A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Oh boys...look what I got heah!"

"Hey, where de white wimmen at?"

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday brushed aside a survey that showed him losing support among white women voters to John McCain since the Republican standard-bearer named Sarah Palin as his running mate.

A Washington Post/ABC News survey published on Tuesday found most of McCain's surge in the polls since the Republican National Convention was due to a big shift in support among white women voters.
[...]
Before the Democratic National Convention in late August, Obama held an 8-point lead among white women voters, 50 percent to 42 percent, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll. After the Republican convention in early September, McCain was ahead by 12 points among white women, 53 percent to 41 percent, that survey found.

Look, I love white women. At least...75% of the people I've dated in my life have been white women. Hell, I even married one. Which is why this poll has to be either a) complete bullshit, b) clearly biased against hip, urban professionals who don't have landlines, or c) only counting those women who don't care that the VP half of the Republican ticket vetoed support for alternative energy, slashed funding that would support teen mothers not named "Bristol," and was in favor of charging rape victims for their forensic exams.

I admit, my circle of friends isn't layered enough to include (that I know of) any women who actually like Palin. So could one of my white female readers out there enlighten me as to what the fuck is going on?

Sketches of McCain

My first thought on John McCain's speech was, "Whoa, he was a POW?" The second was, "Did nobody think to hire someone other than the guy who did the MIDI soundtrack to Diablo for that opening movie?"

I feel kind of bad for McCain, in all honesty. I don't know that I'd ever have voted for the guy - even in 2000 he had the baggage of the Keating scandal and positions in opposition to mine on gay rights, education, privatization of Social Security, and so on - but he seemed sincere in his convictions about following his conscience. Now, he's like a guy backed into a corner by party machinery. McCain wasn't the ideal Republican candidate...unless you held him up against the Two-Faced Mormon, the 9-11 Guy Who Actually Had Some Socially Liberal Views, and the Former Preacher Who Won Iowa and Couldn't Figure Out What to Do Next. And while he can accuse Obama of the whole "lose a war to win an election" angle, McCain already surrendered his "maverick" views to win this particular contest. The Palin choice proves that.

All that said, it was a pretty lackluster speech. I thought he took the high road and tried to lay out his plans (he was obviously annoyed early on by the protesters) but the folks in the Xcel Center wanted blood. He gave them a measured laying out of his policy, and they wanted him to unleash - as Yngwie Malmsteen would say - the fucking fury. McCain's problem isn't that he can't articulate his views, it's that he isn't giving his audience what they want.

As for the oft-courted independents, I suspect they'd have more respect for the guy if he hadn't subordinated every policy position to the Religious Right. More than that, what he did say was unmemorable. Even the audience seemed hesitant to applaud.

Bonus points for playing "Barracuda" at the end, however.

Thinking of the children

I'd have posted about the prime-time RNC speeches earlier, but I just stopped coughing up blood. First we had Giuliani, bringing up 9-11 a mere half a dozen times while standing in front of a stirring NYC skyline in a speech Molly Ivins probably would've found better in the original German. Then came Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

It wasn't enough that she lied about her resistance to Ted Stevens' "Bridge to Nowhere," about raising taxes, and about "standing up to the oil companies" while governor - though I enjoyed the fact that both Giuliani's new wife and Cindy McCain both rose to applaud when she pointed out to the family values crowd that she was still married to her high school sweetheart. No, the best joke of the night was this line:

To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.

Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it: Sarah Palin is going to single-handedly roll back decades of Republican disregard for child welfare and education. She's going to buck her party and urge insurance companies to increase - or even offer - coverage for speech, occupational, and autism therapies (all of which are valid treatments for those with "special needs"). She's going to tell the Republican leadership they've been wrong all these years in eroding aid to poor families and providing taxpayer money to "faith-based" organizations that won't offer their services without attempting to convert the who receive them.

Even better, she's apparently going to - wait for it - reverse her own position she held as Governor, when she slashed funding for special needs schools by 62%.

As a parent of a "special needs" child who has spent the last (almost) three years dealing with the legacy of the Republican party's utter failure to provide for the children of this state, I look forward to this 180 degree reversal in her party's doctrine, and eagerly await the arrival of this sincere, well-qualified candidate to the second-highest office in the land.

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. In Ketchikan, Alaska.

Way to spin that "abstinence only" education stance

Some key quotes:

"Sen. McCain knew this and felt in no way did it disqualify her from being vice president," said an aide who asked not to be named. "Families have difficulties sometimes and lucky for her she has a supportive family."

The McCain aide emphasized that Bristol decided to keep the baby, a decision "supported by her parents."

and

"I have a 17-year-old daughter, and they start making choices without us," said Annette Ratliff, a delegate from Texas. "I appreciate the choice she is making to have the baby, but it just makes her a real person. It happens every day in America."

and

"I think, if anything, it shows the Republican Party is a real American party," said Rex Teter, another Texas delegate. "Every family has to deal with children, and sometimes children make decisions that parents wish they would not have been made, and things happen. But I think children are a blessing from God."

"Bristol decided." "I appreciate the choice she is making to have the baby." "...sometimes children make decisions..."

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really enthused about the Republican party's new pro-choice stance.

I thought she was awesome in A Fish Called Wanda

What I think a lot of folks in the McCain camp failed to grasp is that disgruntled Hillary supporters aren't angry that a woman wasn't nominated. They're angry Hillary wasn't nominated. A grandstanding tactic like naming a pro-life, socially conservative female who just happens to be an ex-beauty pageant contestant isn't going to make Democratic women who were on the fence suddenly perk up and punch the 'McCain-Palin' chad in November.

I wonder is Whitman or Hutchinson even wanted the job, frankly.

And while the rug would appear to have been pulled out from under McCain's "lack of experience" strategem, the good people of this country have demonstrated they're perfectly amenable to electing a smirking fratboy to the highest office in the land - twice - as long as he mouths the right platitudes. I'm not saying there aren't serious questions about Palin's preparedness for the Presidency, but let's just say the qualifications bar hasn't been set that high for the last eight years.

DNC done a job on me

Overall, I must say I was pretty impressed with the speakers at the Democratic National Convention. The headliners, that is...several of the "support acts" were flop-sweating worse than I was when I tried to make a toast at Peenman's wedding (the wine was corked, I swear). But Michelle Obama was solid and appealing, the Clin-Tons almost made me believe they weren't seething with molten rage, and Biden sounded pretty presidential his damn self.

And his dazzling choppers don't hurt. You could navigate a frigate by those fuckers.

Tonight was the Main Event, though, and while I'd prepared no end of japes to be hurled ("I hope he talks about 'change,'" I mentioned to The Wife over the phone), I have to admit that Barack Obama gives good oration. Sure, he promised the moon (and the moon's firstborn), but that was one of those speeches that really sets you on your ass. Were I of less cynical bent, I'd say it was the kind of speech that changes people's minds, that reaches past the black morass of their expansive disappointments and gives a breath of life to the diminishing spark of - dare I say - hope...buried deep within.

In short, it's the kind of speech that gets men killed.

As shitty as my worldview has become, I still find myself grasping for evidence that I'm mistaken. In spite of the fact that we sat by passively as one election was stolen from us and couldn't be lulled out of our American Idol induced stupor to see what we were voting for in the second (not that the black hole of charisma on the other ticket helped), there's still a shrinking and evidently stupid part of my brain that wants to believe My Fellow Americans[TM] might actually stop equating professed love for Jesus with sound policy and vote with their forebrains instead of their medullas oblongata. Just this one time.

