Outrage as Misdirection: The Real Scandal Isn't Foley

From Smirking Chimp courtesy of AlterNet:

It's a sad commentary on the state of American democracy, on the instincts of the American citizenry, and on the standards and judgment of the American newsmedia that the unsavory advances of a pathetic Forida congressman can have the nation in high dudgeon, while the ramming through of a patently illegal piece of legislation undermining a crucial 13th century civil liberty (habeas corpus), and the Fourth and Eighth Amendments of the constitution, and the secret planning for an illegal and catastrophic attack on Iran, both merit almost no complaint or mention.

Far be it from me to complain if Rep. Mark Foley's sexual obsession with teenage boys ends up sinking Republican hopes for hanging onto the House and Senate. But how sad that it would be if it is this, and the coverup of his crimes by the Republican leadership, that undoes the Bush administration, when its real crimes are of such grandeur and seriousness?

And

At least the Foley saga makes it clear why the farcical impeachment of Bill Clinton for his extramarital escapade moved forward through the House to a Senate trial, while George Bush, whose crimes far exceed those of any president before him, including Richard Nixon, and place the whole American experiment in jeopardy, has not even faced censure, much less a bill of impeachment.

Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should be ashamed of themselves for leaping so boldly to the attack over Foley's crime and the Republican leadership's cover-up, while continuing to assert that there will be no effort to impeach the president for his own crimes even if they manage, with Foley's assistance, to wrest control of the House November 8.

Click here for the rest.

And there you have it. Due to the entertainment and ratings focus of the news media, not to mention the careerist and power-seeking behavior of politicians from both parties, public discourse in the US has degenerated so much that issues are completely irrelevant: political debate today, and for some years now in fact, is only in terms of sex and bullshit. I mean, it's nice to see the Democrats pull up their sleeves and come out swinging, but it is remarkable that they waited for years until they had a sex scandal as good as Bill and Monica to get to work. It's as though this Foley scandal is the only thing they feel safe going balls-to-the-walls about, which leads me to think that the left-wing emotion driving this is actually coming from a Democratic sense of utter impotence on everything else. Of course, that impotence is self-imposed. They could have been, and should have been, applying the same sense of outrage to...well...you name it--the GOP has given us plenty to scream about over the years. But no, it all has to be about sex and trash.

I'm really starting to become sickened by how the left is dealing with this Foley scandal.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

GOING AFTER FAHRENHEIT 451

From KTRK TV courtesy Crooks and Liars:

Parent files complaint about
book assigned as student reading

Two weeks ago at Caney Creek High School, a tenth grade English class was given "Fahrenheit 451" as a reading assignment. But Diana Verm stopped after a few pages. She said she was offended by "the cussing in it and the burning of the Bible."

Diana complained to her father. She was given an alternate reading assignment, but her dad is pushing the issue. It is ironic in the truest sense that a fictional book on book banning is now the target of a request to remove it from school curriculum.

"With God's name in vain being in there, that's the number one reason," said Diana's father Alton Verm. "There's no reason for it being read."

The school has appointed a committee to review Verm's objections. But students are now circulating a petition in support of the book. They plan to wear t-shirts on Friday voicing their opinions.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, I don't think there's any danger of this book actually being banned, but I think this story is important to note if only to observe how utterly stupid these fundamentalist types can be. It's also a pretty sad testament to how our public schools, far more concerned with instilling the great American values of obedience and authority, are apparently unable to instill the importance free speech within our democracy to their students. I mean, yeah, most people probably have some kind of notion in their heads that free speech is important, but when push comes to shove, the concept is meaningless to vast sectors of our population.

Come on: how could anyone want to ban a book about how horrible book banning is? I suppose it's easy to people who absolutely reject the Enlightenment principles upon which our country was founded. Sadly, there seem to be more and more of these idiots coming out of the woodwork every day. As usual, I'm afraid for America's future.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Amish turn the other cheek in wake of slayings

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

In just about any other community, a deadly school shooting would have brought demands from civic leaders for tighter gun laws and better security, and the victims' loved ones would have lashed out at the gunman's family or threatened to sue.

But that's not the Amish way.

As they struggle with the slayings of five of their children in a one-room schoolhouse, the Amish in this Lancaster County village are turning the other cheek, urging forgiveness of the killer and quietly accepting what comes their way as God's will.

"They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent ... and they know that they will join them in death," said Gertrude Huntington, a Michigan researcher and expert on children in Amish society.

"The hurt is very great," Huntington said. "But they don't balance the hurt with hate."

Click here for the rest.

