Ike coming dangerously close to Houston area

From the Houston Chronicle's blog SciGuy:

The track forecast for Ike tonight has edged significantly closer to the Houston-Galveston area, now bringing the storm ashore near Freeport.

As I wrote a few years ago, for Houston's sake, this is just about the worst possible place a storm could make landfall.

If the forecast remains centered upon Brazoria County and especially Freeport -- and of course that's a big if -- I would expect widespread evacuations in southeast Harris County and Galveston County to be called Thursday morning. I am not one to make editorial comments, but I am surprised that Galveston County has not yet called for a mandatory evacuation.

And

The official forecast calls for a 125-mph hurricane at landfall, a strong category 3 system. For those who remember Hurricane Alicia in 1983, it came ashore with 115 mph winds. Such a storm could create a significant surge.

More here.

And I am one of those who remember Hurricane Alicia back in 1983. We were way the fuck north, up in Kingwood, and it was still hardcore. We got the so-called "dirty side" of Alicia, the north eastern side, which typically contains the most volatile weather, heavy rains, strong winds. That's why this potential Brazoria County landfall is so troubling: it would send Ike's "dirty side" right up the same path Alicia took when I was a young teen, right through Houston.

Now, on a sliding scale, this is just not the same kind of danger we would face here in New Orleans, for obvious bowl-shaped and levee oriented reasons, or in Galveston, which is totally exposed. But still. Alicia was intense and I have no desire for any of my pals in Houston to deal with all the shit.

Hunker down, friends, and tape up your windows. God I hate hurricane season.



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McClatchy, WaPo and Romney Warn About McCain’s Out of Control Temper

From Crooks and Liars:

In a disturbing expose Sunday, the McClatchy papers joined the growing list of press, pundits and politicians raising a red flag about John McCain’s out-of-control temper. Following on the heels of the devastating revelations from the Washington Post in April, McClatchy documents many of the tantrums, outbursts and eruptions that continue to call McCain’s presidential temperament into question. And as Mitt Romney’s campaign revealed in January, those McCain tirades are directed at friend and foe alike.

Starting with an f-bomb hurled at GOP colleague John Cornyn, McClatchy details McCain’s long history of explosions, a record which led Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran to conclude “the thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine”:

There’s a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to John McCain’s white hot temper.

More here.

You know, for years I've dismissed this angry McCain meme as bullshit. I mean, the guy's former military, and very old school at that--yelling, chest-beating, all that shit, it's really just alpha male behavior, very much within the spectrum of normal human activity. I've never really heard anything about this that's made me think it was anything to be concerned with. He's a hot head. So what?

Am I right to blow this off? Some big time individuals and media outlets appear to be taking his "famed" anger very seriously. So he's a dick. Big deal. But the real question is if he's such a dick that it would affect his ability to manage the country. You know, a pathological dick who would freak out and push the button because Putin or somebody disrespected him.

Here's a video offered by Crooks and Liars of one of his "famed" outbursts during the early 90s:



And here's another one I found while watching the first one, titled "John McCain Loses Temper With NY Times Reporter":



Yeah, this is pretty tame. He doesn't hit anybody or anything. I mean, he's not even much of a dick here either. Just kind of asserting himself--actually, that's what I want a President to do.

This angry McCain thing really is bullshit. It's nothing but a personal attack, along the lines of calling out Obama because he talks to 60s radicals. Totally irrelevant. Worse, attacks such as this do nothing but divert voters from considering actual issues, presidential election as personality contest, crap democracy, fake democracy.

What's particularly annoying about these angry McCain attacks is that there are countless good reasons to despise the Republican candidate, reasons of substance, reasons dealing with issues. Hate the man because he would continue running the country into the ground, not because some people don't like his personality.

Really, the worst thing about the so-called "politics of personal destruction" is that I feel compelled to defend people I despise, on principle alone. Ah well, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Or something like that.

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HURRICANE SEASON SUCKS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Hurricane Ike could make landfall near Houston

Residents in the Florida Keys breathed a sigh of relief Monday as a fierce Hurricane Ike turned west on a path away from the low-lying island chain. But Gulf Coast states watched anxiously to see if the storm was gunning for them instead.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center warned that, after passing into the Gulf of Mexico sometime Tuesday night, Ike could make landfall in the U.S. over the weekend in Louisiana or Texas.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry pre-declared disasters in 88 counties to aid storm preparation and put 7,500 National Guard members on standby.

More here.

And from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Jindal says evacuation for Hurricane Ike not needed yet

The state is prepared to move forward with evacuations of areas threatened by Hurricane Ike but is not yet calling for that critical step because of uncertainty about the storms' ultimate direction, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday.

The New Orleans area would not need a full evacuation if Ike continues on its current path, although officials will be on the watch for a potential tidal surge that could affect some communities even though they may be far from the storm, Jindal said.

"It's too early to be evacuating, certainly," Jindal said. However, it is not too soon to prepare for that possibility, he said. "There is a chance we will not have to evacuate at all."

Click here for the rest.

Well okay. It seems like officials are not terribly concerned about Ike hitting the NOLA area, even though I keep noting that the so-called "cone of probability" that weather forecasters love to show on their Gulf of Mexico maps has New Orleans on the extreme eastern edge. That is, Ike hitting here remains a definite possibility, although not a big one. And that's just fine by me especially because I think one forced evacuation in a year is quite enough.