Then I remember I've seen Klan rallies...in the last 20 years, and that a man was dragged to his death, not 150 miles from here, for no other reason than he was the "wrong" color. I see slope-browed crewcuts like Craig Smith from WND talking about the horrors of Obama as the first "hip-hop President," which is as close to "You're not seriously going to vote a jig into the Oval Office are you?" as he'll allow himself to say.

Besides, the only hip hop artists I'm aware of Obama liking are Kanye and will.i.am, which is the equivalent of me saying what a big metal fan I am and then naming Nickelback and Warrant as my two favorite bands.

Are we capable of electing a black President? I was only half joking about the "getting killed" thing before, and 220 years of white male rule show we haven't gotten there yet. I'd like to believe we can hack it now: 45 years after "I have a dream" and especially when the opposition is propping up a doddering toady like McCain. But I'll believe it when I see it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, good speech.

Evil Ed

There's a tropical storm in the Gulf, and we in the Houston area know what that means: buy lots of gas; descend like locusts upon your local supermarket/Home Depot/Wal-Mart for water/batteries/candles/shotgun shells; move the pets into the attic; and prepare for widespread looting, vandalism, and cannnibalism.

Edouard will apparently make landfall tomorrow morning as a strong tropical storm or a minimal Category 1 hurricane. Unlike the case of the Rita debacle, I don't think many area residents apart from those on the coast are going to be bugging out. Here are some links for those who, like me, go into Obsessive Storm Tracker mode every time this shit starts up:

Eric Berger's SciGuy blog
Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog
KPRC's hurricane page - I tend to loathe the local news and their usual panic-mode histrionics, but Frank Billingsley is consistently levelheaded. And he has great hair.
My own "hurricane porn" blog entry - Which, in an abject failure of self-promotion, I failed to repost this year

I'd suggest a hurricane party, but I probably have to be at work Wednesday.

Christmas in July

Whoever said you shouldn't speak ill of the dead never met the former Senator from North Carolina:

Jesse Helms, the firebrand U.S. senator whose outspoken, conservative views polarized North Carolina and U.S. voters for decades, died at 1:15 a.m. Friday in Raleigh, according to John Dodd, president of the Jesse Helms Center.

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States - Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. - who both also died on Independence Day.

He was 86. His cause of death was not released. Funeral arrangements will be forthcoming, Dodd said.

86? Sounds like the cause of death was "old." And nice of the Raleigh, NC paper to make that parallel between Helms and Jefferson and Adams. He also joins painter Bob Ross, Eva Gabor, and Barry White. So what?

His views on race relations - he opposed a national holiday honoring slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., led a filibuster against the extension of the Voting Rights Act and called some young blacks "Negro hoodlums" - and social issues sharply divided the public into those who viewed him as a champion of the common man and those who thought of him as a narrow-minded bigot.

David Broder, a widely respected political columnist for The Washington Post, called Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country."

"What is unique about Helms - and from my viewpoint, unforgivable - is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans," Broder wrote shortly after Helms announced that he wouldn't seek re-election in 2002.

Give Helms credit for sticking by his guns, at least. Wallace and others repented their pro-segregation stances later in life. Not good old Jesse.

Helms acknowledged his polarizing character, saying famed ventriloquist dummy Mortimer Snerd could run as the Democratic candidate for Senate against him and garner 45 percent of the vote.

"I wasn't interested in a popularity contest and surely didn't care about anything the big newspapers called me," he said. "I saw how they constantly ridiculed conservative ideas and conservative people."

Friend to women and minorities, champion of gay rights, and much, much more:

In his early years in office, Helms chaired the Senate Agriculture Committee, providing critical support for North Carolina's tobacco industry. When the Republicans gained control of Congress after the 1994 elections, he gained control of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he became a vocal critic of the former Soviet Union, China and Cuba and a strong advocate of anti-communist - and sometimes repressive - regimes in Latin America and Asia.

He also used his clout on the committee to push for reform of the United Nations, block payment of UN dues by the United States and oppose Democratic-sponsored foreign aid packages and trade deals. The recalcitrant stance he took on many issues garnered him the nickname "Senator No," which only delighted him. "The Raleigh News & Observer dubbed me 'Senator No.' It wasn't meant as a compliment, but I certainly took it as one. There was plenty to stand up and say no to during my first of five terms representing the people of North Carolina," he said.
[...]
Many political observers credit Helms' support for catapulting Reagan to the presidency in 1980 and accelerating the conservative agenda - cutting taxes at home, fighting communism abroad and opposing many government social programs - at the national level. He also served as Reagan's right flank for years, allowing the president to make political compromises as needed. "(I decided to) stay to the right of the president's right and make it easier for Reagan to be Reagan," Helms wrote in his memoir.

So long, Jesse. I don't believe in god, but for you I'll make an exception and hope she's a black lesbian. I also promise I won't bring up your collection of little shoes if you promise to say 'hi' to Nixon for me.

"Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right."

I take some small comfort in the fact that George Carlin would most likely be laughing his ass off at all the heartfelt lamentation going on in the wake of his demise. The fact remains, however, that Carlin was - along with Steve Martin - the first stand-up comic I ever got into. One of the first shows I remember watching when we got HBO (that wasn't Beastmaster or one of those late night burlesque specials) was Carlin at Carnegie. Unlike Martin, Carlin's movie career was...spotty at best, but he was Mr. Conductor in Shining Time Station, which blows away anything Martin has done since the first Bush administration.

Like most of my friends, I had memorized much of Carlin's oeuvre as a kid, from "Baseball vs. Football" to the "69 assholes tied in a knot" chant. In later years he was often accused of being more hectoring than funny, but I really thought some of his strongest and most incisive material came during that period.

It's a lousy feeling when all those artists and entertainers you admired in your youth start dying off. Fortunately for me, there were only a handful that affected me significantly and changed the way I look at things. Unfortunately, Carlin was one of them.

Anyway, here are some of my personal highlights.

The Seven Dirty Words

Life is Worth Losing

The table is tilted folks, the game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people...white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on...good, honest, hard-working people continue - these are people of modest means - continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you, they don't care about you, at all[...]That's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Maybe my favorite of his recent ones, You Are All Diseased:

Question #1: Did you pack your bags yourself? No. Carrot Top packed my bags. He and Martha Stewart and Florence Henderson came over to the house last night, fixed me a lovely lobster Newburg, gave me a full body massage with sacred oils from India, performed a four-way around the world, and then they packed my bags. Next question.

Go fuck yourself, George. And I mean that in the most reverent way imaginable.

Sweet little XVI

Pope's ahoy:

Pope Benedict XVI tempered his praise for American religious tolerance on Wednesday with a warning that U.S. society can quietly undermine Catholicism by reducing all faiths to a lowest common denominator.

Addressing the nation's Catholic bishops, the German-born pope said the U.S. Church could not drop its guard against relativism just because faith plays a larger part in public life in the United States than it does in more secularized Europe.

A strong individualist streak in American culture leads some Catholics "to pick and choose," following Church doctrines they like and ignoring others, he said during a long speech on challenges facing Roman Catholicism in the United States.

"Picking and choosing" being less forgivable than the more or less constant state of revision the Church itself has been going under since the 1950s, I suppose.