Of course, it's just horrible when this sort of thing happens anywhere, and I always wince a bit more these days, myself, since my six year stint in the public schools as a teacher, but this one's got me particularly down. While I think the Amish, with their technophobic and insular ways, and their cultural austerity, are a bit nutty, I also have great admiration for them. They are true pacifists, shunning violence as acceptable behavior under any circumstances. Their communities are very close knit, with mutual support, which gives each of them a sense of personal meaning, value, and purpose. Simply put, they're just good people, showing us all a thing or two about how human beings ought to treat each other. That is, the Amish, unlike so many other American Christians, take Christ's most central principles seriously--they really do seem to love their neighbors as themselves. My god, so many American Christians, so many Americans in general, would be filled with rage and hate and a strong desire for revenge of some sort at this point, but these people have already forgiven the killer and reached out to his family.

God forbid I'm ever put into their current circumstances. I can only hope that I have the inner moral strength to follow their example.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Gingrich: Dems' sex scandals are worse

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Wednesday that Democratic sex scandals have been far worse than the suggestive Internet messages sent to teenage congressional pages by former Rep. Mark Foley.

Gingrich said Democrats have wanted to punish their offenders less than the GOP.

"What we don't have to do is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality," Gingrich said at a party fundraiser in Greenville. "There's a certain stench of hypocrisy.

Click here for the rest.

Obviously, this is pretty lame rhetoric, and doesn't even come close to qualifying as what I used to call when teaching public speaking back in Baytown an "argument." Especially when coming from a man who dumped his wife, while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer, for a another woman, whom he later divorced after she caught him having an affair. Regardless of the spin here, former GOP Representative Mark Foley sent suggestive emails and IMs to several boys under the age of eighteen, which were then covered up by the Republican House leadership.

However, the big blowhard tub-of-lard with helmet-hair who once served as Speaker of the House offers Democrats a valuble lesson if you kind of squint and read between the lines: moral indignation and judgment in the political sphere, especially about sex, is a dangerous game to play, which, I'm hoping, conservatives everywhere are beginning to figure out. Democrats, meanwhile, have their heads so far up their asses on this that they're talking through their necks.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, Foley's cyber-talk was pretty sleazy and creepy, and probably a firing offense if uttered by anyone in any sort of senior/subordinate relationship with these kids: you know, teacher/student, coach/athlete, manager/employee, that sort of thing. But Foley wasn't their boss or coach, and he had no direct control over their fates. Certainly his behavior is worth some sort of reprimand, but the Democrats and corporate media are calling the guy a "predator" without any evidence at all to support it. Instead of seizing on the real issue here, Republican hypocricy on issues of homosexuality and sex in general, and pretty much all pet conservative issues for that matter, the stinking donkey party is playing right into the hands of the sexual alarmists of the right wing. In other words, the Dems are going balls-to-the-wall for some short term political gain, but totally bolstering the conservative sex freak out position in the long run.

This is dumb, dumb, dumb, and I fear there'll be hell to pay sometime soon. Doesn't anybody remember what they did to Clinton? The Democrats need to calm down, take a long breath, and ask themselves if this is really worth it. They really are playing with fire.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

JET'S "PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS"
SHOWS CLASSIC ROCK IS ALIVE, WELL, AND NEW

I've just gotta take a momentary break from the media frenzy over what's shaping up to be yet another depressing and wrong-headed political-sexual witch hunt, and focus on something uplifting.

I've been seeing their t-shirts on the kids here and there for a couple of years now, at one point even mistaking the band's logo for having something to do with Joan Jett--yeah, yeah, I'm getting old and out of touch. I even heard, and liked to some extent, their hit tune from a couple of years back, the one riffing on that Iggy Pop song used in the film Trainspotting. Of course, I've really had no idea who they are or what they're about until earlier this evening when I saw them play their new single on Leno. Needless to say, I really dug what I saw. Jet fucking rocks.

According to this Wikipedia article, these Australian lads are something of a classic rock revivalist band, heavily relying on the Beatles and the Stones, but also treating the entire classic rock genre as their own little tool box, successfully merging the signature sounds of artists as diverse as the Who and T. Rex--"to the sound of old T-Rex - who's next?" Along with that, says the article, has come a pounding from rock critics, who have blasted Jet for, I guess, daring to play in an old style--that is, they appear to be too derivative for serious music guys who know more about music than me. I swear to god, if critics today were writing about Beethoven when he was composing, they'd be blasting him for deciding to work in the Viennese classical style, which had been around for decades beforehand; "you're ripping off Mozart," they'd exclaim. Well, fuck 'em. The problem with classic rock is that so-called classic rock stations play the same 250 or so songs ad nauseam: the genre itself still has buttloads of unexplored territory.

And kids today know that. Jet is extraordinarily popular, I understand, with the teen and twenty-something set. It's too damned bad that the American music industry appears to share the critics' view on classic rock, which is probably why we have to import bands like Jet and the Vines from overseas, instead of looking to the countless good bands here in the States doing the same kind of material.

