In Which We Are Almost Speechless

Of course, we are never too speechless to say What. The. Flying. Fuck. (via Pharyngula)

Kansas activities officials are investigating a school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.

The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.

The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.

St. Mary's is run by the retro-Catholic Society of St. Pius X, a lovely little schismatic group that believes in rather arcane bits of theology from the totally old-skool Church as well as believing that major purchases should not be made on Sundays, that women shouldn't wear men's clothing and that standards of modest attire should be enforced more rigorously for women than for men, that surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy is never okay until the embryo has died on its own, and, oh yeah, that slavery isn't necessarily always a bad thing. On the plus side, they teach that it's not a sin to serve soft drinks as long as they aren't drunk purely for pleasure or in excess, that you don't necessarily have to cut off all communication with your daughter who is living in sin, and that it is permissible to perform old-time country folk music on TV. But not Gospel music, ever.

Aaaaaannnnnnd where does the SSPX stand on feminism (or "the feministic movement," as they so charmingly refer to it on their website)? Do you really need to ask? Actually, the discussion opens with this howler:

The Church has always been, historically, a great defender of woman.

And kind of goes downhill from there.

The natural order differentiates the two sexes by subordinating the one to the other. In the order of creation the woman comes after man. She is subject to man though not his final end.

There is a subordination which many choose to ignore, a subordination given us by Divine revelation: "The head of every man is Christ; the head of the woman is man; and the head of Christ is God." Feminism refuses the true nature of woman, confuses the natural and supernatural relations between the sexes and embarks upon a deviant path at the end of which the suicide of thought and the death of womanhood is inevitable.

The suicide of thought? Come on now--there's no need for suicide when the Church kills your independent thought processes for you!

Getting back to the point, though, while I find the thought of living under such a stifling philosophy repugnant and am very sad for the women in the SSPX families, it ultimately matters to me not because of my personal emotional reaction to the crap trotted out on their website and likely in their weekly homilies, but because it's a prime example of religious extremism reaching out to gobsmack other people who do not subscribe to their beliefs.

How much cash did the referee miss out on by not working that game? If the Arizona interscholastic association pay scales are any comparison, it was probably in the neighborhood of forty bucks. Not huge in the grand scheme of things. But, as with so many other fights of principle, it's the precedent here that matters more than the specific economic opportunity being denied. In a publicly funded athletic association, denying employment to a certified professional on the basis of gender can't fly. The Kansas association is reviewing the incident and St. Mary's written policies before deciding whether to boot the school.

Beyond the seemingly cut-and-dried issue of whether a religious institution may discriminate while operating under the umbrella of a public association, I find myself shuddering at the kinds of assholes this school is churning out into the greater society when it teaches that an adult woman has no authority over minor boys. God, I hope the first female cop who pulls one of these guys (or their coaches or teachers or priests) over for speeding has a microphone on her dashboard camera. That's going to be just charming.

Women may hold no authority over men. Isn't that one of the facets of religious extremism we cite as a reason to invade other countries, at least as long as they (1) don't have nukes or (2) have leaders who like to go on long walks on the beach with our leader?

Slight update and props to the male referees at the gym who refused to play along with the bullshit and walked off the court with Campbell:

Fred Shockey, who was getting ready to leave the gym after officiating two junior high games, said he was told there had been an emergency and was asked to stay and officiate two more games.

"When I found out what the emergency was, I said there was no way I was going to work those games," said Shockey, who spent 12 years in the Army and became a ref about three years ago. "I have been led by some of the finest women this nation has to offer, and there was no way I was going to go along with that."

Why It Matters

For Valentine's Day, a little trip into reality. Print it out, fold it up, put it in your pocket, and whip it out every time someone tells you to just file a couple of documents down at the county recorder's office and leave straight folks and their sanctified marriages alone.

In Which Senate Democrats Forfeit Their Place within Phylum Chordata Yet Again

Proving that breaking the law under this adminstration means never having to say you're sorry, since all you need to do is change the law to say that breaking the law back then doesn't really count any more, the Senate rather resoundingly agreed with President Bush that telecom companies complicit in illegal surveillance of American citizens should be immune from lawsuits brought by any of those citizens who feel their privacy was intolerably invaded.

Follow the link and check out the Democrats who crossed over to vote against the Dodd-Feingold amendment, which sought to remove immunity from the new surveillance bill. Obama voted for the amendment, adding another check mark in my column of very good reasons to support him for the nomination; Clinton was absent. Evan Bayh? Dianne Feinstein? Claire McCaskill? Hello? Why even bother showing up for work if you're simply going to knuckle under to the president as he continues to bully his way free of the constraints of law and constitutional authority?

Oh, and do you need to ask which way McCain voted? At least he was there, for a change; amazingly, Mr. Maverick voted in lockstep with the Bushites. All together now: John McCain is a douchebag.

Of Course You've Seen This

But if you haven't, you need to. And so do all your acquaintances who still think John McCain is a moderate instead of a giant douchebag.

Just in Time for Valentine's Day!

The Arizona state legislators are at it again, or at least the Republicans are.

A proposed amendment to the Arizona Constitution, filed Monday by Senate President Tim Bee, seeks to ask voters to spell out in the constitution that "only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state." Bee, R-Tucson, managed to get 15 of the 16 other GOP senators to sign on as sponsors...

The move comes more than a year after voters rejected a more comprehensive constitutional amendment that not only would have banned same-sex marriage but also would have outlawed civil unions and barred state and local governments from offering benefits to the domestic partners of their employees. That measure picked up 48.2 percent of the votes cast. It was the only gay-marriage ballot measure in the country that failed.

n.b. This is the same Tim Bee who's looking to unseat Gabrielle Giffords in the US House next fall, and has enlisted Karl Rove's help toward that end. Anyway. Same-sex marriage is prohibited by statute in Arizona, but the Center for Arizona Policy folks are desperately afraid of some future court ruling that law unconstitutional, or some future legislature having second thoughts, so rather than risk the dreaded activist judges and activist legislators, they're banking on the current population being conservatively activist enough to carve a permanent diminution of the civil rights of a small chunk of the population into the Arizona Constitution.