"Faith becomes a passive acceptance that certain things 'out there' are true, but without practical relevance for everyday life," he said. "The result is a growing separation of faith from life, living 'as if God did not exist."'

"We have seen this emerge in an acute way in the scandal given by Catholics who promote an alleged right to abortion."

All evidence to the contrary, we're not a religious state a la The Vatican. So I'd thank his pontifness to respect the fact that there is still an actual right to choose in this country.

But while he's bringing up scandals:

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday addressed issues ranging from the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church to the easy availability of pornography to the "alarming decrease" in Catholic marriages in the United States.
[...]
Benedict said the sexual abuse of children by priests has caused a "deep shame" and called it "gravely immoral behavior."

"Many of you have spoken to me of the enormous pain that your communities have suffered when clerics have betrayed ... their obligations," he told the bishops.

Responding to the situation has not been easy and was sometimes very badly handled, the pope admitted.

"Sometimes." Because hush money and relocation weren't indicative of a focused strategy by the Church itself. Got it.

The pope then turned his attention to a different concern involving kids.

"What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" he asked.

Benedict urged the media and entertainment industry to take part in a "moral renewal."

Way to pass the buck: "Sure, we had still untold numbers of clergy molesting children, but what about you people with the HBO/Showtime packages from DirecTV? Isn't the fact that 13-year olds can sneak out of bed and watch Shannon Tweed take a shower the moral equivalent of institutionally supported abuse?"

I kid. Obviously some good has come from Catholicism.

"Dad, those are all from the same animal."
"Yeah, right Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."

I see the Citizens Against Government Waste have again released the Pig Book, their annual list of barn sides to fire rounds at:

A watchdog group critical of pork barrel spending released its latest findings Wednesday targeting the top Congressional "porkers."

Some of the pork projects, according to the group, include a Lobster Institute; the Rocky Flats, Colorado, Cold War Museum; and the First Tee, a program to build young people's character through golf.

Members of Congress requested funds for all these pet projects and thousands of others last year, according to the latest copy of the annual "Pig Book" released by Citizens Against Government Waste.

"Congress stuffed 11,610 projects" worth $17.2 billion into a dozen spending bills, the group said in the report released Wednesday.

The "Pig Book" names dozens of what the citizens group considers the most egregious porkers, the lawmakers who funnel money to projects on their home turf.

And what are some of the highlights of the CAGW's exhaustive search, according to the CNN story?

Fruit flies - Mike Thompson (D-CA): Thompson requested $211,000 for olive fruit fly research. The olive fruit fly has infested thousands of acres of California's olive crops.

The First Tee - James Clyburn (R-SC): Added $3 million to the defense appropriations bill for an initiative to teach "life lessons" to young people through golf. 48 states have chapters.

Sheep - Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jon Tester (D-MT): The Montana Sheep Institute gets almost $150,000 to develop and implement strategies that will increase the competitiveness of Montana's lamb and wool industries.

Lobster - Thomas Allen (D-ME), and Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME): $188,000 for the Lobster Institute to "sustain both the lobster resource and a viable lobster fishery through conservation, outreach, research, and education."

Walking Tour - Virgil Goode (R-VA): $98,000 for a historical walking tour in the town of Boydton.

Excuse me, I'm having a Capt. Renault moment again. Look, I know that it's unbelievably offensive to our sensibilities that elected representatives funnel money to their respective districts/states, and that $17.2 billion spread out across 11,000+ projects comes out to, like, a lot of money. But has anyone from the CAGW been to Montana or Maine? These states actually depend on sheep and lobster for their economic well-being, so maybe throwing a few hundred grand at University-sponsored initiatives to make sure the industries stay viable isn't such a ca-razy idea. And a walking tour? Encouraging historical activities? Does $98K cover more than a few tour guides and materials? I think not.

Okay, the golf thing does sound pretty lame. But $3 million for something that spans 48 states doesn't sound that egregious.

The funny thing - no, really, you'll laugh your ass off - is that $17 billion is only $5 billion more than the Iraq War costs per month (not counting interest on the national debt, of course). The CAGW is all up in arms about ivory backscratchers, meanwhile the tab on Bush's war is likely going to end up costing taxpayers close to $3 trillion.

Think of how many lobster studies that could fund.

"I've given out my share of bad reviews."
"Oh, the only bad review you gave was to a slice of pizza you found under the couch."

Can't say this is much of a surprise:

Nathan Lee, one of The Village Voice's two full-time critics, was laid off last week by Village Voice Media, a large chain of alternative weeklies that has been cutting down the number of critics it employs across the country.

The week before, two longtime critics at Newsday -- Jan Stuart and Gene Seymour -- took buyouts, along with their editor. And at Newsweek, David Ansen is among 111 staff members taking buyouts, according to a report in Radar.

They join critics at more than a dozen daily newspapers (including those in Denver, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale) and several alternative weeklies who have been laid off, reassigned or bought out in the past few years, deemed expendable at a time when revenues at print publications are declining, under pressure from Web alternatives and a growing recession in media spending.

Given that movie blogs are strewn about the Web like popcorn on a theater floor, there are those who say that movie criticism is not going away, it's just appearing on a different platform.

A different, cheaper platform.

I've been the mainstream movie critic at Film Threat for...four years now, and while I enjoy the fact no one butchers my reviews and I can pretty much call my shots in terms of upcoming releases, I'm under no illusions about the financial viability of my hobby.

And a hobby it will remain, apparently. Lee (who I enjoyed reading) and Ansen are were pretty big names in the world of film criticism. At this point, I don't know what's more disturbing: that some of the heaviest hitters in the field are being forced out, or that Pete Hammond's expulsion from Maxim wasn't a response to years of public outrage but simply a cost-cutting move. And one that was ahead of the curve at that.

Despite Samuel Butler's long ago suggestion that critics arrive at their occupation because of their general unfitness for anything else, they can be a cultural good, championing films that lack crowd-pleasing content or the financial wherewithal to muscle their way into public consciousness. Mr. Lee, for example, named "Southland Tales" the best film of last year. Never heard of the postnuclear, semi-futuristic portrait of Los Angeles directed by Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko")? That's very much the point. "Criticism is treated as a kind of product, and that is inevitably going to favor bigger national releases," said Owen Gleiberman, a critic at Entertainment Weekly. "That The Village Voice doesn't want to pay for two staff movie critics is a joke," he added. "There is so much to cover."

Michael Lacey, executive editor of Village Voice Media, said in an e-mail message that the company, which owns 17 newspapers, continues to have a serious commitment to covering film.

Print media critics remain the only ones whose opinions really have that kind of impact. A groundswell can start online, but it isn't until folks like Ebert or Hoberman or Scott pick up on it that it has any significant impact. On the other hand, no amount of negative criticism can derail some movies, whether it's on a web site or the nation's biggest print daily.

Which is why Eddie Murphy, Owen Wilson, and Brett Ratner still have careers.

But are print critics really so all-important and sacrosanct with the Web full of debates about all manner of film in places like indiewire.com, cinematical.com and blog.spout.com?

"Honestly, I think that a lot of the viewers of serious films have already migrated to the Web," said S. T. VanAirsdale, a senior editor at defamer.com and the founder of thereeler.com, a site devoted to coverage of the New York film world. "Serious movies can always be helped by a boost from anywhere, but almost anyone who is interested can find plenty of information about a film before it even opens because of all the coverage in the blogs about festivals and screenings."