Anyway, here's a link to the video for Jet's "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is." Check it out, 'cause it's great.


Classic rock gets a much needed shot in the arm.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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



Dr. McCoy, Mr. Scott, and Admiral Kirk!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Congressional Report Finds Convicted Lobbyist
Had Contact With Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman

From ABC News courtesy of AlterNet:

The report from the Republican-led House Government Affairs Committee stated that Abramoff had as many as 485 contacts with the White House, and prime among his lobbying targets was former White House political director Ken Mehlman, and Bush's adviser Karl Rove.

Of those 485 contacts, 345 were described as meetings or other in-person contacts; 71 were described as phone conversations and 69 were e-mail exchanges.

The records detailed in the recent report span from Jan. 2001 to Mar. 2004.

And

After Abramoff pled guilty to illegal lobbying, officials at the White House said they barely new him and all they knew was what they read in the papers.

Click here for the rest.

What with the release of the NIE data showing that the Iraq war actually causes more terrorism, the release of the damning Woodward book about the Bush administration, and the Foley gay lust scandal, it's been a big week in terms of GOP wildfires, and I fear that the above linked story is going to end up being lost in all the smoke. But this is big. It definitively links the White House to the Abramoff lobbying scandal, which has already put several Republicans behind bars. Even bigger, we've now caught the White House red handed in a big fucking lie, nothing blurry about this, no way to blame it on "bad intelligence" or liberals or whatever the scapegoat of the day is.

I mean, I was already pretty sure that Abramoff's tentacles reached the Oval Office, given his clout among Republicans, but this proves it. How much more of this will it take to convince the die-hards that the Conservative Movement is kaput?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A SEX SCANDAL FOR
INSPIRING OVERBLOWN MORAL OUTRAGE

I do my best here at Real Art to completely ignore internet political gossip guy Matt Drudge in the vain hope that it might make him go away. No such luck, of course; I think we're definitely stuck with him for a while, which sucks because he drives me completely batty. It's not that he's conservative, which I can deal with, and besides, relative to other right-wing bloggers and radio hosts, he's not even really off the spectrum in terms of extremism. What gets me about Drudge is that he's a whiney and arrogant little shit who brings out whatever dregs of jock remain within me from years ago. That is, I'd love to beat the shit out of him, and I'm sure I could, even though I haven't been in a fistfight since sixth grade. The smarmy little fuck has it coming.

Anyway, I have to admit that, even though I've only been to his site once or twice, I do occasionally listen to his radio show, and his reaction to what the left is calling "Predatorgate," the scandal over the coverup of former Florida GOP Congressman Mark Foley's creepy sexual emails sent to underage male Congressional pages, again made me want to give him a swirly. The long and short of it all is that he's doing a complete reversal of his well known moral outrage over Clinton's trysts with Monica Lewinsky, and essentially blaming the boy pages for...what?...entrapping Foley, I guess. I mean, he didn't come right out and say it, but he gave listeners everything they needed to come to the conclusion. And by "listeners," I mean what I assume to be his usual moronic radio fans--he actually doesn't give any reason to blame the kids, but that's how he was structuring his argument, if you want to call such pseudo-intellectual tripe an "argument."

Crooks and Liars has some audio clips of Drudge's bullshit here. It's pretty amazing, especially when factoring in how he was so much a part of the feeding frenzy over Bill and Monica. Like I said, complete reversal.

On the other hand, which is just so typical of both sides in this country, nobody on the left side of the blogosphere is even mentioning the fact that, among all his squirrely spewing, Drudge raised a couple of good points, which makes me want to beat his sniveling ass all the more. Anyway, Mr. Internet Pussy observed that Foley never actually did anything short of sending out some creepy emails. He never touched any of these guys. He never even seriously solicited them. Republican Speaker of the House Hastert was probably right when he described the correspondence as "inappropriate," but, as far as I can tell, there was nothing illegal about it. Drudge even went a step further and declared that the age of consent in the District of Columbia is 16, so, even if Foley did hook up with any of these boys, he broke no law as long as it took place in Washington.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying what Foley did was somehow right or good or that he shouldn't have resigned his seat. What I am saying is that this is very quickly turning into a political witch hunt. Both liberals and conservatives are calling for investigations and want Foley, and anybody who hushed up his sexual utterances, behind bars. That's seriously fucked up. I feel pretty certain that when all the dust settles, nobody's going to jail at all because nobody broke any laws.