And since the language of the new ballot initiative has been carefully pared down to eliminate any potential deletrious applications to non-gay couples or contracts, it has a pretty good chance of passing.

In a 2005 statewide survey, 54 percent of those asked said they would support a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman. But when questioned about denying domestic-partner benefits, support dropped to just 33 percent.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat who was one of the leaders of the opposition to the 2006 initiative, all but conceded the point during the campaign, saying that if the measure had been limited to just banning same-sex marriage, it likely would have passed.

Although one Republican refused to sign on as a co-sponsor, citing the actual pressing issues the legislature has to deal with, she acknowledged that she will probably vote for the measure when it comes up, and that sums the reason underlying whatever success the amendment sees in November. People are getting sick of conservatives raising this issue time after time after time, and a whole host of actual issues (say, the economy, immigration, the environment, education) are elbowing Teh Gay out of the forefront of Arizona voters' minds. But, like so many other things, while people probably won't go out of their way to advocate for the amendment, if it (1) does not negatively impact them and (2) does not require any extra effort beyond hefting the Sharpie toward one additional bubble on the ballot in the anonymity of the voting booth, they'll probably vote for it.

Maybe my cynicism is misplaced. Let's wade into the comments posted after the Daily Star article and take a look.

Since I had my right to drink a beer and smoke a cigarette in a bar voted away, I look forward to the chance to vote against someone elses rights.That's the way it is now, isn't it? Support a ban or tax as long as it impacts someone other than myself. Just have to make sure the other group has a small voting bloc.

The economy is bad; we're bogged down in a long-term war, and there are Islamic terrorists that want to kill Americans. So what do the Republicans do? They look for some harmless minority to attack. Gee, that's going to help matters. How very sad.

Leviticus 20:13

If you would wake up you would see that it has a lot to do with the taxes we pay and what they are used for. And I don't want mine spent on Illegals or gays. PERIOD

Barry Goldwater was a conservative. These people who make these initiates, the people who you see post there religious views here everyday are NOT Conservatives. They are Social conservatives or Neo-conservatives. They have nothing in common with real conservativism. Conservatives believe that the right to privacy is written in the constitution. If you do not believe that you are not a conservative.

Being Q is a "mental illness" and should be recognized as such. Same sex people being married goes against the laws of "GOD and NATURE". No more "SPECIAL RIGHTS" for them. They allready have enough of them.

It has always amazed me how fundies claim to live by the whole bible, but they like to highlight their "favorite" verses. These are usually verses that they use to point out someone else's (so called) sins. Isn't this the same book that Jesus admonished his followers not to be concerned about the splinter in their brothers eye, when they have a log in their own?

And so on. The comments actually fall about 2-1 against the proposed amendment, but since online boards are notoriously poor predictors of voter behavior, you'll have to forgive me if I retain a pessimistic view until the elections. But--BUT--I will tip my pixels to the best rejoinder I've yet seen to the inevitable sure, and while you're at it, why not make it legal for a dude to marry his dog comment:

Besides a marriage between a man and a dog would never last. Sooner or later he'll discover she's a bitch to live with.

SuperDuperDelegates

In a predictable bit of political expediency, the upstart who's hanging onto front-runner status by the slenderest of margins wants the superdelegates to echo the popular vote, while the establishment candidate in second place wants them to pony up on patronage obligations.

Obama himself weighed in on Friday, telling reporters that voters should determine whom superdelegates support, even as his campaign actively courted them.

"My strong belief is that if we end up with the most states and the most pledged delegates, and the most voters in the country, then it would be problematic for political insiders to overturn the judgment of the voters," he said. "I think that should be the guiding approach to determining who will be the nominee."

Clinton, speaking to reporters on Saturday, argued that superdelegates should make up their own minds and pointedly noted that Obama has the endorsements of superdelegates John Kerry and Edward Kennedy, both senators from Massachusetts, a state whose primary Clinton won.

"Superdelegates are by design supposed to exercise independent judgment," she said. "If Sen. Obama and his campaign continue to push this position, which is to the contrary of what the definition of superdelegates has historically been, I will look forward to receiving the support of Sen. Kerry and Sen. Kennedy."

Will they stick to their guns if their positions reverse? Stay tuned. At some point over the weekend, the superdelegate I saw interviewed claimed confusion on the issue of exactly which constituency he should echo with his vote--his whole state, or just his congressional district? It feels like a no-brainer to me; if you're a governor or senator, you vote the way your state voted overall, but if you're a representative you follow your district. If you're none of the above and aren't actually an elected official but just a party hack, you follow the nationwide popular vote. Anything else undermines both the process and what the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for.

Friday Random Linkiness

It's Friday and the database has been giving me fits all week. Who knew setting a bajillion filters to get validly comparable sets of artifacts would bring so many inherent problems to light? Who knew control units were such wicked BAD proxies for whole pithouses? And then didn't tell me? Sigh. The artifacts are telling me--screaming in my ear, actually--so I have quite a bit of work to do. Oh, Archaeological Record. You're such a fickle mistress.

Anyway. For a little padding while you sit back and marvel at right-wing talk radioites turning on John McCain (and Fox News labeling him "D-AZ"), we have Maddow on the apparent GOP loathing of their candidates this time around:

Need to say goodbye to Mittens one last time before he fades into the obscurity that only a made-for-TV-movie starring Matthew Fox as the Mittster could possibly dash? Lord knows I do after that lovely stepping-down speech.