But I do worry about Houston. Not much. I mean, my home town isn't nearly as exposed to the elements as my newly adopted town here in South Louisiana, but there are many people in Space City who I adore. I went through category three Hurricane Alicia back in 1983 and it was pretty wild--at one point, I saw three trees fall on the house across the street during a particularly violent fifteen minute stretch, and then our power was out for an excruciating three weeks. What I'm saying is that while Houston doesn't stand to be destroyed by Ike in the way that New Orleans could have been by Gustav, or was by Katrina, a direct hit would cause some major hardship.

You know, I don't remember hurricane season sucking so much before Katrina, and I've lived on the Gulf coast for almost all of my life. Am I simply more aware now because of the 2005 season, or are things actually worse these days? Whatever the answer, I'm sure there are numerous right-wing dicks who would insist that it all has nothing to do with global warming. I mean "climate change." Whatever.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
McCoy passes for 282 yards, 4 TDs as No. 10 Texas rolls

From the AP via ESPN:

More than two years in the making, El Paso's big party didn't even last three hours.

Colt McCoy passed for 282 yards and four touchdowns and No. 10 Texas spoiled the biggest regular-season game in Texas-El Paso history Saturday night with a 42-13 victory.

Quan Cosby caught eight passes for 154 yards and a score for the Longhorns (2-0), who built a big first-half lead, then put the game away with McCoy's 15-yard TD strike to Jordan Shipley early in the fourth quarter. Moments later, Rod Muckelroy returned a fumble 26 yards for a touchdown for the final score.

"We got our first win on the road," McCoy said. "We passed the test."

It was the first time the teams had met since 1933, and the excitement over one of El Paso's biggest sports events ever had been building in the border city since May 2006, when the game was first announced.

More here.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody in Texas wants to beat Texas. Except, of course, for Texas fans. Really only the Aggies and Tech ever stand a real chance of doing so, but occasionally somebody pulls it off. I've seen both Rice and TCU knock off the 'Horns in my time, and it really really really sucks when it happens.

Obviously, this didn't happen last night. Not even a scare, which is nice because it means that Texas is a contender this year. I mean, not for the national championship; we're just too shallow on defense, too many freshmen, and it showed--UTEP has a decent offense, but we really should have kept them from moving the ball as much as they did. But if we can get it figured out enough by UT/OU weekend, we might have a shot at the conference.

Actually, now that the North seems revitalized with Mizzou and KU kicking ass, I suppose anything's possible. Maybe we could lose to the Sooners and still win the Big 12. Whatever. I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I didn't get to watch last weekend, so this was the season opener for me, and I had almost forgotten how much I love watching Texas play. Especially when they totally dominate. Actually, the third quarter was frustrating, no scoring and all, but it was still fun.

Geaux 'Horns!


Texas' Roddrick Muckelroy, left, returns a fumble recovery for a touchdown
during the fourth quarter of their NCAA college football game Saturday,
Sept. 6, 2008, in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/Victor Calzada)

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THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Uhura, McCoy, and Mr. Scott!!!

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I'M BACK

I'm back. Not much story to tell. Long, long drive there. Long, long drive back. Had fun, didn't see much of Atlanta. Caught a cold. Watched the hurricane and the Republican National Convention on TV. No damage at my place back here, or at my ex's place. Got power. Got water. Cats are extremely happy to be back home.

I worked nearly twelve hours today at the restaurant because we're short staffed until everybody returns from evacuating. Nothing like coal miner hours when you're sick.

Hopefully I'll have something intelligent to say on Saturday.

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HURRICANE HIATUS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

New Orleanians flee as Gustav intensifies to Category 5

Many residents weren't waiting for a formal evacuation call. Cars packed with clothes, boxes and pet carriers drove north among heavy traffic on Interstate 55, a major route out of the city. Gas stations around the city hummed. And nursing homes and hospitals began sending patients farther inland.

There were other signs of people racheting up their plans to leave. ATMs were running out of cash. Long lines were sprouting up at gas stations as motorists filled up their cars. Cases of bottled water were selling briskly at convenience stores.

Police and firefighters were set to go street-to-street with bullhorns over the weekend to help direct people where to go. Unlike Hurricane Katrina, there will be no shelter of last resort in the Superdome. The doors there will be locked.

Those among New Orleans' estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.

More here.

Yeah, so I've been here for a year and I'm finally getting that welcome wagon I've been wondering about. This is a ritual for NOLA, and I guess the fact that I'm leaving soon means that my residency is official. Hopefully, nothing bad will happen while I'm gone. The tough thing, though, will be going to Atlanta with my two and my ex Becky's three cats in the back seat. That'll be fun. And by "fun" I mean "not fun."

Yeah, that's right, Atlanta, to shelter with our old pal Jim--Matt, I'll try to email as soon as I get the chance; actually, if everything goes well, I hope not to be there long, but I'll try to say "hi" if I can.

So no posting for a few days. Roll the Real Art theme song. Fade lights. Close curtain.


Gustav nearing Cuba last night.

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie and Sammy



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Iowa college president steps down after beer photo

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

An Iowa community college president resigned less than a week after a photo was published appearing to show him pouring beer into a young woman's mouth.