The real story here is Republican hypocricy, which is quite a big deal in and of itself. Foley was a gay elected official in an anti-gay party, who has voted multiple times for anti-gay bills, and whose very gay emails to teenaged boys were covered up by anti-gay party leaders in order to keep his seat "safe." In other words, the Republican Party isn't really anti-gay in any philosophical sense: bashing the queers is only something they do in order to get all those fundamentalist and homophobic votes--when push comes to shove, they really don't give a shit who's screwing who; all they care about is power. Do I need to connect the dots? Conservatism is a lie. Conservative leaders just don't care about conservative principles. It's all a facade to get votes.

That's pretty big news, and for the life of me, I just can't figure out why liberals are being so fucking stupid by jumping on the anti-sex hysteria wagon long ago created and still largely controlled by the forces of American Puritanism. Ultimately, it's counterproductive, not to mention anti-liberal. Why isn't the real story good enough?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Bob Woodward: Bush Misleads On Iraq

Earlier this evening, investigative journalist Bob Woodward related the major details of his third Bush book State of Denial to 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace. Real Art readers might recall that I have nothing but loathing for the onetime Watergate good guy reporter because he ultimately came to represent everything that's gone wrong with the corporate news media, arrogance, deference to conservatives, insider thinking, and extreme closeness to the officials and stories they cover. Woodward's a real pig, and his first two books on our President were, according to all reasonable reports, nothing but mindless ejaculations of man-love and bullshit.

But now it appears that he's lost his taste for Presidential semen; the new book sounds like a hit job. 'Bout time, too. If the interview is indicative of the book's major themes, it doesn't really sound like I need to read it. Most of what he has to say has been said countless times in the foreign and left-wing press for several years now: Bush has no idea what's going on, and is fiercely resistant to anyone who tries to get him to face reality, including his own father. We already know that. What is important, however, is not the book itself, but the guy who wrote it. Woodward has so much respect and credibility in press and Washington circles that it is impossible to think that his switching sides isn't the equivalent of a nuke going off. I think we are in the middle of witnessing a vast change in the conventional wisdom. Like I said, 'bout time.

On the other hand, there was one little bit in the interview that interested me greatly.

From 60 Minutes:

Cheney stunned Woodward by revealing that a frequent advisor to the Bush White House is former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served Presidents Nixon and Ford during the Vietnam War.

"He’s back," Woodward says. "In fact, Henry Kissinger is almost like a member of the family. If he’s in town, he can call up and if the president’s free, he’ll see him."

Woodward recorded his on-the-record interview with Cheney, and here’s what the vice president said about Henry Kissinger’s clout: "Of the outside people that I talk to in this job I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than just about anybody else. He just comes by and I guess at least once a month," Cheney tells Woodward. "I sit down with him."

Asked whether the president also meets with Kissinger, Cheney told Woodward, "Yes. Absolutely."

The vice president also acknowledged that President Bush is a big fan of Kissinger.

"Now, what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply: 'Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.' This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again. Because in his view the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will. That we didn’t stick to it," Woodward says.

He says Kissinger is telling the president to stick to it, stay the course. "It’s right out of the Kissinger playbook," Woodward says.

Click here for the rest.

Kissinger is, of course, quite a brilliant and educated man. But any fool knows that brilliance and education in no way innoculate an individual against common stupidity. That is, Henry's ideas about global strategy and American use of military power were thoroughly discredited over thirty years ago--he never figured out that a third world nation, if it is determined enough, is fully capable of bringing a super power to its knees by creative use of guerilla warfare. But now this fool has the President's ear, and he's telling him that we can and must win an unwinnable war. And our damn-fool President believes him, which means that we're definitely not leaving as long as Bush occupies the Oval Office.

Of course, we already knew that, even before we knew about Kissinger bringing some pseudo-intellectuality to the "stay the course" plan. Nonetheless, it's depressing.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FOX NEWS TV RATINGS TAKE A NOSEDIVE

From the AP via Yahoo courtesy of AlterNet:

Slumping Fox celebrates 10th anniversary

Fox News Channel will mark its 10th anniversary this week in an unusual position: knocked back on its heels. The network is in the midst of its first-ever ratings slump. Cable news' most stable lineup is being juggled. And the blow-up over President Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace suggests that Democrats are attacking Fox because they perceive the same vulnerability in the network as they do in the Bush administration.

And

But the years of explosive growth have ended at Fox. Viewership over the first eight months of the year was down 5 percent compared to 2005, with a steeper 13 percent decline in prime-time, according to Nielsen Media Research. For 12 straight months, Fox's prime-time audience has been smaller than the year before. Meanwhile, CNN viewership inched up 5 percent this year through August. On a typical day this year, Fox's audience is 845,000 while CNN's is 466,000.

"It's hard," Ailes said, "to win the Super Bowl every year."

Click here for the rest.