In this time I war I have to now stand aside... I'd be making it easier for Senator Clinton or Obama to win.. in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be part of aiding a surrender to terror.

Here, let Jon Stewart help you with that.

And, finally, via Pharyngula, a kick-ass video of a Big! Ass! Squid!

Bye, Mittens

Romney's out as of today, freeing up McCain and Huckabee to decide whether to make their temporary alliance of convenience a more permanent gig. Let us hope the absence of a common enemy makes them remember that they really don't like each other that much after all.

Superdelegates? Ah Shite

After yesterday's primaries and caucuses, Clinton holds a four-point lead over Obama in the number of delegates each has won... and an 87-point lead in the superdelegates. Arooo? you might rightly ask in your best befuddled Scooby-voice. Superdelegates? Yes. Those would be the additional delegates peculiar to the Democratic Party, composed of all Dem members of Congress, all Dem governors, and assorted party hacks. They get awarded to the candidates just like regular delegates do... but they get to decide which candidate they're going to, rather than being assigned on the basis of votes cast by, you know, the voting public.

Howard Dean gamely explained this all away on Air America last night, serving up a line of bullshit that went like this: You know, these superdelegates are all people who were voted into their positions by the voters, so it's not a subversion of the democratic process in any way. Uh, okay, Howard. The little problem I see with that line of reasoning is that the people serving as superdelegates campaigned for and were voted into specific offices such as representative or senator or governor. No one voted for them for the express purpose of giving them the power to award nomination points to the presidential candidate of their personal choosing, particularly when that choice runs counter to the expressed will of the majority of the people casting votes in the primaries.

The upshot is that either Clinton or Obama could very well win the popular vote but lose the nomination by virtue of superdelegates--the very definition of Party Establishment--aligning themselves with the other candidate. And because most of the elected representatives, senators, and governors in this country, even the Democratic ones, are overwhelmingly white, male, and moneyed, well, where does that leave hopelessly idealistic notions of representative government or even the power of the ballot box? The concept of superdelegates does not square with a party that gives even lip service to populism. It smacks of elitism and is the stuff of a ruling class that doesn't trust the rabble to make decisions. If it comes down to superdelegates being in the position of tipping the nomination to one side or the other, will they have the integrity to follow the votes of the people they claim to represent?

Apres Obama, Le Deluge des Uh-Ohs

Hmmmm. Clinton took Arizona, which I wasn't expecting because I didn't pay attention to the rest of the state. I'm pretty sure Obama took Tucson. His end-of-the-night "Our Time Has Come" speech in Chicago was electrifying (two part YouTube presentation below):

Barack Obama. Orator Laureate of the U.S. Is it any wonder all the kids are doing backflips for him? Hell, I'm old and jaded and he's gotten me to believe.

But even before the goosebumps receded, alarm bells were sounding ever so faintly in the back of my head, and most of them were labeled "McCain/Huckabee '08." Those two camps are increasingly looking past their ideological differences to focus on the one thing they can agree on, which is a deep loathing of Mittens Romney. And that would give us a GOP ticket that would allow a lot of people to hold their noses, gaze fixedly at their candidate, and avert their eyes from his running mate.

Think about it. Huckabee brings in the evangelical vote and might be the widget that justifies a vote in the minds of Republicans who don't think McCain's a true conservative (behold the power of a meme completely in contradiction to the man's actual voting record) but are counting on him working himself into a coronary before the first hundred days are up. And GOPers who aren't necessarily enamored with the idea of a Bible-based state but do salivate at the possibility of a new Hundred Years' War can look past the Baptist minister on the ticket, since, after all, he's only the VP. Add to those Republicans the independents who also don't believe McCain's a true conservative but think that's a positive, and are willing to overlook everything Mike Huckabee has ever said except those bits about us needing to be better stewards of the environment, and we might have trouble.

Who fights this combination the best? I gotta think it's Obama. McCain's "maverick" label, despite being a steaming load of bullshit, will be enough for independent and Democratic voters who hate Clinton to convince themselves that it's really not so bad to vote Republican this time around. And Obama has the unassailable moral standing to confront Bomb Bomb on the current war, and the next war he wants to start, and the several lurking beyond that.

Can Clinton pull it off? I am not optimistic. Could Obama really pull it off against a more bombs-more bibles ticket that just might be the ticket away from guilt the not-ready-yet crowd is secretly pining for? I want him to. I want to jump on that hope train and settle back with a drink and watch the country trundle by on the track back to the America he promises. I don't know if I believe in my fellow voters enough to count on it yet.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

Tragedy in a suburb of Chicago Saturday--a guy with a gun walked into a Lane Bryant in Tinley Park, herded six women into a back room, bound them with tape, made "sexual advances" to at least one, and then shot them before disappearing. Five died. One, shot in the neck, survived. Her family's reaction?

Her relatives said they believed divine intervention saved the woman, a devout Christian who grew up in the south suburbs and was studying to become a nurse.

The survivor's family has been active for years at a Will County church. A sister and her husband are missionaries in rural Alaska.

Hey, Nick Kristof, you wonder why people in the reality-based community deride the devoutly religious from time to time? Because of stuff like this. Divine intervention spared your relative? What, was God too hung over from helping Plaxico Burress persevere through injuries, making sure he'd haul in the Super Bowl-winning catch the next day, to extend a helping hand to the five women who ended up dying? Or do you firmly believe that because your relative is a devout Christian and has a missionary sister, she was worthier of divine intervention than the other five?

Great message you're sending to the families of the women who were killed. God likes our relative better than he likes yours. Sorry, sucks to be you. And if that's the kind of god you believe in, who'll let one live while five die under terrifying circumstances for the crime of going shopping, well, your god is a capricious, sadistic bastard.

