet" - uh oh, they'll have to arm-wrestle Bondage.com for the title), and Swinglifestyle ("start your sexual revolution!"), which along with a couple other sites thrown in there, don't even add up to 500,000 US visitors daily.

So how did we end up with what is effectively a monopoly in online adult personals? It really wasn't intentional. From an interview with Andrew Conru, the founder of Friendfinder:

Shortly after we went online with FriendFinder [in 1996], people started posting explicit photos that pushed the envelope of a friendly dating site. Our first response was simply to delete profiles with explicit photos in them. Later on, instead of fighting the persistent trend, we decided to go with it, and we created a new site called AdultFriendFinder. It started out as a kind of release valve for the more erotic adventurers. But it was so well received, it just grew like kudzu from there.

Today Adultfriendfinder knocks down about $100 $120 million in revenue annually, one fourth sixty percent [see David Evans in comments] of the total revenue for the Various group. I think AFF's success is attributable to what's called "first mover advantage", a situation in which the characteristics of a market segment are such that the first major entrant into that segment can acquire resources that makes it difficult for competitors to emerge. The main criterion an adult personals customer is looking for is a large number of ads to search, but there are a limited number of people running such ads in any given geographical area (outside of say, New York City), so the adult personals site that gets biggest fastest wins. AFF won that race.

There's another reason that a competitor to Various/AFF doesn't spring up, that is illustrated by this story about how AFF founder Conru can't find anyone to buy AFF:

Most investors can't do anything about Various other than watch it expand. Many firms have "sin clauses'' with their financial backers that outline the types of companies they are strongly discouraged from backing, such as adult entertainment outfits. An IPO is an option, but stocks of publicly held adult content companies get discounted heavily because so many investors, like mutual fund managers, can't buy the shares. There also aren't many potential purchasers and Conru says his company is worth more than they can afford. There's no easy way to "exit'' Various.

"Exit", in the investment sense, means "cash out", make a profit. Potential investors in competitors to AFF can see the difficulty that Conru is having in exiting, and investors are always interested in the path to profit. Investments that can't be turned over don't interest them. So despite Various/AFF being profitable, the investors who might fund a competitor stay on the sidelines.

Still, there are signs that Conru is seeking an IPO. Data point number 1: Acquiring smaller sites, like the Bondage.com acquisition earlier this year. Firms seeking to go public will sometimes "roll up" competitors first, to create a bigger splash. Data point number 2: Late last year, Various went out to hire a CFO. Data point number 3: A really good writeup at CNN Money with a mention of the fact that AFF appeared as a gag in a recent movie starring Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore. It's portrayed as a joke that AFF had nothing to do with, but I read both the story and the movie placement as conscious attempts by Conru to break down resistance to investors buying into his IPO.

All of us kinky types should be rooting for Conru to have his IPO. The reason is that AFF going public means a huge pool of capital will become available for competitors - which will mean actual multiplicity of choice when you're out there on the web ... looking.

Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007

Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early this morning. He was 41.

QOTD

The Field Negro:

Now don't get it twisted, this is not about bashing the Latter Day Saints (LDS). Hey, I grew up a Seventh Day Adventist, so I know what it's like to have others view your religion as a cult or with scepticism. Every one who reads this blog know exactly how I feel about religion in general, and an individuals right to worship and believe or not to believe whatever he or she wants. Frankly, the Mormons could still be excluding black folks from their Priesthood, and have an all out ban on Negroes ever going to Utah, and I really could case less. But when a life long member of a religion that discriminated against my people until 1978 says he wants to lead 35 million of us as our President, well then Houston, (or should I say Utah) we have a problem. Especially when he claims to be a man of faith. Faith in what or in who? Brigham Young? The same Brigham Young who wrote in his "Journal of Discourse' this little gem? "Will the present struggle of the Civil War free the slave? No. Can you destroy the decrees of the almighty? You cannot". Well sorry Mr. Young; I am free, and I can vote, and I won't be voting for your boy Mitt.