The school's board of trustees on Thursday unanimously approved Robert Paxton's resignation. It also approved a severance package that officials said was valued at about $400,000.

Mark Crimmins, the president of the board, said although the incident happened in Paxton's private life, "it reflected poorly on the college."

Click here for the rest.

Okay, so I can understand why the board of trustees would think such a picture might make their school appear to be less serious, or studious, or academically rigorous, whatever, but did this guy's contract even imply anything about drinking beer with young women being a bad idea? Can a college president drink beer at all without sanction? What's over the line? Is a pint of ale at the local tweed pub okay, but Hooter's out of the question? I mean, didn't Hillary Clinton participate in some sort of vodka drinking contest in the Ukraine a couple of years ago? Did that make her less "presidential"?

Really, it seems to me that the gargantuan severance package they're giving Paxton is a straight up admission that the board knows his forced resignation is an exercise in absurdity. I guess they think it's worth it. Very weird. I'm troubled by this--it reminds me of the recent rash of similar sackings of officials across the country for various legal and normal sexual infractions. The suggestion is that it doesn't matter how good you are at your job: what matters is that you look morally correct while doing it, and "morally correct" is usually defined way too late for it to be helpful for the people being fired.

I mean, what good is a "private life," anyway, under these circumstances?

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High school debate makes a welcome return to 15
Houston Independent School District campuses.

From the Houston Chronicle editorial board:

(Mayor) White, a debater when he was in high school in San Antonio, said the experience was transformative and changed his life. He and his teammates, White said, learned how to teach themselves, and all went on to successful careers in business or the professions.

The data confirm White's experience. Debating improves students' grades and test scores. Unlike many HISD students, virtually all debaters graduate from high school, and almost all go to college.

Debaters learn how to research and analyze public policy. They learn diction, logic and public speaking. In the process, their writing skills and academic confidence rise.

Dr. Philip Zelikow, a former debater from Houston who was executive director of the 911 Commission, states that debate led him to discover that there were many approaches to solving public problems. Perhaps the most valuable lesson from having to be prepared to take either side of the argument, he says, was learning how the other side views the issue.

More here.

Okay, so I didn't know shit about shit back in the day when I was a high school debater. I learned the style, the form, the rules, but it wasn't until much later, two or three years into college, several years after I had actually debated in any formal setting, that I actually learned argumentation. But in the long run, that didn't matter at all. High school debate got me ready for the concept of argumentation so that when I later encountered dense academic essays in university classes, I was able to recognize them for what they are--I was able to follow the arguments, to understand them, to create supporting or counter arguments in the papers I wrote about my readings.

Debate also got me interested, heavily interested, in the importance of civic affairs. By forcing myself to understand what I was debating, I came to realize that politics and economics weren't for guys in suits in Washington: politics and economics are for everybody, especially for people who feel like they don't get it, or who are bored to tears by it all.

All it takes is a little engagement with the issues, and, boom, it's yours for the taking.

Frankly, I owe my high school debate experience a great deal of any intellect I have today. It ought to be required for all students, whether they like it or not, starting in kindergarten, all thirteen years through public school. Debate is essential training for American citizenship. Without a basic understanding of it, we're dim witted slaves.

So, then, what does the fact that most Americans have absolutely no personal experience with formal debate tell you? Yeah, most Americans are dim witted slaves.

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Louisiana gears up for Gustav as it makes landfall in Haiti

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Very warm sea surface temperatures and favorable upper-level winds are fueling Gustav's growth, Roberts said.

Gustav is forecast to turn more towards the west northwest and west over the next few days, and should be in the south central Gulf by Sunday morning.

Several computer models show the storm tracking northwestward across the Gulf towards the mouth of the Mississippi River after that, and strengthening to a Category 4 hurricane.

But there are some signs that there will be weak steering currents greeting Gustav when it enters the Gulf, he said. At the moment, the storm is being steered by a southwestern extension of a subtropical high pressure system sitting over the Bahamas and Florida, while a lower pressure "weakness" extending from the Mississippi valley into the central Gulf seems to be drawing the storm forward.

"In terms of the dynamical models, the spread is rather large," Roberts said. "We have models showing motions into the Bay of Campeche to the west, all the way into the northeastern and eastern Gulf.

More here.

This is fucking nerve wracking.

Gustav probably won't hit the Big Easy, but since Katrina, and for me since I moved here a little over a year ago, people in New Orleans get a bit uneasy this time of year when the Atlantic Ocean rolls tropical depressions into the Gulf of Mexico like bowling balls. On the one hand, this is all part of the city's charm: I drank beers after work with locals earlier tonight, all of us fully aware that death and destruction may be bearing down on our city this weekend. Kind of like partying at the gates of Mordor. Indeed, the Crescent City's above ground cemeteries, full of white tombs and monuments to the departed, along with the overall sense of sweet and ancient decay here, and the death imagery associated with the voodoo iconography conspicuous here and there around town, do nothing but reinforce the feeling. We live in the most fragile of American cities, and we all know it. We all celebrate it.

On the other hand, it sucks to know that come Saturday I might be parked in a massive traffic jam on I-10 West toward Houston. Like I said, this is nerve wracking.

Katrina. Gustav. What the fuck is it with all these fucking Russian hurricanes?