In Which Nicholas Kristof Misses the Point

Mmmm, generally like Kristof's writing, and he's done a yeoman's job of keeping the atrocities of Darfur and Afghanistan, particularly those committed against women, on the radar screens of American readers. His Sunday column just hit the Daily Star today, and I have a bit of a bone to pick with him.

Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.

Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives. And the Democratic presidential candidate (particularly if it’s Mr. Obama, to whom evangelicals have been startlingly receptive) has a real chance this year of winning large numbers of evangelical voters.

This is a reiteration of the argument that's been simmering among bloggers in the Seed science writers group for the past year-plus, that people in the non-evangelical (well, non-theist, actually) world need to reach out to religious people gently and respectfully when trying to circumvent the imposition of a particular brand of religion on the political and legal umbrella we're all obliged to stand under.

Kristof isn't blind to the warts of fundamentalism, citing "typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq" as well as pointing out that "moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick." But he argues that the work of groups like Doctors Without Borders, Catholic aid groups, and innumerable small independent churches are the new face of religious conservatism, which liberals should now welcome rather than regard warily with a jaundiced eye.

It’s certainly fair to criticize Catholic leaders and other conservative Christians for their hostility toward condoms, a policy that has gravely undermined the fight against AIDS in Africa. But while robust criticism is fair, scorn is not...

We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.

I don't see many--or any, really--liberals mocking or scorning religious aid workers who help the poor and oppressed in this country or abroad by living the gospel's directive to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and comfort the ill and imprisoned. As long as no strings of conversion are attached to that help, hey, go for it and good on you.

Our scorn is reserved for those who use their faith as a convenient excuse to deny civil equality, physical autonomy, economic equity, and intellectual independence to people who do not share their beliefs. For those who find belief and the bible an acceptable substitute for critical thought and hard data. For those who would use religion as a cudgel to bash public policy into a crude semblance of the legalistic passages of their scripture that retains none of the references to humility, service, and love, but conveniently reinforces their self-image as the righteous, sole arbiters of morality and possessors of absolute truth. For those who judge and condemn the specks in other people's eyes while sporting beams in their own big enough to build seven crosses times seven on Calvary.

Those are the people we mock and scorn, Nick. Not those who serve and let live, but those who would compel the whole world to live as they would have us live.

Overdue Natureblogging

Tomorrow, Super Duper Tuesday insanity. Tonight, 5500' of Catalina Mountains serenity from last weekend.

















Peak peeking through the oaks.

The sun was just climbing high enough to paint parts of the creekbed with light, but the soaked sand was frozen, making for easy walking. It was cold enough for the spray from innumerable small waterfalls to freeze into icy shoulderpads on the nearby rocks.

Tiny fall, defiant ice.

Still puddles stranded by lowering water levels were skimmed over with delicate crystals.

Thin ice.

I moseyed up the Green Mountain Trail for about an hour and a half, stopping to take pictures and chase the sound of falling water up side drainages. My favorite is a series of half a dozen small pools stair-stepped up the slope near the trailhead; in the sand by the second pool I saw a lion track. The sun hadn't warmed the sand enough for it to have been thawed for long, so I decided against climbing to the top and returned to the main trail, continuing until wondering what was around the next bend was outweighed by sore knees and the need to get down the mountain to tend to real life.

View from Green Mountain Trail down to Thimble Peak.

The Catalinas kick ass.

Super Monday

The day between Super Sunday and Super Duper Tuesday is given over to Super Bowl post-hash and primary pre-hash.

Super Bowl: The game? Eli needs to locate all the guys on the competition committee who voted to do away with the "in the grasp" rule and buy them puppies. The pre-game? Only watched a few minutes of Red!Carpet!Coverage, which was more than enough to confirm that Fox programmers and most of the "fans" in Glendale are idiots.

Ryan Seacrest: Who do you think's going to win today?
John Krasinski: Well, it would be really awkward to say I think the Giants are going to win since I'm wearing this Patriots cap.
Ryan Seacrest: Oh. I guess I'm not tall enough to see that.
Fans: shriek, shriek.

Super Duper Tuesday: Michele Obama is supposed to be in Tucson today, but I haven't heard where or when. Given that it's (1) cold and (2) pouring rain, I hope it's someplace inside on high ground. The streets went into raging river mode right on schedule, so I don't know what her turnout's going to be.

In other primary news, if I had cast an early ballot for John Edwards, I would be mightily pissed off right now. As it is, I am perplexed about the effect early voting might have on the primaries. What happens to the early votes for candidates who drop out before a state's actual primary date? Do they dissipate into the ether? This is a big reason why I wish Edwards had stuck it out the extra week just to see what might happen in states like Illinois and California. I know you take the risk when you go with the early ballot--your candidate might drop a bombshell that would make you withdraw your support, or might drop out altogether--but it seems that something as essential to the well-being of the republic shouldn't be subject to the same kind of risk as, say, going with the early-decision option when you apply to college.

Friday Free Music Linkage

If you're not, say, an ExxonMobil executive getting a cut of the $1,300 per second your company earned squeezed out of consumers last year, you may be on the lookout for free music streaming. Go get your Big Head Todd and the Monsters on, and groove the rest of Friday away. You earned this one for real.

Whew

Oh, thank goodness. I was really worried about the economy for a while there, but this morning CNN has this good news:

Exxon shatters profit records

Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007.

What a relief. The uptick must be just around the corner for the rest of us, no? Or at least just as soon as the Iraqi government untangles its marionette strings and gets down to implementing the changes in law we've been pushing for--you know, the ones that set aside 80% of all oilfield exploration and production for foreign companies for the next 30 years? Yeah, those.

Tucson still has some of the lowest pump prices in the country, around $2.85 this morning. And someday not too far from now we'll be looking back on these days fondly. Meanwhile, StubHub is charging roughly the price of a Prius for scalped 45-yard-line club box seat Super Bowl tickets. Most of us--the ones who have to work pretty hard for a lot longer than one second to earn 1300 clams--can't afford either.