While I don't want to start celebrating Fox's demise too early, I can't help but get some satisfaction over this. As Fox chief Roger Ailes observes in the article, they're still in first place, all day long, by very comfortable margins, but this is the first time in propaganda network's history that they've lost ground in terms of audience numbers. The obvious conclusion to make is that because Americans are getting sick of Republicans, they're also getting sick of the GOP's biggest media cheerleader. I think it's safe to say that Fox is going to continue to be a news media player for years to come simply because some thirty percent of the US electorate really does believe that "fair and balanced" isn't a bald faced lie, and that the terrorists really do "hate our freedom." Other Americans, however, who were freaked out by 9/11 and then comforted by the artificial testosterone spewing forth from the orifices of Fox's colorful cast of demagogues, have slowly come, after witnessing countless bigtime Republican blunders that not even Fox could successfully spin positively, to their senses. That's a good thing.

You know, if the weak-kneed Democrats are unable to take Congress in November, it might not be such a bad thing: two more years of self-destructive Republican rule may be just what it takes to permanently discredit the Conservative Movement. That would be an even better thing.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS COVER UP
COLLEAGUE'S HOT GAY LUST FOR UNDERAGE BOYS

From the New York Times courtesy of AlterNet:

G.O.P. Aides Knew in Late ’05 of E-Mail

Top House Republicans knew for months about e-mail traffic between Representative Mark Foley and a former teenage page, but kept the matter secret and allowed Mr. Foley to remain head of a Congressional caucus on children’s issues, Republican lawmakers said Saturday.

The exchanges began with what Republicans now describe as an “overfriendly” e-mail message from Mr. Foley to the unidentified teenager.

But news reports about the exchanges led to the disclosure of e-mail correspondence with other former pages in which the discussions became more and more sexually explicit. Shortly after he was confronted by ABC News on Friday about the subject, Mr. Foley, who represented a south Florida district, resigned from the House.

And

Among those who became aware earlier this year of the fall 2005 communications between Mr. Foley and the 16-year-old page, who worked for Representative Rodney Alexander, Republican of Louisiana, were Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Mr. Reynolds said in a statement Saturday that he had also personally raised the issue with Speaker J. Dennis Hastert.

Click here for the rest.

I don't really know what the legal ramifications are for this, or even if it amounts to anything worse than a simple case of sexual harassment, but I do know that I'm really starting to wonder if elected Republicans honestly believe what they say they believe. Of course, I know that there are millions of American citizens who identify themselves as Republican and steadfastly support what we traditionally understand as conservative principles: small government, low taxes, less spending, Christian sexuality, that sort of thing. But the last five years of GOP rule have brought us much bigger government, higher taxes for average Americans relative to taxes for corporations and the wealthy, and much more federal spending. Add to that all the lobbying and pay-for-vote scandals that have been rocking Washington for months now. Mix in tales of fundamentalist Christian Tom DeLay's drunken hot tub parties, and GOP porn star Mary Carey's stories about how many Republicans have hit on her at Republican events. And now this business about covering up Foley's underage gay internet sex shenanigans.

It's hard enough being subjected for years to all this right-wing bullshit spewing out of D.C., but the possibility that they don't even believe their own rhetoric may be just too much for me to bear. These guys are the biggest liars in history.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
BLOWOUT WEEKEND II: TEXAS, LSU AGAIN
DEFEAT VASTLY OVERMATCHED OPPONENTS

From the AP via ESPN:

Texas torments Sam Houston
with Sooner showdown looming

Sam Houston State was little more than a scrimmage for No. 7 Texas. Bring on Oklahoma.

Colt McCoy passed for two touchdowns, Henry Melton ran for two more and the Longhorns emptied their bench and still piled up the points on Division I-AA Sam Houston State in a 56-3 win Saturday night.

Next up, the rival Sooners who won five straight over Texas before the Longhorns ended the losing streak last season in their run to the national championship.

While thousands of fans left early, many who stayed to the end chanted "Beat OU!" as the Longhorns left the field.

"I've been waiting for this moment," McCoy said. "My whole life."

The Longhorns first had to dispatch an overmatched opponent in a game that was as one-sided as expected. Sam Houston State was Texas' first I-AA opponent since 1992 and the Longhorns (4-1) made quick work of the Bearkats (2-2).

Texas led 42-0 by halftime and scored more than 50 points for the third time this season.

Click here for the rest.

Jeez, when the article talks more about next week's opponent than this week's, you know there's something a bit off. Of course, I too am looking forward to UT/OU next weekend, which will obviously be a real game. Not that I have anything against Sam Houston State: they have a good theater department, an excellent criminal justice degree program, a funny mascot, and a decent football team. For I-AA football, that is. All of which brings me to this question: would somebody tell me why the hell Texas played these guys? It's just as well that it wasn't on TV; I watched what I'm sure was a much more interesting matchup instead, Florida versus Alabama.