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“You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America”

From Democracy Now:

AMY GOODMAN: Rick MacArthur, you talk a lot about the fundraising and the historic precedent for the Obama fundraising machine. You go back further than Howard Dean and John McCain. Explain how it works.

RICK MacARTHUR: Well, the fundraising machine goes back—I mean, when they banned so-called soft money, the whole—when they banned the direct contributions of above a certain amount after the Watergate reforms of the ’70s, the two parties had to figure out new ways to raise money. But what they’ve done, by bundling and political action committees and so on and so forth and going to big business, is to arrange a system where it’s like something—it’s a term they use in business school. They talk about barriers to entry. In other words, a company sets up—if you want to go into competition against the dominant company in your sector, in your market, there are barriers to entry, and you have to analyze the barriers to entry. The barriers to entry to politics in the United States are—the principal one is that you cannot raise money on the level of an incumbent congressman or an incumbent politician. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party raise so much money now that you or I or somebody off the street who is serious about politics simply cannot enter the political process anymore.

Now, in the Democratic Party, this wasn’t as stark until the ’90s, when Bill Clinton really pioneered corporate fundraising on a level with the Republicans. He did this by, of course, supporting NAFTA and free trade agreements that made big American corporations happy—international financiers, commercial banks, investment banks and so on. And what Barack Obama has done is to copy the Clintons.

Click here to watch, read, or listen to the rest.

The rest of the conversation goes deeply into how Barack Obama is one of the great Democratic panderers to big business, and far more loyal to the political establishment than to the liberal supporters who believe in his "hope" and "change." But this bit excerpted above is worth noting in itself especially because it well illustrates that the Democrats are simply incapable of running a liberal for President. That is, the problem isn't with Obama, who is doing exactly what he needs to do to win the White House: rather, the problem is with the Democratic Party, and more generally with the entire political establishment, encompassing both parties.

American politics, at the electoral level, is no longer about ideas. It's about money, about raising vast sums of money, and spending it on marketing campaigns. Not political campaigns, marketing campaigns--political campaigns are about ideas; marketing campaigns are about brand names, about establishing "differences" between amazingly similar products like Coke and Pepsi, or McDonald's and Burger King, or McCain and Obama.

And these marketing campaigns are on a massive scale, every bit the same as Chevy and Ford, or any other massive corporate market fight. It's not for the people anymore, and when I say "people," I mean people like you and me, people who live in relative obscurity, people who worry about the bills. Politics isn't for us. It's for them. They need money, not votes, because money will eventually buy the votes via marketing anyway, and we don't have the kind of money they need, so we're essentially irrelevant to the entire process, both before and after election.

You can't be President, and neither can I. Tell that to your kids because it's the truth.

And as MacArthur observes in the interview, money is only one barrier keeping the American people from participating in electoral politics. The dual party system is another that comes instantly to mind, battling fiercely and sometimes illegally to lock third party and independent candidates out of debates and off the ballots. It's just awful.

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it many times again: the American experiment in democracy is over. And it's been over for some years now.

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OBAMA OFFENSIVE!

New Krugman from the New York Times:

Accentuate the Negative

Over the past month or so many Democrats have had the sick feeling that once again their candidate brought a knife to a gunfight. Barack Obama’s campaign, inexplicably, was unprepared for the inevitable Republican attack on the candidate’s character. By the middle of last week, Mr. Obama’s once formidable lead, both in national polls and in electoral college projections based on state-level polls, had virtually evaporated.

Mr. Obama’s waning advantage brought back bad memories of the 2004 campaign, whose key lesson was that there are no limits to the form G.O.P. character attacks can take.

And

It was predictable, then, that Mr. Obama would find himself on the receiving end of an all-out character attack, much of it nonsensical: he’s un-American because he vacations in Hawaii, where his grandmother lives? It was also predictable that responding by repeating what a great guy the candidate is, or denouncing the attacks as unfair, would be ineffective.

So now the Obama campaign has responded with its own character attack.

Is it fair to attack Mr. McCain for having too many houses?

More here.

Shit yeah, it's fair to attack McCain for having too many houses. It's also fair to attack him for his role in the Keating Five scandal of the 80s. It's also fair to attack him as an out of control war hawk who sees the military as the quickest route between two points. It's fair to attack him for his famous temper. It's fair to attack him for being too old for the job. It's fair to attack him for being an out-of-touch technophobe who doesn't understand or use the internet. It's fair to attack him for dumping his first wife and trading up to a trophy with a bajillion bucks.

Really, it's fair to attack McCain for being a stupid sleazy piece of shit political and personal opportunist who might conceivably be an even worse disaster for our nation than the chimp occupying the Oval Office right now. And when I say "attack," I mean mercilessly, without regard for truth, and constantly.

As Krugman observes in his essay, this is how the game is played today. I don't approve at all, but Democrats taking the high road is a sure path to defeat. The GOP started this shit, but anyone can play, and Obama would be a fool to pretend he's above it all. Because he's not. Republican motherfuckers upended both Gore and Kerry, and almost threw Clinton out of office. There is no "above it all." It's kill or be killed. Obama needs to slash McCain's throat, the sooner the better.