Military History for the Hungry

Top!Secret G-woman pointed me here this morning (via Andrew Sullivan). The history of warfare since World War II, performed by signature national dishes (try to figure it out or go here for a cheat sheet on what all the sandwiches and falafels represent):

Meanwhile, In Kabul

Remember Afghanistan? Land of the Taliban, vacation home of Osama? Place where 300+ of our guys left their blood only to see their president turn his squint to Iraq? Yeah, well, things aren't going so well there, says a study chaired by a former Marine general and a former UN ambassador.

"Afghanistan stands at a crossroads," concludes the study, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. "The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat from resurgent violence, weakening international resolve, mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence on the part of the Afghan people about the future direction of their country."

A major issue has been trying to win the war with "too few military forces and insufficient economic aid," the study adds.

Too few forces and insufficient aid. This was the war that made sense. This is where Osama and the boys hatched their plans and spread Taliban insanity. This is the administration that has repeatedly told us that leaving Iraq will dishonor the sacrifice of the troops who died there. Bush either thinks the deaths of the soldiers killed in Kandahar province weren't real sacrifices or they aren't worth honoring or dishonoring either way, since the administration has had no compunction about sticking their fingers in their ears and la-la-laing away any recognition that the organization actually behind the 9/11 attacks is regrouping and operating at will both in Afghanistan and right across the border in our great ally state of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Dear Leader's rosy glasses are duct-taped to his face.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush called Afghanistan a young democracy where children go to school and Afghans are hopeful.

But he didn't mention the violence that has killed 147 students and teachers and closed 590 schools in the last year — almost as many as the 680 the U.S. has built.

Bush said the sending of an additional 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan — a decision made just this month — would help continue the country's successes. But it came only after U.S. officials couldn't persuade other NATO countries to send more soldiers to bolster the 28,000 U.S. troops already there.

This is the war we should have thrown everything at and finished in the first place. This is the actual enemy.

Two More Down

Even the pathologically focused St. Rudy of 9/11 couldn't ignore the tapping of reality against his noggin any more, so he's out of the race. This is very disappointing, as it saddles Mittens Romney with the sole responsibility of providing moments of high comedy from the GOP side.

After yesterday's Florida primary, John "Bomb Bomb Iran" McCain is looking like a front-runner. This is troubling because too many people fall back on the "maverick" meme rather than examining the man's actual voting record or even every other word that falls out of his mouth, which might make this election way the hell closer than it needs to be, even with Obama as the Dem nominee. The best tactic against McCain may be casting him as the Hundred Years' War candidate. He's certainly not doing much to dispel those perceptions so far.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards dropped as well. I was surprised that he didn't hang on through Super Tuesday to see if he might pick up enough delegates to have some sway in deciding the eventual nominee. Will he end up on the ticket? Probably not. Some major policy role in the new administration would be nice.

Values Voters

In honor of the GOP Florida primary today, some actual political content. It's a bit out of date as these things go, but hey, (1) Huckabee's still in the race, and (2) nothing says "Values Voters" like Florida. And vice versa.

Guilty Pleasure Confessional

No, I didn't watch the State of the Union last night, mainly because the man's voice sends me into a rage. I'll read it later this morning.

Besides, it was Monday night, and that means American Gladiators (!) in our house. While flipping around trying to avoid Chimpy on all the broadcast and most of the cable stations, we made the happy discovery that ESPN Classic is playing the original, old-skool late '80s American Gladiators every night at seven! The first season, with its average-Joe contenders in sweatpants getting absolutely flattened by the steroided-up Gladiators, was the best, but the rest of the run with everyone in spandex and big hair is still mighty fine entertainment.

And watching it now only reinforces my utter lack of gaydar back in those halcyon days of my youth; seeing it in my dotage, I suspect all the female Gladiators in the original probably could have competed under the name Lavender Menace. The current crop doesn't ping for me at all.

The event I miss most from the original is Atlasphere (people in big steel hamster balls trying to roll onto scoring pods), and the original Wall was way more challenging than the current version. Joust and Hang Tough have been livened up with a pool of water for the losers to plunge into rather than the pads of the original (maybe next season they'll add piranhas or electric eels to make it even more exciting). But the new Eliminator--the final, obstacle-course event--is completely brutal. It starts with a climb up a wall, a plunge into a pool to swim under fire, and a climb up a 30-ft cargo net. Then an inexplicably pointless and stupid barrel roll thing that most people fall off after one roll. But the next combination--an ill-lubed handbike followed by climbing a pyramid with three-foot steps--appears to suck the gas out of most of the competitors, leaving them in serious pain and unable to truck up the reverse treadmill to the finish line. They crash through the final wall of foam blocks and lie on the mat twitching. Surprisingly, only one person has smacked a forehead into the pipes carrying the gas for the fireball they have to swim under, although the obnoxious chiropractor last night came just short of jumping onto the damn flames.

Now the final eight are set, and I'm all a-twitter. Watching co-host Laila Ali almost makes up for having to listen to Hulk Hogan.

SOU Postgame

The girlfriend squeaked out a one-point victory in the buzzword competetion.

Boltgirl			The Girlfriend
extremists	1		American	17
children	12		family/ies	5
security	29		stimulus	0
plotting and planning	0		freedom	21
Total	42		Total	43

Curses. Who knew W was going to be less of a fearmonger than usual?

State of the Union Pregame

Eh. In the off chance that we can stand to watch the speech live--although the girlfriend is flatly refusing and I'm wavering in my confidence in being able to listen to either Chimpy's voice or the maniacal yelping from the right side of the aisle--we held a mini-draft of buzzwords likely to slip W's lips. Loser buys lunch on Friday. The girlfriend chose 'Mericun, stimulus, and family, with the super bonus word of freedom, while I went with the unstoppable combination of extremists, children, and security, with the super bonus plotting and planning.