Both areas have their strengths. With print criticism, you're more likely (though certainly not always) to be exposed to someone with more than a few years' experience who can actually construct a fucking paragraph. The article's likening of movie web sites to popcorn on a theater floor is apt not just because of their sheer number, but because almost all of them are unpalatable. And I admit it galls me a bit that, well, Robert Wilonsky says it better than I could:

They and people like them--say, Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles, who accepts studio-funded trips to movie sets and is still taken seriously by movie execs as a film critic, despite being quasi-literate--are why the studios can trim the "interview" time from 60 minutes to half an hour. They know they'll get good pub regardless of the setup--an hour in a restaurant, a handshake in a hotel room, a howdy on a movie set. Those bearing cameras and recorders are just happy to breathe the rarefied air of celebrities, collect their goodie bags full of logo-covered crap and share the same prepackaged quotes that spread like Colorado wildfire the days before and after a movie's release

But for continuing and more or less immediate coverage of festivals and movies the studios want to hide from the press, the web is the way to go. What's that, DreamWorks, you're not screening The Ruins until 10 PM the Thursday before it opens? Yeah, that'll suck for newspapers, who have to put their issue to bed at 8:00, but we doughty online types can bang out a review and have it up by 1 AM West Coast time.

Or we could, if our Leatherheads review wasn't running on Friday.

The apparent demise of the print critic isn't just because of the dire financial state of our nation's newspapers and the influx of cheap online labor from Mexico, but because the studios have been making a concerted effort for several years now to eliminate the industry itself. They've already proven that withholding almost every horror movie and a sizeable chunk of comedies from reviewers doesn't affect opening weekend grosses in the slightest, so that trend is only going to widen.

Meanwhile, some critics have realized a modicum of fame can be garnered by peppering their reviews with gushing quotes that may (ohpleaseohplease) get picked up in a film's print of TV ad campaign.This, unfortunately, doesn't get them fast-tracked onto the "must hire" list for the Los Angeles Times. But who knows? Maybe it gets them invited to that mystical junket that only "special" critics are allowed to attend; where stars and directors grant 3-hour exclusive interviews and they even get a special "thank you" during the closing credits.

Yeah. Guess I need to keep working on that novel.

"You see what happens, Larry?"

Oh, now this just breaks my heart:

Borders, the nation's second-largest bookseller, said Thursday it may put itself up for sale and has lined up $42.5 million in financing to help the chain continue operations.

Borders has lost market share both to online companies and to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
[...]
After postponing its scheduled fourth-quarter earnings results Wednesday, the company reported net income of $64.7 million, or $1.10 a share, compared with a loss of $73.6 million, or $1.22, during the same period last year.

Revenue fell 2 percent to $1.35 billion, from $1.37 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected profits of $1.42 per share on sales of $1.37 billion.

Quarterly results included a $7 million loss from the sale of Irish and British businesses for $13 million.

In yet another sign of pressures on retailers nationwide, Borders suspended quarterly dividends, which it will plow into operations.
[...]
Ann Arbor-based Borders said J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. have been retained as the company's financial advisers to assist the company as it explores strategic alternatives.

The company said it can give no assurances that a transaction of any kind will occur.

Revenues, shmevenues. Everybody knows this is spectral vengeance for the W. Alabama store knocking down my beloved Ale House.

The dogs of war

Marine kills dog. Nation World froths at mouth:

A US Marine has become the target of a massive internet hate campaign after a mobile phone video appearing to show him throwing a puppy off a cliff in Iraq became a viral hit.

Some 150,000 people watched the video in less than two days before it was taken down from the YouTube website this morning. More than 4,000 posted comments, overwhelmingly negative, although many questioned whether the dog was already dead.

The low-quality video shows two Marines in combat joking as one holds up what appears to be a motionless black and white puppy, which he then hurls into a rocky gully. A loud yelping sound is heard as it flies through the air.

Major Chris Perrine of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii says it appears the man is based with a unit in the islands. In a statement the Marines called the video "shocking and deplorable" and said it violates "the high standard we expect of every Marine".

Wow. Someone prone to animal cruelty somehow made it through the uplifting and nurturing Sunday picnic known as Marine Corps boot camp. I'm speechless.

A number of US websites named the perpetrator as David Motari, a 22-year-old from Washington state who has recently returned from Iraq and is based in Hawaii. Mr Motari's profile on the social networking site Bebo was closed down yesterday.

Some sites posted his personal details, phone numbers and even a picture of his car, while other bloggers called for him to be ostracised. Others said that the video was simply bringing home the horrors of the Iraq war.

This massive outpouring of outrage tells me we've been going about this process all wrong, anti-war comrades. We shouldn't be clamoring for an end to the campaign in Iraq because of the the naked falsehoods put forth by the Bush Administration in order to justify our invasion, the constantly shifting rationales, the almost 4,000 dead American soldiers, or the over 70,000 dead Iraqi civilians; no, we need to stop the war for the sake of all those innocent puppies.

Seriously, I hope this doesn't have a negative impact on sales of the 101 Dalmatians DVD.

So beautiful, so dumb

It's how Alfred Hitchcock once described Ingrid Bergman, and it also apparently applies to the most recent Best Actress winner Marion Cotillard (via The Fat Guy):

Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard is facing criticism after footage of her apparently questioning the 9/11 attacks surfaced on the internet.

In an interview she reportedly gave a year ago, the star is shown commenting on the events of 11 September 2001.

"I think we're lied to about a number of things," the Paris-born 32-year-old is seen saying in French.
[...]
In the interview, given to French TV show Paris Premiere, Cotillard appears to suggest the attacks on the World Trade Center were staged to avoid the expense of refurbishing them.

"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned?" she asks. "There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours.

"It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."

The Twin Towers, she claims, were a "money sucker" that would have cost much more to modernise than to destroy.

She can at least take comfort in the fact that she didn't blame "the Jews" for the collapse.

Cotillard joins APCB favorite Willie Nelson, who also recently - and regrettably - appears to have imbibed the "9/11 Truth Movement" Kool-Aid.

And she didn't stop there...

The actress goes on to cast doubt on the Moon landing of 1969. "Did a man really walk on the moon?" she asks.

"I saw plenty of documentaries on it and I really wondered. In any case I don't believe all they tell me."

Where'd I put that picture...? Ah yes:

Sunday Morning Political Post

Margaret Carlson made a comment on Meet the Press this morning about Hillary Clinton's image as a "scolding parent." I'd originally imagined writing an entire dialogue post with Clinton as Mom and the American voting public as the lovestruck teen tearfully exclaiming "But I love him!" before storming off to climb into Obama's T-Bird, but that there is pretty much the whole joke.

Anecdotally, because ten years removed from grad school I'm still violently allergic to actual research, I don't know any Democrats who support Clinton over Obama. Oh sure, they'd vote for her in the general election, but coupled with the fatalistic realization that anti-Hillary sentiment - irrational as it is - would probably be enough to give McCain the presidency.

Her cause isn't helped by seeing her supporters try to mealy-mouth their way out of adhering to the DNC agreement about the Michigan and Florida primaries, either.

People are excited about Obama, right or wrong. And let's not kid ourselves; Obama doesn't mark some great departure from moderate Democratic principles. He's a great speaker and all, but he's hardly Ron Paul to Clinton's Mike Huckabee. Unless Clinton does something to shake up the current state of affairs, and runs the table of remaining primaries, Obama's the nominee.