Krugman says that Obama should only go negative enough "so that voters see this as a race between a Democrat and a Republican," which would easily give to contest to the former. I disagree. Recent history has shown us that this is all out mudslinging war. Brand names will not be enough. Obama needs to utterly destroy his opponent.

I say the only limit here is overplaying the asshole hand. Be an asshole, but not too much of one. That ought to do it.

Kill, kill, kill.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the Houston Chronicle:

Deputy resigns after incident at Harris County jail site

In a release issued about 5 p.m., officials said 38-year-old deputy Duane Peterson resigned today.

Video of the alleged assault against an inmate was submitted to the Inspector General of the Sheriff's Department on Aug. 12 and Peterson was immediately removed from inmate contact status, authorities said.

More here.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Another NOPD officer fired over incident at Treme community center

The high-profile misconduct case had already resulted in the firing of Officer Ashley Terry, who police say violated multiple department standards by exhibiting her firearm and screaming profanities at a woman in the carpool line at the center. Terry was off-duty and picking up her 7-year-old nephew from the center.

Following an administrative hearing Friday morning, Superintendent Warren Riley fired Officer David Ellis, a five-year veteran who went to the community center to investigate the 911 call stemming from Terry's outburst, according to a NOPD news release. He spoke only with Terry before finding the complaints about her conduct "unfounded."

The internal investigation into Ellis' conduct found he violated several departmental regulations, including those related to courtesy, truthfulness, neglect of duty and failing to maintain standards.

More here.

From Democracy Now:

Maryland State Police Spied on Peace, Anti-Death Penalty Groups

The American Civil Liberties Union released documents Thursday showing that undercover officers from the Maryland State Police spied on peace groups and anti-death penalty protesters for over a year in 2005 and 2006. The police summaries and intelligence logs reveal that covert agents infiltrated groups like the antiwar Baltimore Pledge of Resistance, the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and the Committee to Save Vernon Evans, a death row prisoner. We speak with antiwar activist Max Obuszewski and with journalist Dave Zirin. Both were the target of surveillance.

More here.

Again from the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

N.O. officer to face sex count

Prosecutors plan to file a sexual assault charge against a New Orleans police officer next week after the officer declined a plea deal, said Robert White, chief of the New Orleans district attorney's public corruption unit.

The officer, Carlos Peralta, reneged during a July 11 Criminal District Court hearing on an agreement to plead guilty to a lesser crime, second-degree battery, White said Friday.

More here.

From WKYC TV in Cleveland:

Oakwood police officer indicted for felonious assault of a driver

The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's office announced that Oakwood police officer Craig Ali was indicted today on one count of felonious assault during a May 23 incident on Interstate 271 in Oakwood.

On May 23, Ali was working off-duty for a construction site on I-271 near the Broadway Avenue exit ramp in Oakwood.

More here.

From the New York Times:

Officer Indicted for Injuring Yonkers Woman

A YONKERS police officer has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of violating the civil rights of a 44-year-old woman by slamming her to the ground during an arrest last year when she tried to check on the condition of her niece after a bar fight. The woman suffered a broken jaw, a concussion and deep bruises across her face.

The incident and its aftermath received wide attention because the Westchester County district attorney’s office, despite a vivid videotape of the arrest, initially prosecuted the woman, Irma Marquez, not the police officer, Wayne Simoes. Ms. Marquez was acquitted by a state jury in May, and, based on the videotape and testimony from other police officers, the federal authorities filed a criminal complaint charging Officer Simoes with using unreasonable force. Janet DiFiore, the Westchester County district attorney, demoted the Yonkers bureau chief in her office who handled the state prosecution, saying in an interview that “he made a call on that case that was wrong and unacceptable.”

More here.

From the San Lorenzo Press Banner in California:

San Jose police officer jailed for two years

Judge Heather Morse considered sentencing Williams to four years in a state lockup, but a deal was brokered between the two sides in which Williams forfeited his right to appeal and accepted two years in prison without parole. He is required to register as a sex offender after serving his time.

"Especially for my family, we felt like it was the proper way to end it," the victim’s father said.

Williams’ sentencing on Monday, Aug. 18, came after he was convicted Aug. 6 on four felony counts of soliciting pornographic photos from a 16-year-old Scotts Valley High basketball player and two misdemeanor counts for having the images and destroying evidence.

Williams was taken from the courtroom Monday wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs. He had a mild white scruff on his face.

"I do apologize for all the pain I’ve caused the (victim’s) family," said Williams, his only admission during the sentencing.

The victim’s father spoke from a prepared statement about how Williams had been a family friend and a fellow Christian whom he trusted.

"Kenny Williams was a wolf in sheep’s clothing," said the father. "Not one or two times, but five."

More here.

From KPHO TV in Phoenix:

Ex-Officer Faces Sentencing In Beating

A police investigation revealed Benjamin Scarborough, 26, an off-duty Phoenix police officer, had punched and kicked the victim several times causing the man to lose consciousness, detectives said.

Several independent witnesses reported that Scarborough continued to hit Lake after he stopped defending himself, detectives said.

More here.

From the Indianapolis Star:

Cop hit with rape charge

An incident that led to an Indianapolis police officer being charged with rape Thursday began, prosecutors say, with a proposition.