We are still unsure of how the super bonuses will work.

Projected winner: Boltgirl!

Howl

Newly discovered Thing Not To Do When You Don't Want To Feel Like Seven Shades Of Shit: reading old volleys of e-mails fired off to a parent (and the aunt who tried to mediate) during an apparently rocky portion of the coming-out process. Rosy glasses are a survival mechanism--I recognize that now--that allow us to give people one more chance several times over and several times more than they perhaps deserve, so that we someday might reconcile and content ourselves with hazy notions that it wasn't all that bad.

*coughcoughBULLSHITcoughcough*

Hmmm. It was that bad. Nasty, hateful sentiments were expressed that, coming from anyone else, would have seen me not hesitate to lay the motherfucker out who dared say such things about either me or my girlfriend. Not so easy to rip your own dad's throat out, I guess, and it's probably best that way since it leaves the door open for redemption. Which has occurred. Which, to be honest, has occurred to the extent that until this morning I have simply focused on how really very good things are now, managing to forget the depths the whole thing shot me to.

I took a couple of classes in college revolving around how our communication frames our reality. I wonder if taking better notes would have left me better prepared.

In Case Your Right-Wing Relatives Are Having Continuing Reality-Integration Problems

It is official and indisputable (handy thing, that public record): the Bush Administration lied the US into the Iraq War. 935 times. The Center for Public Integrity has produced a searchable database of government false statements about Iraq for your use, should you wish to tell Uncle Ernie exactly how many times a senior official let slip falsehoods about, say, mobile labs (5) or, perhaps, ominous tubes (36). More troubling, the database also tracks the ebb and flow of the tides of false statements within the context of the runup to war, Powell's address to the UN, and the midterm elections. Guess where the spikes fall on the timeline of the past six years. I won't spoil the surprise--just go and see for yourself.

Hillary Haters: Classy to the End

The Clinton-Obama face-clawing match is becoming increasingly distasteful to watch and increasingly disquieting when thoughts turn to how the party is planning on presenting a united front behind whichever candidate gets the nod to go against McCain. But against this unsettling backdrop, thankfully, comes a lone rider who proves yet again that no one does distasteful quite like Republican smear specialists.

In short, GOP shitwad Roger Stone filed papers with the IRS this week to form a 527 organization whose sole purpose is to sell t-shirts with this so witty name and logo (h/t Top!Secret G-woman):


Vote Republican. Because you're never too old for 12-year-old-boy humor.

Get it? Get it? See the subtle design? What's that look like? No, look closer. And see those big bolded letters? Yeah, those. Now put them together and read them out loud. No, do it. C'mon, c'mon... What's that? Yeah! Ahhhhhh ha ha ha ha, you just said "cunt!" Because Hillary's a cunt, get it? And with this shirt you can call her a cunt without coming out and really calling her a cunt, so it's just a slayingly clever acronym that only like-minded sophisticates will understand, wink wink, nudge nudge, and it's sooooo fucking funny that everyone's going to want one and it's gonna go fucking viral, dude! Dude.

Christ.

Keep it up, GOPers. Did you learn nothing from the Chris Matthews blowback that's at least partially credited with giving Clinton New Hampshire? Misogyny sure seems like fun when you're cowing women into public submission, but it doesn't play so well in the privacy of the voting booth where there's no one standing there with a clenched fist to remind them that they need to grow a sense of humor and quit being so bitchy. Keep spewing this shit and see if you're left dumbfounded by a fuck you vote you never saw coming.

In Which Chris Rodda Debunks the Christian Nation Resolution

Yesterday I posted about the amazing craptacular House Resolution 888 and bemoaned the amount of time and Jameson's it would take for me to go through a whereas-by-whereas rebuttal. Fortunately, Chris Rodda got a jump on it and has posted two diaries on the subject over at Daily Kos here and here, with far more detail and elegance than I would have been able to pull off.

Settle in when you have the time to devote to reading not just Rodda's excellent piece but the references as well. The lengths to which the Christian Nationists will go to willfully distort truth in service of their ever so humble and holy cause is extraordinary. Original sources: the scourge of revisionists since the beginning of fucking recorded history!

Speaking of Religion and Politics...

Shamelessly ripped from Americablog.

Blogging Suspended Until Barfing Stops

Sorry. I'm fresh off my first reading of the full text of H.R. 888 ("Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith"), the latest and boldest Christian Nation resolution to be introduced in the House. Good job I had lunch first, as it's completely killed my appetite for at least the next month, although if I read it one more time lunch may be making an encore appearance.

It will take some time to go through the resolution point by point, but the short version of the rebuttal should go something like Whereas half the Founding Fathers were slave owners, and whereas nonwhites were calculated to be only 3/5 human, and whereas that one time George Wallace called for segregation forever, the United States should get its ass back to slaveholding and trafficking at the earliest possible convenience.

Jesus Haploid Christ. On a Triscuit. House resolutions are nonbinding and traditionally used as goodwill measures to buff up representatives in their constituents' eyes, such as when resolutions are passed noting the 200th anniversary of some prairie town's founding or recognizing the local band director as a great American. No harm greater than an egregious photo op, no foul, right? But once this piece of shit passes with maybe four or five no votes--what congressperson is going to stand up to be counted among the Christian-haters in an election year?--it will swiftly gain mythic proportions and be cited as justification for any bit of fundamentalist Christian local statute or school board decision that comes down the pike.

Mythic is the key there. There is no point beyond which the truth cannot be stretched, no misrepresentation too blatant for the Christian Nation apologists to employ. Quote mining, fabrication, and willful ignorance are the order of the day, and no matter that they seem to bump up pretty hard against that injunction against bearing false witness--it isn't really lying if you're lying for Jesus.