And with the exception of a few of the smaller primaries, I don't see anyone running anything. Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania are all too close to call (I think Obama wins OH and PA, Clinton TX, but neither by more than 4-5%). The real question, and what the Republicans are desperately hoping for (aside from a Clinton nomination, that is) is whether or not this can be decided before the convention.

O-mentum

Tonight's events have made next month's Texas primary quite the hum-dinga:

Sen. Barack Obama easily won Democratic primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday in a determined drive to erase Hillary Rodham Clinton's delegate lead.

Republican front-runner John McCain also won in Virginia, Maryland and D.C., adding to his insurmountable lead in delegates for the GOP nomination.

Obama's triumphs made it eight straight over Clinton, the former first lady, now struggling in a race she once commanded.

His Virginia victory left him a scant 10 delegates short of his rival, with 132 left to allocate for the night.
[...]
Clinton hopes to respond with victories in Texas and Ohio on March 4, states where both candidates have already begun television advertising.

Among other things...

"Ma'am."

Meanwhile, McCain looks to have the Republican nomination sewn up. Huckabee's sticking it out however. Does he perhaps have an ace in the hole?

Huckabee rejected claims that he has little chance of becoming the GOP's candidate because of McCain's significant lead in delegates. McCain leads Huckabee in delegates 709 to 163, by CBS News' count, with 1,191 needed for the nomination.

"I didn't major in math," Huckabee said the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting, according to the Associated Press. ``I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them.''

Not too lengthy a bibliography on that thesis, I'm guessing.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will blow up the moon."

Or Mars, whatever.

A small asteroid discovered November 20 may strike Mars next month.

Astronomers with NASA's Near Earth Object (NEO) Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, calculate the odds of a January 30 collision at 1 in 75. While this is remote, it's less so than last week's estimated 1-in-350 chance.

NEO astronomer Steve Chesley, who's used to dealing with million-to-one odds, calls the event "extremely unusual," and, in something of a twist, NEO astronomers are rooting for an impact.

An armada of spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet - the European Space Agency's Mars Express and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey - would have ringside seats to view the strike and its after-effects. Even Earth-based telescopes could potentially observe the impact because Mars is near opposition and, therefore, unusually close.

I still love the name "Near Earth Object Program." And they have all these sweet graphics, even:

Astronomers say asteroid 2007 WD5 is about 160 feet (50 meters) across. If it struck Mars, the energy would be similar to the 1908 Tunguska blast in Siberia, where a stony asteroid exploded above the taiga. The blast felled and scarred trees over 810 square miles (2,100 square km).

One difference: Tunguska was an air burst and left no crater, whereas 2007 WD5 likely would reach Mars' surface intact.

Or it would, if not for the latest update:

Additional position observations for asteroid 2007 WD5 taken on December 29 through January 2 have been used to improve the accuracy of the asteroid's orbit. As a result, the range of possible paths past Mars has narrowed by a factor of 3 and the most likely path has moved a little farther away from the planet, causing the Mars impact probability to decrease slightly to 3.6% (about one chance in 28). The new positional observations were made using the 2.4 meter telescope at New Mexico Tech's Magdalena Ridge Observatory and reported by astronomer Bill Ryan. It seems likely that as additional observations further shrink the uncertainty region of this asteroid, the region will no longer intersect Mars and the impact probability will quickly drop to zero.

This is a serious blow: not just to the cause of wicked cool astronomical photography, but also to our ongoing war against the Martians, whose offensive tripod production will now continue dangerously unabated.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and especially little children. I'm glad you're all here to witness what may very well be my grisly death."

As you may have noticed, whiterose.org was down for the last nine days or so while webmeisters Ginger and Michael fled the fetid confines of New Jersey for the Elysian fields of Austin, TX. While this really gave me an opportunity to send anonymous death threats to Reveille catch up on great works of literature, I was rather bummed I wasn't able to comment on the death of yet another of my childhood idols, Evel Knievel:

Evel Knievel's hard life killed him -- it just took longer than he or anyone else might have expected.

The hard-living motorcycle daredevil, whose bone-breaking, rocket-powered jumps and stunts made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. He had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his many spills. He also suffered two strokes in recent years.

I was a typical '70s kid in a lot of ways: I saw Star Wars about 20 times when it was released, I pleaded with my parents to let me stay up on Saturdays to enjoy the exploits of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and I watched Knievel's exploits with the kind of gape-mouthed fascination peculiar to boys who have yet to reach double digits.

I had the Stunt Cycle, I watched the shitty movies, and I died a little inside when the chute deployed too early on the disastrous Snake River Canyon jump.

Unsurprisingly, A&E re-ran their Knievel Biography last weekend, and I was reminded of my favorite story; the time Knievel went after the author of an unauthorized biography with a baseball bat...and two broken arms.

He was a womanizer, an insufferable egomaniac, and a glorious bastard, and the world is a duller place for his having left it.

Rest in as much peace as your shattered bones will allow, Evel.

"They said you was hung."

Would it be inappropriate to start with a Bible reference? I'm thinking Matthew 27:5:

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And then there's Warren Jeffs, who seems to have been fond of Luke 10:37, "Go thou and do likewise:"

Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs tried to hang himself earlier this year while he was in jail awaiting trial, according to court documents unsealed by a Utah judge on Tuesday.

Jeffs, the leader and so-called prophet of the 10,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is now awaiting sentencing after being convicted on two counts of being an accomplice to rape.

The documents, released by Fifth District Judge James Shumate at the request of the media, also indicate that Jeffs confessed to "immorality" with a sister and daughter more than 30 years ago

Among the documents is a competency report on Jeffs completed in April, in which social worker Eric Nielsen wrote that throughout the month of January, Jeffs refused food and drink and developed ulcers on his knees from kneeling in prayer for hours.

On January 28, the report said, he attempted to hang himself in his cell. In the days following the suicide attempt, while he was on suicide watch, Jeffs on separate occasions threw himself against the wall and banged his head on the wall.

Let's close today with some more scripture, this time from Titannica:

Try try try again
Try try try again
Head first this time
Dive right in

Quiiters never win, Warren. Keep at it.

"Doctor. Doctor. Doctor? Doctor."

Finally, a chance to break out the Spies Like Us quotes.

I found out yesterday that the grand total of Nobel Prize Laureates I've met is up to one:

U.S. citizens Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Sir Martin J. Evans of Britain won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes.

The widely used process has helped scientists use mice to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.

Capecchi, 70, who was born in Italy, is at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Smithies, 82, born in Britain, is at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Evans, 66, works at Cardiff University in Wales.

They were honored for a technique called gene targeting, which lets scientists inactivate or modify particular genes in mice. That in turn lets them study how those genes affect health and disease.

My father did his postdoc work with Mario Capecchi at the U of U back in the 70s. I was just a snot-nosed kid with little knowledge of what they were up to beyond the fact that I wasn't allowed to touch anything in the lab, especially anything with that orange trefoil design on it.

Being that young and stupid, I also had no idea what the guy had gone through:

Long before Mario Capecchi helped find a way to silence genes in mice and help spur drug discovery, he wandered the Italian countryside as a hungry child.