"I'm going to give you an option," officer Anthony S. Smith reportedly told a woman with an outstanding misdemeanor warrant. "I can lock you up, but I really don't want to . . . or you can ride with me for an hour."

Marion County prosecutors filed charges of rape, criminal deviate conduct and other crimes, saying Smith later forced the 19-year-old woman to have sex with him or go to jail.

More here.

From WFMZ TV in Pennsylvania:

Bethlehem Cop Questioned in Alleged Police Brutality

An Allentown family is accusing a Bethlehem police officer of using excessive force against its son. Police records show Officer Joseph Ocasio arrested 21-year old Juan Carlos Martinez at Musikfest on August 6th.. for resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. Martinez's mother says Ocasio beat her son and injured him.

More here.

From the Dayton Daily News:

Dayton to pay $20,000 to victim of excessive force by police officer

Use of unjustified force against a women by a Dayton police officer during a 2006 traffic stop will cost the city $20,000. The Dayton City Commission this week agreed to settle the claim with Dayton resident Sheileda Anthony.

"The incident was investigated. The officer was disciplined as a result of it. He no longer works for the department," Police Chief Richard Biehl said Friday, Aug. 15.

Former Dayton Police Officer Roger Kielbaso, who retired on a medical disability May 19, was suspended 20 days for using excessive force against Anthony. The officer also received an oral reprimand for using "indecent, profane or harsh language" during the stop.

Click here for the rest.

So I've been insisting for a while now that police misconduct happens always, all the time, everywhere, and I'm pretty sure it does. Okay, to be fair, I haven't looked too hard to find any real studies looking at actual numbers - actually, I don't know whether any academics or think tanks are even compiling data in this area - but basing my assertion on the sheer number and frequency of headlines, I think I've got a good argument. Again, to be fair, news coverage itself might be creating an appearance of cops-gone-wild, in a way similar to how the "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy for local television news has tended to create an illusion that street crime is far worse than it actually is. But my gut instinct here is that whether this is news hysteria or not, each of these stories is real, and they're published every fucking day, which means that there is a fucking shitload of evil cops out there.

I mean, these eleven stories are all recent, within the last two weeks, discovered either during my casual news reading or from a couple of Google searches I did last night. Cops really are going wild. Everywhere. All the time. Always.

Why isn't this a story in itself?

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Sammy



Frankie



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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COMMERCIAL ROCK MUSIC ISN'T QUITE DEAD YET

From Wikipedia:

MGMT

MGMT (previously known as The Management) is an American musical group based in Brooklyn, New York consisting of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. Originally with New York-based Cantora Records, they signed on with Columbia Records/Red Ink/Sony in 2006. On October 5, 2007, Spin.com named MGMT "Artist of the Day". On November 14, 2007 Rolling Stone pegged MGMT as a top 10 "Artist to Watch" in 2008. The band was recently named 9th in the BBC's Sound of 2008 top 10 poll.

And

They experimented with noise rock and electronica before settling on what David Marchese of Spin magazine calls "their current brand of shape-shifting psychedelic pop."

More here.

I caught an MGMT video last night on VH1 while I was channel surfing between commercials, or something like that, and it really blew me away. Proof positive that, while rock music is definitely sick and on its last legs, as a relevant mass culture genre at any rate, there's still some breath left in the now venerable pop culture music form.

I dug up the video, for their song "Electric Feel," on YouTube, but wouldn't you know it, embedding is disabled. So go check it out here. It reminds me of 1970s era Rolling Stones, my favorite version of the dinosaur Brit band, funky and New York hip, which makes sense because MGMT is from Brooklyn.

Here, check out some 70s Stones, "Emotional Rescue," which is the closest to what MGMT appears to be doing with "Electric Feel":



I'm still pissed at the Stones for what they did to the Verve, but at least they'll let you embed their fucking videos.

I wonder when rock will finally die.


MGMT

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HOUSTON: SAME AS IT EVER WAS

From the Houston Chronicle:

Peering into Allen's Landing's murky history

It's a story worth mulling over as we approach the annual celebration of Houston's birthday, a date generally cited as Aug. 30, 1836 — the day a newspaper ad first touted the new city. That ad was, famously, a pack of lies.

The Allen brothers Augustus and John, a pair of New York-bred land speculators, declared their parcel of land an excellent place for ambitious settlers. "There is no place in Texas more healthy," they wrote, "having an abundance of excellent spring water, and enjoying the sea breeze in all its freshness."

The sea breeze?

The Allens proclaimed they'd held back this excellent land until they could offer it "with the advantage of capital and improvement."

That, too, was hooey. They'd bought the land only days before the ad first appeared and hadn't yet spent a dollar to develop it. There wasn't a single building on the 8,850 acres.

The ads ran in the United States and Europe. One showed a drawing of Houston: a pretty little lake, rolling hills and, off in the distance, blue mountains.

Mountains?

J.K. Allen, the outgoing brother, wasn't just a developer; he was a fast-moving political operator, too.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, I'm no architect, or urban planner, or civil engineer, or anything along those lines. Keep that in mind as you read a few of my impressions of my hometown after living for a year in the New Orleans area.

What if you wanted a city to be as much like a shopping mall as possible? Houston is what you'd get. The city was created by real estate developers to favor their interests, and continues to be owned and run by real estate developers. To favor their interests. That's probably the biggest reason it has no heart or soul.