Anyway, beat OU!

Again. from the AP via ESPN:

Russell's career day leads No. 9 LSU over Miss. State

Russell threw for a career-best 330 yards and matched a school record with 14 consecutive completions Saturday as No. 9 LSU beat the Bulldogs 48-17 in a game delayed when lightning sent spectators scurrying for cover.

After the storm passed, the junior quarterback returned and ended up completing 18 of 20 passes, including three for touchdowns.

The career day for Russell was by design. LSU coach Les Miles said he and his staff favored a pass-heavy attack after scouting Mississippi State's defense on film.

"We felt like we had advantages down the field throwing," Miles said. "If the defense gives us opportunities in the air, we're certainly going to take them. ... [Russell] is a pretty special quarterback."

LSU (4-1, 1-1 SEC) led 35-0 early in the second quarter, prompting thousands of fans to leave at halftime. A 52-minute delay while a thunderstorm rolled through further emptied the stands in the third quarter, when the score was 35-3.

Click here for the rest.

Well, obviously, this was much more interesting than the Texas game, if only because Mississippi State is a bona fide I-A team, and a conference opponent, to boot. But then, "to boot" is exactly what the Tigers did to the Bulldogs' collective butt. I only watched the second half of this one, which was on CBS here in Baton Rouge, because of the annoying 11:30 a.m. kickoff time. Thankfully, the in-stadium announcer, who was really only about six blocks away from where I slept the morning and early afternoon away, woke me up in time to catch me some LSU football. Which wasn't really all that exciting given the Tigers' 30 odd point lead when I finally switched on the tube. Ah well, as I said last week about UT beating Iowa State, at least it's a conference win.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Why Bill Clinton Pushed Back

The Washington Post's liberal guy, EJ Dionne, throws in his two cents, courtesy of the Daily Kos:

My canvassing of Clinton insiders suggests two things about his outburst on "Fox News Sunday." First, he did not go into the studio knowing he would do it. There was, they say, a spontaneity to his anger. But, second, he had thought long and hard about comparisons between his record on terrorism and Bush's. He had his lines down pat from private musing about how he had been turned into a punching bag by the right. Something like this, one adviser said, was bound to happen eventually.

Sober, moderate opinion will say what sober, moderate opinion always says about an episode of this sort: Tut tut, Clinton looked unpresidential, we should worry about the future, not the past, blah, blah, blah.

But sober, moderate opinion was largely silent as the right wing slashed and distorted Clinton's record on terrorism. It largely stood by as the Bush administration tried to intimidate its own critics into silence. As a result, the day-to-day political conversation was tilted toward a distorted view of the past. All the sins of omission and commission were piled onto Clinton while Bush was cast as the nation's angelic avenger. And as conservatives understand, our view of the past greatly influences what we do in the present.

Click here for the rest.

Sorry to keep harping on this topic, but I see it as a major watershed event in American politics. The sober moderate opinion that Clinton threw to the wind last Sunday is the same thing that Republicans have been ignoring to their benefit for years. With the aid of the sober moderate press and a prevailing attitude among Democrats of sober moderation, the fiery pack of pit bulls known as the GOP agitated, screamed, and whined so consistently, year after year, that they successfully pulled what was once understood as the political middle well to the right. Today's moderates are, by the standards used two decades ago, actually conservative. Even Bill Clinton, who entered office in 1993 with grand plans for health care reform and inclusion of homosexuals in the military, fell victim to this shift of the middle--he never attempted anything as liberal ever again. Clearly, being nice only works if everybody's doing it; it's pure capitulation if only one side is being nice, which may be the one of the biggest reasons our country is so screwed right now.

Democrats have been bringing knives to the Republican gun fight for so long that I've essentially written them off. Finally, the one guy that all Democrats respect decided that enough is enough and sawed off his shotgun. Fuck the sober moderates. This is war. I hope to god that the rest of the party isn't as stupid as they appear to be, and take Elvis' call to arms seriously.

Maybe someday I'll be able to vote for one of them without sighing.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Paz



Phil



Frankie and Sammy



$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

TAKING A SHIT ON THE CONSTITUTION

Courtesy of Eschaton, the New York Times editorial board weighs in on the soon-to-become-law "anti-terrorism" bill:

Rushing Off a Cliff

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

Click here for the rest.

The essay also explains why Senate Democrats didn't even try to filibuster this travesty (they fear "soft on terrorism" ads in these last few weeks before the elections), as well as the real reason Bush needs this bill (the evidence needed to convict detained bigtime "illegal combatants" was tortured out of them and cannot be used in a real trial), but the most offensive outrages are listed above. And what a list it is.