Capecchi, born in Italy and now at the University of Utah, joined two other researchers yesterday in winning the Nobel Prize for medicine. As a youth, he endured four years of homelessness during World War II that ended on his ninth birthday, when his mother, released from a Nazi concentration camp, found him starving in a hospital.
[...]
Capecchi's mother gave a neighboring family in the Italian Alps money to care for him while she wrote anti-Nazi poetry during the war. When that money ran out and his mother was imprisoned, he wandered the countryside, malnourished and ill, eventually coming to rest in a hospital in Reggio Emilia.

``The way they kept us there was they wouldn't give us any clothes,'' he recalled. ``I had a lot of time to concentrate on ways to escape and I tried many things.''

Hours of plotting escape from the hospital, along with the self-sufficiency that came from surviving street life, gave Capecchi the courage to go ahead with gene targeting, he said. He used funds that had been granted for other projects to support his work with mice.

I'd think that those early experiences would give you the courage to go ahead and do just about anything. Regardless, I hereby apologize for breaking those test tubes. Congratulations, Doctor.

Rugby players eat their young

But only if they're thoroughly cooked:

An Oregon rugby player remains in jail Tuesday after being arrested on charges he left his 2-year-old daughter in a vehicle in the parking lot of a Nevada brothel on a 95-degree day.

Lucien Hoffman, of Bend, Ore., is being held in the Storey County Detention Center in lieu of $40,000 bail on charges of child neglect.

Police arrested Hoffman early Sunday night at the World Famous Mustang Ranch brothel in Sparks, Nev., after a security guard found the child crying inside the car, according to Storey County Sheriff's Det./Sgt. Kenneth Quirk.

Hoffman, a wing for Bend Rugby who goes by the nicknames Luke and "Torpedo," had been attending a pool party and barbecue at the brothel, a co-sponsor of a Labor Day weekend rugby tournament in Reno organized by the Reno Zephyrs Rugby Club.
[...]
Quirk said that had the child been noticed by the brothel security guard, Hoffman's vehicle wouldn't have been allowed in. When security guards did hear her crying and couldn't locate her parents, they contacted the sheriff's office and took the child inside the brothel.

"It was 95 degrees out at that time of day, and you have to figure another 30 degrees on top of that inside a vehicle even with the windows down," Quirk said.

According to the Reno Rugby Club's Web site, the brothel pool party was an after-event for its first "Biggest Little Rugby Tournament in the World," a two-day competition drawing 14 rugby teams from around the West Coast.

Hoffman attended the tournament with his girlfriend, a woman who is not the mother of the 2-year-old toddler. Hoffman shares joint custody of the child with her biological mother.

"It was probably not a good decision to take the child [to Nevada] in the first place, but basically it was sort of like a vacation for them," [rugby club president Matt] Burke said.

Hope they had a nice time.

I hung out with a lot of rugby players in college. They were, by and large, barely domesticated apes, given to drinking near-lethal amounts of alcohol while subjecting themselves and those around them to the foulest degradations imaginable. But even so, I'm pretty sure the same guys I watched swan dive out of a third-story window into a wading pool filled with Everclear and piss would have a hard time abandoning their child in a hot car while they went to party in a fer chrissakes brothel.

Burke called Hoffman a good father who made a bad decision.

"We know Luke to be a good father," he said. "He's not a neglectful person or an irresponsible parent. It's unfortunate that he made the decision that he did to put here in the car, but I'm sure the decision wasn't arrived at in a neglectful manner or that he was intentionally being neglectful."

Pull the other one. As the father of a toddler, I freely admit to occasionally contemplating leaving She Who Shall Not Be Named in the car - with the A/C on of course - when I'd need to run in to the convenience store or the dry cleaners, just so I don't have to futz with the car seat, coaxing her out of the back, escorting her into the store, wrangling her while I complete my transaction (hoping she doesn't have to go to the bathroom all the while), then hustling her back into the car, all in 90+ degree heat. Never did it though, because that would make me a bad father. I don't know what parameters Burke is using, but leaving a kid in a car, sweltering heat or not, for two hours to go get your drunk on with a bunch of hookers doesn't qualify as good fathering by even the loosest of standards.

Unless you're Bing Crosby.

A blaze of gloryholes

I was going to come here today and say I don't endorse schadefreude, but the truth is, I'm rather fond of it. Lucky for me there are people like Sen. Larry Craig:

Under fire from leaders of his own party, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig today said the only thing he had done wrong was to plead guilty after a complaint of lewd conduct in a men's room.

He declared, ``I am not gay. I never have been gay.'' ``I did nothing wrong at the Minneapolis airport,'' he said at a news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side.

Earlier today, Senate Republican leaders in Washington called for an ethics committee review into Craig's guilty plea.
[...]
Craig entered his plea several weeks after an undercover police officer in the Minneapolis arrested him and filed a complaint that said the three-term senator had engaged in actions "often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct."

The bathroom incident in the Minneapolis airport occurred on June 11. Craig signed his plea papers on Aug. 1, and word of the events surfaced on Monday. The senator issued a statement Monday night that said, "In hindsight, I should have pled not guilty."

These truly are sad times when a United States Senator has less than adequate access to legal counsel. And I'm guessing the cops ignored his protestations, which were along the following lines: "I was offering him a ride," "I was asking for directions to baggage claim," "He's my cousin."

In Craig's situation, I think I'd have acted like I thought I was in the ladies' room. That way at least it'd be heterosexual sleazery. After all, the "family values party" has never had a problem turning a blind eye to infidelity. Among their own, of course.

The married Craig, 62, has faced rumors about his sexuality since the 1980s, but allegations that he has engaged in gay sex have never been substantiated. Craig has denied the assertions, which he calls ridiculous.
[...]
According to the prosecutor's complaint, obtained today by The Associated Press, airport police Sgt. Dave Karsnia, who was investigating allegations of sexual conduct in airport restrooms, went into a stall shortly after noon on June 11 and closed the door.

Minutes later, the officer saw Craig gazing into his stall through the crack between the stall door and the frame, fidgeted with his fingers and returned to gazing through the stall for about another two minutes.

After a man in the adjacent stall left, Craig entered it and put his roller bag against the front of the stall door, "which Sgt. Karsnia's experience has indicated is used to attempt to conceal sexual conduct by blocking the view from the front of the stall," said the complaint, which was dated June 25.

The complaint said Craig then tapped his right foot several times and moved it closer to Karsnia's stall and then moved it into the area of the officer's stall to where it touched Karsnia's foot. Karsnia recognized that "as a signal often used by persons communicating a desire to engage in sexual conduct," the complaint said.

Craig then passed his left hand under the stall divider into Karsnia's stall with his palms up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times, the complaint said.

First, I submit Craig's actions as further proof of something I've long suspected: all Republicans are gay. Well, all of the vehemently pious, born-again ones at least, and Craig certainly qualifies.

Second, I realize it's hard to meet people. Hell, I had to go back to the Forbidden Zone of College Station, TX to meet The Wife, but an airport bathroom? We're not talking about some poorly frequented lavatory in the basement of some ill-lit college building, but one patronized by thousands of people a day. And the fact that Craig spent that much time in a place most human beings manage to vacate in under a minute is more damning than if he'd been caught with a penis in his mouth.

Unsurprisingly, Craig is a shining example of his party's noble conservative tradition:

In recent years, Craig's voting record has earned him top ratings from social conservative groups such as the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council.