Houston has no vibe, no culture. The only people who love Houston are necessarily from Houston. It has all the personality of a model home in a new suburban development. That's what H-Town is. A development. I mean, it feels weird even using such a nifty nickname as "H-Town." Where the fuck did that come from? Not from history because Houston really has no history--indeed, local developers just can't wait to demolish the city's past in order to erect new prefab condos and strip shopping centers. Not from street culture because Houston has no street culture--I mean, sure, there's a sort of street culture in certain neighborhoods, but it never breaks out of those neighborhoods to the rest of the city. Not from the city's art scene because most of its serious artists leave town as soon as they are able--the grafted store-bought arts scene, the Alley Theater, the Houston Ballet, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, all that shit was brought in by developers simply to enhance the city's image; what grass-roots arts scene actually exists suffers and dies year after year without any serious support from the powers-that-be.

The name "H-Town" is nothing more than a t-shirt slogan, probably created by advertising execs in New York, which is where the Bayou City recruits most of its creative class, existing only to suggest that Houston has a soul, when it is in fact not much more than a zombie controlled by banking interests.

If there is one real culturally unifying theme in Houston it is making money and fucking everybody who can't make money themselves. Houston is a city all about capitalism--of course, I understand that all cities are about capitalism, but almost always this mandate co-exists with some kind of organic civic vibe transcending cash.

You know, the real reason Houston flooded so badly during Tropical Storm Allison's intense rainfall back in 2001 was because developers weren't interested in providing enough runoff to properly drain the water. It cost too much and wasn't really necessary. For them. When the flood waters receded, the developers weren't hurting, either: this was a new opportunity to tear down old shit and build more strip malls.

So Houston is great for the well-to-do, but fucking lame for everybody else, and most of the people there don't know any better, so they love it, and call it "H-Town," and go to Texans games, and get into fights with anybody who rightly says that Houston sucks.

It is fitting, then, that the city began 170 years ago as an image-based business venture aimed at draining money from unsophisticated rubes: that's what it continues to be to this very day.

Happy birthday Houston.

Oh god, I'm going to get nailed so hard for writing this.

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KILL THE LIBERALS!
CONSERVATIVE "HUMOR"

Courtesy of This Modern World:



Click here to see lots of other "funny" right wing novelty products.

Okay. So imagine yourself sitting at a bar somewhere talking politics with a friend. It's a fun conversation. You're both liberals talking about, say, how stupid Bush is, and laughing about it. After a few minutes of this, a guy nearby jumps into the conversation and laughingly says "Well, I think it'd be real funny if I put a bullet into your brain! Hahahahahaha!"

Right. It's psychotic and way more than a bit creepy.

If we are to accept that such a statement really is an attempt at humor, what the fuck do you say in reply? You know, just to keep the witty banter going. "Well, I think you conservatives need to be rounded up and put into camps!" Yeah, yeah, I know: that's not funny. Besides, I actually like quite a few conservatives, love some of them, in fact. I mean, I think they're deluded, or stupid, or misguided, but not worthy of murder. For god's sake, they're fellow Americans! They need to be persuaded, not killed, not even in metaphoric jest, which is counterproductive in terms of persuasion, anyway, and, like I keep saying, not even funny.

What the fuck is up with all this "kill the liberals" shit?

I think it's pretty obvious. These aren't really jokes. Great numbers of American conservatives really do want to see great numbers of American liberals murdered. I mean, okay, I'm sure that most of them would never ever act upon this desire, but I wonder how many of them would object if the White House started rounding up Democrats and taking them to stadiums.

Once upon a time, conservatism was a respectable, important, and necessary American philosophical point of view, but it has allowed itself to be infected with a vile strain of what clearly amounts to Nazism: principled conservatives would do well to use this time of right-wing disarray to purge themselves of such bloodthirsty anti-American elements, pushing them outside the ideology's mainstream, and toward the far lunatic fringes where they belong.

Okay, now that I think of it, it might be funny if Ann Coulter was murdered.


"We need to execute people like John Walker
in order to physically intimidate liberals, by
making them realize that they can be killed too."

Just kidding. See? It's funny.

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MAJORITY SUPPORTS ABORTION "UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES"
ENORMOUS MAJORITY SUPPORTS ABORTION "UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES"

From Pandagon courtesy of Eschaton:

I’m not a particular fan of the “legal under any circumstances” versus “legal only under certain circumstances” distinction, if only because I think most people can think up at least one circumstance where someone shouldn’t be allowed to get an abortion that would immediately push them into the more restrictive second group - most of them revolving around non-medical late-term abortions. But regardless, what we see above is that 82% of America supports abortion rights of some sort. Seventeen percent don’t.

More here.

Okay, that's good to hear. I've spent such a long time in areas where pro-lifers are very vocal, where young single pregnant girls are highly visible, that is, Baytown Texas for six years followed by four years in highly Catholic and Baptist South Louisiana, that I was kind of starting to forget that America really does support abortion rights.

Without going into much detail, which would obviously take up much more time than I'm willing to spend tonight, the bottom line for me on abortion is that outlawing it, or heavily restricting it, means that the government can control your innards, and that's bullshit. Beyond that, and more specifically concerning abortion itself, because of physical differences between males and females, women stand to be the most oppressed by illegalizing pregnancy termination: a woman cannot fully and equally participate in society unless she is able to choose the circumstances under which she does or does not give birth.