Yes, religion played an important role in society during the natal years of this country. Yes, several Founding Fathers were openly religious, and some of them agitated for an explicitly religious government. But in the end, they cranked out an explicitly nonreligious Constitution, with supporting documents clearly expressing their intent to keep faith and government separate, in order to protect the integrity of both. It doesn't matter what provisions the first Continental Congress made for official prayers, church services, or Liberty Bell inscriptions. They predated the Constitution. And the Constitution does not authorize those official religious acts that happened prior to its ratification. The simple fact that something happened once does not serve as fiat for it to continue into perpetuity.

Oh No

David J. Phillip, Associated Press

Groan. The Packers spent the last three quarters yesterday forgetting how to throw flanker screens and 10-year crossing routes, and pissed away their last best hope when Jarrett Bush forgot the dictum do not attempt to pick up a fumble and run with it, especially in shitty weather. Who knew Eli would have the game of his career? Not me. Poor Wisconsin.

So Super Bowl Sunday now presents the conundrum of rooting against the evil empire of the Patriots, but being required in the process to support a New York team. There's a joke in here somewhere about a blind guy and a deaf guy in a lifeboat with a pig who has a satellite phone, but it's escaping me this morning.

But wait, there's more. Just when Super Bowl Sunday could not become less appealing, well, it does. In a move that should disqualify Fox from ever hosting the big game ever again ever ever, Roger Ailes has decided to pair pregame coverage with pre-Super Tuesday political coverage, Fox-style.

Starting at 9 a.m. Feb. 3, the broadcaster will air a three-hour preview of this year’s steroidal Super Tuesday free-for-all, examining all 22 state primary races. The special news block will kick off with a one-hour edition of Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, followed by two hours of politics and pigskin coverage hosted by Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith.

Adding some regional flavor to the mix, eight reporters from Fox owned-and-operated stations across the country will file stories from the campaign trail, with each correspondent linked to an individual candidate from his or her local market.

Oh, goody. I hope this really is the extent of it, and that earlier rumblings about having to listen to Terry, Howie, and the boys make their picks from the GOP field were simply vile rumors. And Chris Wallace seriously better be limited to that first hour. His smirking mug popping up unexpectedly will be enough for me to heave bottles through the screen.

Huckabee Digging New Holes As Fast As Somebody Can Hand Him New Shovels

In a bid to sew up the Bible-waving, homo-hating, *cough*race-baiting*cough* vote, Mike Huckabee set himself apart from the rest of the GOP field yesterday by going all yee-haw over the Confederate battle flag in first-shots-of-the-Confederacy South Carolina.

"You don't like people from outside the state telling you what to do with your flag," he told an audience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them where to put the pole."

Some southerners are eating this right up, and put together a couple of radio spots touting Huck's charms:

Notice that the ads are paid for by Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, who are working tirelessly to restore public perception of the virtues of our Confederate Forefathers and Southern Heritage as one of the foundations of American Liberty. At least they recognize that the current public perception of their Confederate forefathers and southern heritage--you know, that whole treason, insurrection, and slavery thing--needs a little work. This whole perception concept seems to be news to Huckabee, who's been winking and nodding his way through the backwoods wet dream wish list all week.

Hey, it's just because the dipshit with the Stars 'n' Bars on his pickup is only proud of being from the south, right? He's not really racist. And the people equating gay marriage with bestiality aren't really dehumanizing and demonizing gays, they're just blissfully in love with their own opposite-sex spouses, right? And the guys who want Biblical law enshrined in the Constitution, well, they don't really want Biblical law, just a little bit, just enough to, uh, dehumanize gays and demonize non-Christians and remind Billy Bob Stars 'n' Bars that he's just as equal as anybody else in America, and, nudge nudge, wink wink, maybe just a little more so.

Mike Huckabee is a douchebag. People are starting to notice. Hope they'll notice in a big way if he carries South Carolina.

The Huckabee Dress Code

Might as well pile on while the piling's good. Just in case anyone has forgotten the Huckabee mini-skirt commentary, well, I just happened to come across this tidbit.

That she is completely adorable is irrelevant. Really. No, really.

In Which Mike Huckabee Joins Rick Santorum's Man-On-Dog Fantasy Camp

Gotta hand it to Mike Huckabee--with him, what you see and hear is the unvarnished real deal. As alluded to before, the most troubling thing about him is up for grabs. Is it the content of what he says, or the fact that he blithely says it with no apparent concern for the religious extremism it reveals? A couple of days ago he called for amending the Constitution to bring it in line with what he perceives as God's standards. Yesterday he was asked by Beliefnet.com to clarify that position (via TPM Election Central).

Beliefnet: Do you think that on issues other than marriage and the life of the unborn that the Constitution should be brought into conformity with the Bible, which is what that quote seemed to suggest?

Huckabee: No, I was specifically talking about those two issues. Those were the only two issues I spoke about in the speech, and that was the point. I’m not suggesting that we say, “Okay, the Bible says you should tithe, so now in the Constitution we’re going to amend it to say everyone tithes.”

Got that? He's not an all-in kind of theocrat after all. Whew! He's only calling for codifying the parts of the Bible that would not unduly personally impact him or the rest of his evangelical brethren. Tithing, shellfish, and polyester blends are back on the table, people! And as for the rest of the sticky wickets tossed up by strict Biblical law--stoning unruly children comes to mind--well, that's just crazy talk. So this is proof positive that Mike Huckabee isn't a crazy Dominionist, just a reasonable buffet theocrat.

And how do reasonable pick 'n' choose theocrats conceptualize the people they would like to address in their Constitutional amendments? Why, they do it like this:

Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life. Once we change that definition, then where does it go from there? ...

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.