After all these years, after countless outrages, I am truly amazed. It's open season on Muslims and people with brown skin. We really are now on the proverbial slippery slope: the Democrats had a shot at stopping this hideous bill and they didn't try. Our government is utterly broken, and, believe me, we're all in big fucking trouble.

It's no longer over the top to look at this old poem in terms of recent events:

First they came...

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

When the Republicans came for the Muslims...

Human beings, over the years, aren't terribly original in their behavior and thinking. History really does repeat itself, as has happened countless times throughout the ages. We all have this "it can't happen here" mentality. But it is happening, and I don't see anything at all on the horizon to stop it. If something doesn't radically change in the next five years or so, we are so fucked.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
WHAT A TURNAROUND! ASTROS ONLY
HALF GAME OUT FROM DIVISION TITLE

From the Houston Chronicle:

Astros continue surge with ninth-straight win

Only the rain slowed Roy Oswalt and the Astros as they continued their late surge Thursday afternoon, keeping their slim postseason hopes alive with their ninth consecutive victory.

Oswalt threw seven scoreless innings and combined with three relievers to complete the three-game sweep over the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 3-0 shutout at PNC Park.

By extending their season-high winning streak to nine games, Phil Garner's club kept pressure on the National League Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals heading into the Astros' season-ending three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.

Now the Cardinals' NL Central lead is down to a half-game.

Click here for the rest.

You know, a little over a month ago, I had, as usual, completely written the Astros off for the season--indeed, as of August 28th they were below .500 in the win/loss stats. Then, as usual, they caught fire and started winning again, and now they're right smack dab in the midst of a streak, part of which was sweeping the NL Central Division leading St. Louis Cardinals. Meanwhile, the Cardinals, who lost again tonight, are right smack dab in the middle of a losing streak. Well, not exactly, but they have lost eight of their last nine, three of those, like I said, to the Astros, and suddenly, the division title is wide open.

Christ, the Astros do this every fucking year it seems. Who says baseball isn't exciting?

So now, and a big "sorry" goes out to my friends in and from Atlanta, I'm totally hating the Braves, who I hope lose in a big way to my formerly orange home team. Kill the Braves! Go Astros! Woo-hoo!



$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

THERE GOES AMERICA'S SOUL

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Detainee interrogation bill wins House approval

The legislation would establish a military court system to prosecute terror suspects, a response to the Supreme Court ruling last June that Congress' blessing was necessary. While the bill would grant defendants more legal rights than they had under the administration's old system, it nevertheless would eliminate rights usually granted in civilian and military courts.

The measure also provides extensive definitions of war crimes such as torture, rape and biological experiments — but gives Bush broad authority to decide which other techniques U.S. interrogators can legally use. The provisions are intended to protect CIA interrogators from being prosecuted for war crimes.

With elections just weeks away, the debate over the legal handling of terrorists was often partisan with some Democrats contending the bill would approve torture.

"All Americans want to hold terrorists accountable, but if we try to redefine the nature of torture, whisk people into secret detention facilities and use secret evidence to convict them in special courts, our actions do in fact embolden our enemies," said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va.

Others vehemently opposed language that would give the president wide latitude to interpret international standards of prisoner treatment and bar detainees from going to federal court to protest their treatment and detention under the right of habeas corpus. Supporters of the bill have said eliminating habeas corpus was intended to keep detainees from flooding federal courts with appeals.

The bill also gives the president the ability to interpret international standards for prisoner treatment when an act does not fall under the definition of a war crime, such as rape and torture.

Click here for the rest.

Make no mistake about it: this bill is all about making Bush's secret torture centers legitimate. Sure, there are some restrictions, but, as far as I can tell, it's much more about giving carte blanche to these Nazi fucks in the White House for all their vile shit. I mean, they're going to get to "interpret" rape? There's nothing to interpret there. Rape is fucking black and white. This stinks as bad as anything I've ever smelled, and fuck the Democrats for not going into over-the-top psychotic hysterics over it. The article makes it sound like there was lots of opposition to the bill, and there was some, but still, a fifth of Democrats in the House actually voted for it. That's unconscionable. I mean, it's unconscionable that even Republicans are voting for it, but it's just sick and twisted that any Democrat at all would ever bless this monstrosity. This isn't about political philosophy or appropriations. This is about fucking torture.

Sick, sick, sick.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

COALITION OF THE COERCED
US 'threatened to bomb' Pakistan

Just in case you missed it over the weekend. From the BBC:

The US threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the stone age" unless it joined the fight against al-Qaeda, President Pervez Musharraf has said.

General Musharraf said the warning was delivered by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Pakistan's intelligence director.