If you don't follow that line of reasoning, you're a retard, or a willful moron, and it would be pointless to attempt to explain it to you. However, if you do follow it and reject it anyway because you believe abortion is murder, that's something else, a principled and moral stance. It doesn't make you right, just not a retard or moron.

If you think abortion is murder for religious reasons, well okay, but I wonder why the hell anybody has to follow the principles of your religion. That is, nobody has to follow the principles of your religion. Unless they want to. But then, that's what the term "pro-choice" means: you don't have to have an abortion simply because it is legal to do so. If you think abortion is murder for more secular and philosophical reasons, like equating the cells known as embryos to a fully formed post-birth human being, which has a "right to life" outweighing an American's sovereign dominion over his or her own innards, well okay, but cells are quite clearly not human beings, so you've pretty much got the burden of proof in this argument. And I'm still waiting for some proof. And pictures of bloody fetuses or sonograms or recordings of fetal heartbeats don't make cells into people.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of abortion opposition is religious anyway, and it's not even really about abortion: it's about sex, stopping sex, stopping women from having sex. That is, I think, the main reason religious people are so freaked out over abortion is because it removes one of nature's great disincentives for sex--you might have to have an unwanted child if you have sex. It is no accident that virtually all religious abortion opponents are also opposed to birth control while supporting ineffective "abstinence based" sex education. I mean, if they were serious about reducing all these "murders," they'd try to make it easier, not harder, to avoid pregnancy. But no, these people want women to get pregnant if they have sex. As God's punishment, or something along those lines, which is just psychotic when you think about it for two seconds.

Yeah, "pro-life" is ultimately about keeping 'em barefoot and pregnant. And in the kitchen where they fucking belong. Opposing abortion is about opposing women.

Fortunately, most Americans, seemingly genetically endowed with a love of liberty, get that. In spite of decades of crazed rhetoric and straight-up distortions of reality. In spite of everything, there is still good reason to have hope for this nation. Americans, when you get right down to it, really are good people. We just seem to allow freaks and perverts to hold public office all too often.

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MOYERS DIGS UP ANOTHER BRILLIANT RIGHT WING DISSIDENT

From PBS's Bill Moyers Journal:

BILL MOYERS: You intrigued me when you wrote that "The fundamental problem facing the country will remain stubbornly in place no matter who is elected in November." What's the fundamental problem you say is not going away no matter whether it's McCain or Obama?

ANDREW BACEVICH: What neither of these candidates will be able to, I think, accomplish is to persuade us to look ourselves in the mirror, to see the direction in which we are headed. And from my point of view, it's a direction towards ever greater debt and dependency.

BILL MOYERS: And you write that "What will not go away, is a yawning disparity between what Americans expect, and what they're willing or able to pay." Explore that a little bit.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think one of the ways we avoid confronting our refusal to balance the books is to rely increasingly on the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system, or set of arrangements that have evolved over the last 30 or 40 years.

But, it's not the American people who are deploying around the world. It is a very specific subset of our people, this professional army. We like to call it an all-volunteer force-

BILL MOYERS: Right.

ANDREW BACEVICH: -but the truth is, it's a professional army, and when we think about where we send that army, it's really an imperial army. I mean, if as Americans, we could simply step back a little bit, and contemplate the significance of the fact that Americans today are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ask ourselves, how did it come to be that organizing places like Iraq and Afghanistan should have come to seem to be critical to the well-being of the United States of America.

There was a time, seventy, eighty, a hundred years ago, that we Americans sat here in the western hemisphere, and puzzled over why British imperialists went to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We viewed that sort of imperial adventurism with disdain. But, it's really become part of what we do. Unless a President could ask fundamental questions about our posture in the world, it becomes impossible then, for any American President to engage the American people in some sort of a conversation about how and whether or not to change the way we live.

Click here to watch part one of the interview, part two here, or read a transcript of the entire interview here.

I swear, Moyers is really beginning to make me wonder what the differences between liberal and conservative in this country really are. Or rather, Moyers is doing a remarkable job of clearing out some real common ground between the left and the right, none of that pathetic shit Congress spews out called "bipartisanship."

This guy, Bracevich, is definitely a right winger, coming at our national fine mess from a decidedly conservative, capitalist, and pro-military perspective. He's a Vietnam vet, West Point grad, and professor of international relations at Boston University. And he plays the part well: really, his persona reminds me of some Aggies I've known over the years, not the beer-swilling redneck yuck-yuck "t.u." type, but more along the lines of the quiet, rational, Texas A&M engineering types I've known, conservative, but really fucking smart.

And what he says amazes me. Not because I've never heard any of it before, but because I've never heard it coming out of a conservative's mouth: at some point in the 1960s the US stopped being a production society and started being a consumer society; the entire political establishment has galvanized itself around the concept, and its inherent instability in terms of personal and public debt, as well as the military force needed to keep the whole scheme going, has created doom for America.

And almost nobody is able to admit it.

Right, I know. This is a true blue conservative saying this. You've absolutely got to watch this interview. It's almost a solid hour, but well worth the time. You'll be riveted almost from the first minute.

Go check it out.

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