He has supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, telling his colleagues that it was "important for us to stand up now and protect traditional marriage, which is under attack by a few unelected judges and litigious activists."
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In 1996, Craig also voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages and prevents states from being forced to recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples legally performed in other states.

Craig also has opposed expanding the federal hate crimes law to cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias and, in 1996, voted against a bill that would have outlawed employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, which failed by a single vote in the Senate.

I sympathize with someone forced to deny their true selves, whether due to the circumstances of their upbringing or simple fate. But someone who hides behind their own hypocrisy while making life harder for others like him deserves what he gets. Getting busted in an airport toilet is a fitting end to Craig's unfortunate career.

"Do you have a flag?"

Actually, someone does:

As the race to back up claims over the resources of the Arctic Ocean heats up, Canada has said it will build two new military bases in its far north.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement during a tour of Canada's northern territories.

It comes as a Danish mission prepares to sail to the North Pole to map the seabed under the ice.

Last week, a Russian expedition planted the country's flag on the floor of the Arctic Ocean under the North Pole.

And if current trends continue, Oaanaaq will be known as "the San Diego of the 76th parallel."

Melting polar ice has led to competing claims over access to Arctic resources, including the Northwest Passage, a shipping channel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans currently blocked by ice during the winter months.

Mr Harper announced plans last month to build six naval vessels to patrol the passage.

Canada, Russia, Denmark, Norway and the United States also have competing claims to the seabed below the North Pole, an area containing as much as 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas according to a US study.

How swell that our continued reliance on fossil fuels is the very thing that has freed up access to the amount needed to complete our realization of the SPF-1000 future promised in the first RoboCop.

Meh, that's all I've got. Go read my Rush Hour 3 review. It's Polanski-riffic.

"Here's a drawing of a spirochete."

And like the leprechaun, it apparently told Bush to burn things:

President Bush was successfully treated for Lyme disease nearly a year ago, the White House announced today.

The condition had never been revealed until the White House today made public the results of his annual physical exam. They said that he was treated for what they called "early, localized Lyme disease" last August after developing the characteristic bullseye rash, and that it did not recur.

Lyme disease is a common tick-borne infection that if left untreated can cause arthritis and other problems. The president's main form of exercise and recreational activity is mountain biking, which could bring him in contact with ticks.
[...]
"Doctors have determined that the president remains in superior fitness for a man his age -- anybody who's seen him on the bike or out and about certainly knows that -- and that he is fit for duty," Snow said.

We do? Here's a list of some of the late stage neuropsychiatric symptoms of Lyme disease:

- short-term memory loss
- sleep disturbance
- hallucinations
- depersonalization
- neurocognitive impairment (brain fog)
- psychosis

Just saying.

Oh, and "brain fog?"

"And I think it's gonna be a long, long time"

"'til touchdown brings me round again to find":*

A report to be released by NASA today not only describes heavy alcohol use by astronauts prior to launch, but also says flight surgeons complained that their medical opinions on astronauts' fitness to fly were ignored by the agency's leadership.

"Several senior flight surgeons expressed their belief that their medical opinions regarding astronaut fitness for duty, flight safety and mission accomplishment were not valued by leadership other than to validate that all (medical) systems were 'go' for on-time mission completion," says the report, obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
[...]
The findings, which include the fact that "alcohol is freely used in crew quarters" and that shuttle astronauts in at least two instances were launched into space despite warnings that they posed a safety risk by being intoxicated, bring fresh embarrassment to the agency.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin formed a committee of civilian and military experts to review astronaut health care five months ago, after astronaut Lisa Nowak was arrested in Florida and charged with attempted kidnapping in her strange confrontation with her female rival for the affections of a male astronaut.

Today's report, a summary of which was first revealed Thursday by the trade publication Aviation Week & Space Technology, implies that beyond Nowak's conduct, NASA has looked the other way when it came to some astronauts' reckless behavior, especially the heavy consumption of alcohol before shuttle launches.

Sure, it all sounds pretty bad, but have you ever seen a shuttle launch? Even the ones that don't blow up are still pretty frightening.

I haven't been following the story too closely, but surely some of the folks going up on the shuttle aren't involved in actively piloting the thing. How sober does the person growing the seedlings or the schoolteacher need to be, really?

This was before there was a late break in the case, however...

The report, which is about a dozen pages long and was delivered to NASA's Washington headquarters on Thursday, does not include the names of the intoxicated astronauts, the dates of their risky behavior, nor whether they were quietly disciplined or dismissed.

My sources have revealed one of the names in question, and this new information explains a lot. Apparently one of the astronauts actually requires some form of sedation before boarding a shuttle:

Happy to clear things up.

*Wow, my third APCB entry using lyrics from "Rocket Man" for a title. Keen.

You were the bomb in Iron Eagle III, yo!

The Republican candidate for President who isn't actually a (declared) Republican candidate for President is in Texas today:

On his first trip to Texas since announcing his presidential exploratory committee, Fred Thompson is presenting himself as the contender more conservative than Rudy Giuliani, more consistent than Mitt Romney and more viable than John McCain.

Thompson, who will headline a rally in a Hobby Airport hangar this morning followed by a Galleria-area fundraiser this afternoon, has become the great hope of Republicans looking for an alternative to the GOP frontrunners.
[...]
State Sen. Dan Patrick likened Thompson to Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who has drawn enthusiastic support among Democrats.

"Voters in both parties are fed up with the establishment politicians," said Patrick, R-Houston. "People are so desperate for change and someone they perceive as being a fresh voice."

As Thompson the Hollywood actor and longtime political player knows, perception is key, his supporters say. He has mastered the ability to come across as laid-back and plain-spoken.

Thompson probably is more widely known for his role as the hard-charging district attorney on NBC's Law and Order than he is for the nearly 10 years he spent in the U.S. Senate.

In the campaign for the Republican nomination he has cast himself as the reluctant warrior, not someone whose lifelong ambition it has been to run for president, Patrick said.

He's doing a good job of faking it, then. Otherwise it's hard to jibe that statement with Thompson's membership on the Council on Foreign Relations and 40-year political career, with a lengthy and lucrative stint as a Beltway lobbyist thrown in.

But Patrick's categorization of the Senator as a "reluctant warrior" is dead on, whether he's talking about Thompson's role as the gruff but efficient Rear Admiral Joshua Painter in The Hunt for Red October or his effective use of student deferments to avoid - a la fellow tough-talking candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and (maybe) Newt Gingrich - military service in Vietnam.

"Nyet, that's just what we wanted you to think!"

Ever read any General Sir John Hackett?

I don't know where I picked up a copy of The Third World War when I was in junior high, but I can say it played a big part in the development of my Cold War era paranoia (which was also shaped by Dr. Strangelove, Testament, and Eddie Albert's nightmares in Dreamscape). It was also oddly comforting, in that the bulk of the conflict is conventional (Soviet forces move into Yugoslavia, the US counters, and the Warsaw Pact reacts by invading Western Europe) and takes place mostly in West Germany, Scandinavia, and Turkey. The only nukes fall on Birmingham, England (sorry, Brummies) and Minsk, USSR, which - combined with the relative ease of the West's victory, was probably overly optimistic.

What prompted this little nostalgia trip? This story:

President Vladimir Putin's announcement over the weekend that Russia will suspend participation in a major European arms control treaty finally got the West's attention.

The Kremlin said the decision was forced by security concerns, but it was seen as less about fears of military confrontation and more about a resurgent Russia's desire to show the West that its interests cannot be ignored.