Marines Threaten 3 Discharged Iraq Combat Vets for Protesting War

[Update the third: Kokesh is up to bat first, so throw him support by making a donation to his legal defense fund.]

The military enforces ideological purity among its ranks, and even after:

The Marine Corps came under fire from a leading U.S. veterans group on Friday for threatening to punish three Iraq combat veterans over their roles in an anti-war demonstration.

The three former Marines, all honorably discharged from active duty, were told they could face disciplinary action for wearing desert fatigues at a March protest in Washington to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Supporters of the ex-Marines say one of them has also been accused of making disparaging remarks about President George W. Bush.

"Someone in the Marine Corps needs to exercise a little common sense," Gary Kurpius, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said in a statement.

"Trying to hush up and punish fellow Americans for exercising the same democratic right we're trying to instill in Iraq is not what we're all about," he said. ...

Two of the ex-Marines -- 25-year-old Adam Kokesh of Washington and Liam Madden, 22, of Boston -- could lose their military benefits if given an "other than honorary" discharge from reserve service as a disciplinary action.

The third Iraq veteran -- 23-year-old Cloy Richards of Salem, Missouri, who was wounded in combat -- will avoid losing his disability benefits after agreeing not to wear his uniform at future protests, the Marine Corps said.

(Emphasis supplied but hardly necessary.) Can you believe this?

Kokesh [pictured] is scheduled to appear before a disciplinary board in Kansas City on Monday. He also has been accused of showing disrespect to a superior officer by responding to a Marine investigator with a profanity.

Hope he told the cop to fuck off. Also hope he told him to suck his dick. Also hope he asked how much combat the cop had seen. Then told him to fuck off again.

No proceedings have yet been scheduled for Madden. The Marine Corps said final disposition of the cases will be decided by Brig. Gen. Darrell Moore, commander of the Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City.

To do:

1. Write a check and complimentary letter to Gary Kurpius.
2. Write a less-than-complimentary letter to Darrell Moore.

In other news, Brian Neal is still an active-duty Air Force  Major.

Update:

[Madden] also is accused of making disloyal statements during a speech in February in New York, when he says he wasn't wearing his uniform.

These statements, as summarized by the Marines in legal documents: "Sgt. Madden spends several minutes explaining the 'war crimes' of the Bush administration. Sgt. Madden claims that the war in Iraq is a war 'of aggression' and one of 'empire building.' Sgt. Madden explains that the president of the United States has 'betrayed U.S. military personnel' engaged in the Iraq conflict."

Got that? Statements by soldiers supportive of the war are encouraged. Statements against the war are punished. Period.

Kokesh wrote an e-mail to the investigating officer, Maj. John Whyte. The combat veteran discussed his service and his critique of the war, and asked the officer, "We're at war. Are you doing all you can?" He concluded with an obscene recommendation about what Whyte should go do.

This earned him the count for a "disrespectful statement."

Sweet.

Michael Lebowitz, Kokesh's attorney, says that unlike other types of reservists, Individual Ready Reservists are not paid, have no weekend drill requirements and no chain of command. Therefore, he says, they are civilians, unless summoned back to duty. And if they are civilians, they can say pretty much what they want.

Leastways, that's the way it used to be.

Update the second:

So no, I am not replying to your email in order to acknowledge my understanding of my obligations and responsibilities, but rather to ask you to please, kindly, go fuck yourself.

Hee hee.

Citibank Froze Accounts of Woman Kidnapped By Iranian Government

I sincerely hope someone gets fired for this:

It was a hard enough day for Shaul Bakhash, as he dealt with the ongoing drama surrounding the imprisonment in Iran of his wife, noted American scholar Haleh Esfandiari. Then he found an express letter on the doorstep of his Potomac home yesterday morning announcing that Citibank had frozen his wife's bank accounts on grounds that she is now a "resident" of Iran.

It took them 36 hours from when the letter hit the doorstep to unravel this fuckup. Someone in Citi operations made this call. And someone in legal approved it. They both should be out on their asses tomorrow.