"I think it was a very rude remark," Gen Musharraf told CBS television.

Pakistan agreed to side with the US, but Gen Musharraf said it did so based on his country's national interest.

"One has to think and take actions in the interest of the nation, and that's what I did," he said.

Click here for the rest.

Well, by now the Bush administration has completely denied the accusation, but you've just gotta wonder. Actually, I'm not wondering at all. We have every reason to believe that the denials are total lies. I mean, my take, after all these Republican lies over the last five years, is to believe what seems to be the most reasonable assertion; that is, the White House no longer has any credibility, and I wouldn't put this bombing threat past them at all. After all, we know for sure that when Bush was cobbling together for the invasion of Iraq his "Coalition of the Willing" from third world nations, former Warsaw Pact members, and other global non-players, that they offered all kinds of diplomatic and monetary incentives. Why on earth wouldn't they use a stick as well as a carrot? Of course they used under-the-table threats to get it all together, which is why it's so utterly believable that they did the same thing in preparation for the Afghanistan invasion.

None of this comes as any surprise. These are some sick motherfuckers.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FOX NEWS GOES LITERALLY INSANE
RESPONDING TO CLINTON'S DEBATE WIN

From Throw Away Your TV:

Holy Shit, this is fucked up right here, the Fox News network revisited the Clinton interview on every program they had - (mediamatters.org provides a nice mashup below) and you can go to their site for a detailed analysis of the clip.

Beware this is a solid five minutes of Fox News Clinton bashing, its starts to get real sad as you watch, they are trying so hard to make Clinton look bad, However after watching this I think Wallace is Worthy of the Douchebag Tag. If you want to watch the Interview to see exactly what happend, we have it posted here.

I think fox is just best to admit defeat as they have pulled the clip from youtube.com thats usually a sign that they don't want people to watch the Interview from an environment that they can't control.

Click here to see the video montage of the Fox freak-out about Clinton.

This pretty much proves that the Clinton interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday was a big win for the Democrats: Fox devoted all day Monday to spinning it into something else. When you see that much effort, that much overkill, you know they're running scared. Heh. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Of course, Fox sure as hell ain't no lady; she's a brazen whore with yellow fangs in her coochie, and the former President chewed her up and spit her out. I'm fucking loving this.

Now if only we could somehow get all Democrats who appear on television to use the same strategy...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Teacher reprimanded after student
sees nude art on museum trip

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

School board members have voted to not renew the contract of a veteran art teacher who was reprimanded after one of her fifth-grade students saw a nude sculpture during a school trip to a museum.

Sydney McGee has been on paid administrative leave from Fisher Elementary School since Friday, said her attorney Rogge Dunn.

McGee's contract runs through the end of the school year and it was unclear whether she would remain on leave until then. Her attorney said he would wait for written confirmation and clarification from the school district to decide how to proceed.

Click here for the rest.

Okay, we are officially in the middle of a Puritanical frenzy. Back in June, I learned of a woman in upstate New York who had lost custody of her child because of a performance art piece in which she was involved that mocked Christianity and included some nudity. Shortly after that, I read about some district officials gunning for a high school art teacher who had posed for some topless art photos that ended up online. More recently, there was the story of the Oklahoma police chief who was forced to resign due to the moralistic outcry over his wife's online nude photos.

Now this shit.

One could argue that this scandal, and I say "scandal" because booting an art teacher for exposing her students to art is downright scandalous, is actually much more the result of paranoid administrators overreacting than it is about my perception of an alarming rise in absolutist anti-sex and anti-nudity attitudes. After all, I spent six years in a bumfuck town in Texas teaching theater classes, myself, and my feeling the whole time was that the district needed students to get their state mandated fine arts credit, but didn't like, understand, or value the arts. Consequently, it was my job to simply process students through my classroom while keeping as low of a profile as possible--any controversy at all was automatically my fault, which severely hampered my abilities as a teacher. Clearly, much of the public education establishment is, quite literally, old school. The arts aren't reading, writing, 'rithmetic, or football, and are therefore useless for anything other than complying with state regulations.

Of course, that's total bullshit. Besides the intrinsic cultural value that comes from studying the arts, students who do so tend to score higher than their peers on standardized tests. But what can you do? "Educators," contrary to popular opinion, are some of the most conservative people in the country.

So the nude sculpture issue in the story above may simply be paranoia combined with disrespect for art, but given the proliferation of such instances, along with the freak-out over Janet Jackson's Superbowl nipple, the impeachment of a good President for a private sexual affair, and numerous other examples of Taliban-like tendencies in American culture, I'm not ready to dismiss this as something else. The big dumb cunt-faces of fundamentalist morality are out there fucking with perfectly innocent Americans, and they're doing it much more than they used to.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$