For years, the Kremlin has voiced its frustration that no NATO members have ratified the updated treaty, which limits the number of tanks, aircraft and other conventional weapons in Europe. After Putin threatened in April to suspend Russia's participation, a meeting was held in Vienna, Austria in June, but no progress was made on breaking the impasse.
[...]
Under Putin, Russia has been reasserting itself as a global power and challenging what it sees as U.S. domination. Washington's plans to build a missile shield in Central Europe have angered Russia, which is bitter over NATO's expansion into the former Soviet bloc.

But Russia's suspension of its participation in the treaty does not reflect any intention for a major buildup of heavy weaponry in European Russia, military experts said. It has neither the need nor the resources, they said.

Uh huh. Maybe I'll revisit that idea of a 30cm concrete shielded "clubhouse" in the backyard anyway, just in case.

In the words of Red Leader...

"Almost there:"

Gov. Rick Perry made his final rulings Friday on legislation approved by Texas lawmakers, vetoing 49 bills that came out of the five-month session.

The Republican governor had until Sunday to decide whether to sign or veto bills, but he planned to get it all done before the weekend.

On Friday, Perry announced he'd signed the 2008-09 state budget into law, allocating $151.9 billion for state programs. He used his line-item veto power to get rid of $570 million from the budget that lawmakers passed.

Vetoing bills from Democrats and Republicans alike, Perry used his veto pen on some legislation before the 140-day session ended May 28 and announced Friday he was striking down dozens of other bills.

The complete list of vetoes is here, and HB 1919 ain't on it. Now, Perry still has until Sunday to change that, but if the Chronicle is right about his wanting to finish up today, this is very good news.

As always, however, I'll withhold final judgment until Monday.

UPDATE: As "peony" indicated in the comments, HB 1919 has been signed (this report wasn't up when I hit the sack earlier this morning).

I may have jumped the gun popping the champagne earlier, but now it looks like we really made it. Thanks once again to everyone who spoke up to their representatives and Governor Perry, wrote an e-mail or letter, or - assuming you're not a resident - bugged someone living here or just sent good thoughts. I'm not going to get all Lenny on you and declare "the system works," but at least in this case, it came through pretty handily. Might be time for a drink.

Or coffee anyway, it is 6:45 in the morning, after all.

HB 1919 - I knew it

Son of a bitch.

Okay, when I wrote yesterday's entry, I missed this story in the Chronicle (thanks to Chuck for the link). Turns out the rumors about the TAB pressuring Perry for a veto weren't rumors after all:

Parents of children with autism cheered when Texas lawmakers revived a dead bill they say will give families hope, save some from bankruptcy and reduce long-term costs for taxpayers.

But the Texas Association of Business wants Gov. Rick Perry to veto House Bill 1919 because of an amendment that changes the definition of autism from a mental illness to a neurobiological illness and requires insurance companies to cover treatment for 3- to 5-year-olds with the disease.

The autism-insurance measure passed the Senate but languished in the House until lawmakers approved it as an amendment to insurance-related legislation just hours before the legislative session ended May 28.
[...]
Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor and his staff have not decided whether to veto the bill.

"It's not about autism. It's not about brain injuries. It's not about cervical cancer," said the TAB's Shelton Green. "We want to avoid placing mandates on employers, on their health-benefit policies."

Such requirements increase costs for employers who already struggle with annual insurance-premium increases, he said.

"We want to leave the discretion up to the employers and let them decide what health plans (to provide) and not the state," he said.

I can't believe Green said that with a straight face. If such things were "left to the discretion of employers," the only thing mandated for insurance coverage would be care for heart disease and prostate cancer. Oh, and maternity leave wouldn't be paid, I could still slap my administrative assistant on the ass, and the only black co-workers I'd have would be ones washing the dishes in the cafeteria.

The reason the bill changed the definition to "neurobiological illness" is because that's what recent research is saying. More and more studies are coming out about showing evidence of damage to the autistic person's limbic system and cerebellum, and of neurochemical dysfunctions. It's also because insurance companies tend to offer nothing but the bare minimum of coverage to so-called "mental illnesses." Sorry, but 12 speech therapy appointments a year isn't going to cover it.

1 in 150: that's the current estimated rate of occurrence of autism in the U.S. The Shelton Greens and Larry Taylors of this state need to wake the hell up and realize insurance coverage for kids 3-5 is a pittance compared to what this state and others will be spending decades down the road. When Green is long gone and the autistic children of today have become adults that require full-time care because their parents couldn't afford therapy, send his estate the tab.

Or better yet, please call ((800) 252-9600) or e-mail Governor Perry and ask him to sign HB 1919. And please pass the word, it means so much to so many families.

UPDATE: Big surprise, before Shelton Green was the TAB's Governmental Affairs Manager, he was Chief of Staff to...you guessed it...Representative Larry Taylor. I'm sure the industry's bagman on the Insurance Committee is proud his protege is taking up the fight.

HB 1919 - The fat lady has yet to sing

Just an update, HB 1919 was sent to Governor Perry last week (May 30) for his signature. As of right now, he has yet to do so.

Word on the street (i.e. rumors I read somewhere on the internet) is that the Texas Association of Business is leaning heavy on Perry to veto the bill. Perry originally said he'd sign it (the Fox 26 story I saw mentioned it as well), but I've come too far through this to be satisfied until pen is put to paper or it gets filed without his signature, which - since it was sent within 10 days of the Legislature's adjournment - won't happen until the 18th.

Good thing I'm a patient man.

In the meantime, I'll be monitoring Perry's actions on the 80th's bills and biting what remains of my nails. I hate to write another hat-in-hand blog entry, but if any of y'all wanted to call the "Citizen's Opinion" hotline to politely ask him to sign the bill, the number's (800) 252-9600. Or you could e-mail the Gov here. Thanks.

And keep your fingers crossed.

HB 1919 - Passed!

I just left She Who Shall Not Be Named groggily wondering why Daddy was hugging her to the point of crushing her rib cage. The reason? It appears HB 1919 passed with Sen. Lucio's amendment intact. But let's back up a bit.

The Wife and I attended a couple of parties today with a sense of fatalism about the legislation in question. After all, no bills get passed on the very last day of the session. Especially those requiring a 4/5 majority to suspend House rules. I think we'd resigned ourselves to the worst.

So we get home from a birthday party around 3:30 this afternoon and see this:

Just found out that because of the historical events of last night, bills still have a wing and a prayer to be passed out of the House. The last day of the session is usually reserved for technical corrections, but this time, extreme events have changed the rules a bit!

Exhortations were made to call Craddick and our Reps to support HB 1919. I dutifully did so, but balked at posting another update. You guys have been great, but I didn't think making yet another plea on Memorial Day was going to have much impact. Honestly, I figured I'd done what I could, and it was mostly out of my hands.

We spent the evening playing trivia with friends while the kids watched The Lion King, then came home around 9:30. We put SWSNBN to bed, cleaned the house up a little, and checked e-mail.

Much to our surprise - and after reports that there weren't enough votes to bring it to the fall and against all apparent odds - HB 1919 passed the House with Sen. Lucio's amendment intact. Here's one of the many e-mails I received this evening:

I am watching the live stream of the House....Vicki Truitt of Keller ask to RECONSIDER the suspension of the rules...it was voted in favor...then the committee repo