There you go. Two men or two women in a committed relationship is the exact equivalent of pedophilia. The exact equivalent of bestiality. Huck's proven himself quite adept in encapsulating staggering ranges of ignorance in very short statements. He would be president, but has so little grasp of American law as to be ignorant of the concept of consent. He would be president, but has so little grasp of non-Western culture as to be ignorant of the existence of one man-three women marriages in other countries as we speak. He is a minister, but is so willfully dismissive of the very holy book he wants to thwack the Constitution upside the head with that he forgets its stories of polygamy--even by some of its heroes.

He wants to be president and plans to get there by playing to the very lowest common denominator among people who call themselves Christian, gleefully bearing false witness to suck in every last vote he can. Why stop at man on dog, Huck? Why not make it man on multiple puppies to complete the bestiality-pedophilia-polygamy trifecta?

Correction

Yesterday I called Mike Huckabee a Christian Reconstructionist. That turns out to be inaccurate due to the vagaries of his eschatological orientation (premillenial as opposed to postmillenial). So from now on we'll just be running with "theocrat," which works just fine.

Post-Michigan Romney Reminder

Coincidentally, today's Daily Maddow (from this past May) is Romney-centric. Since the Mittster just took the Michigan primary from John McCain, 39% to 30%, it's a good time for another look.

YHGTBSM Counter Explodes; Please Hold for Recalibration

That would be the You Have Got To Be Shitting Me counter, and two and a half states into the primary/caucus season mine is starting to sputter whilst emitting troubling wisps of smoke.

Or maybe that's my head. Hard to tell them apart these days.

Why? Oh, no reason, really, just that affable good ol' bass-pluckin' boy Mike Huckabee showing his Reconstructionist leanings more blatantly than any serious candidate in recent memory.

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family."

Set aside, for the moment, the instant failing grades this statement gives him in both US Civics and History of Religion, although that's troubling considering that he claims the dual job titles of governor and ordained minister. Let's just talk about judgment. Did he not realize his microphone was on and that cameras were rolling and that this little thing called Teh Intertubez would grab onto this asinine statement to fling it across Kingdom Come? Worse yet, did he not care?

There's coded language and there's blatant preaching to the choir. Right wingers have become ever bolder in open use of language that's not so coded any more--states' rights and Macaca, anyone?--but when Mike Huckabee stands up and openly calls for a complete rewriting of the country's fundamental document so as to be in line with conservative Christian dogma, apparently without fear of being labeled anything more frightening than "honest," those of us who prefer that our laws be based on secular legal precepts rather than firebrand Bible banging should take notice.

Watch the video and see if you can get through it without reaching through your monitor to strangle both Joe "What can I say? I like him" Scarborough and Mika "wifely submission is the basis of marriage" Brzezinski.

Hey, Did You Hear Edwards Is Rich?

The print media, at least, do seem to have it in for John Edwards. The Daily Star finally got around to running his profile in their daily series this morning, under this head courtesy of McClatchy (!):

EDWARDS'S JUST-FOLKS ANGLE IS RINGING HOLLOW FOR SOME

Why is it ringing hollow? Because he's running as a populist, railing against classism and wealth disparity, while--wait for it--being a rich man himself. In a nutshell, because he's rich himself but speaking for the poor (or, alternately constructed, because he's speaking for the poor but rich himself), he's a hypocrite.

Arooo?

He did come from a poor mill family. He did transfer to far less expensive NC State after failing to earn a football scholarship at Clemson. He did make a fortune as a malpractice lawyer. He did get that famous $400 haircut. All of these things are true, but that doesn't mean they automatically cancel each other out. Unless, of course, you rely on a GOP chairman to connect the dots for you.

"The problem is that he has taken as his signature issue (poverty), something he hasn't shown a great deal of background or interest in," said Jack Hawke, a former North Carolina Republican Party chairman. "It's hard to understand his conversion."

The very next section in the story?

Involved in helping the poor

But Edwards' involvement in social issues is deeper than his critics give him credit for.

Before entering politics, he was heavily involved in Urban Ministries, a local program that helps the poor.

He and his wife, Elizabeth, also spent several million dollars creating two after-school learning labs primarily to serve poor children at two North Carolina high schools.

This would have been far a better choice for a lede, as it better sets up the contradiction between perception and policy and has the potential to reel in readers whose only knowledge of John Edwards is the Breck Girl image that's been foisted onto him. Unfortunately, it's buried in the middle of the article, well after the jump to page 4 that readers may or may not have made, where it's no competition for the 24-pt bold headline stating that his actual material and policy work rings hollow due to perception. No, the third paragraph says, he doesn't wear $2000 suits, but he did get that $400 haircut. Apparently only the poor can credibly fight for the poor in America. And we all know how far that's going to fly in a country where being a multimillionaire is a de facto requirement for running a serious presidential campaign.

The Crux of the Problem

Another morning in Tucson, another letter in the Daily Star from a pissed-off retiree:

Steam Pump Ranch a money pit

Re: the Jan. 3 article "Keeping gate open at old ranch."

The Steam Pump preservation project is a hole in the desert in which the Oro Valley Town Council is pouring our tax dollars. Most of the people who live in Oro Valley came from somewhere else. I cannot imagine that many people beyond the misguided Town Council have an overriding interest in a decomposing ranch where the caretaker has been forced in live in a "former outdoor barbecue . . . where a hole in the ceiling hints of long-sustained rain damage."

Steam Pump Ranch, funded at $4.5 million, is an example of the Town Council's financial boondoggling, which is dwarfed by the millions of tax dollars they want in yet another bond issue for a huge new park. I urge Oro Valley taxpayers and voters to carefully consider any future bond initiatives in the next election cycle.

Louis Fashion

Retired, Oro Valley

This is a fascinating bit of logic. If the majority of a population came from somewhere else, the history of a place is rendered invalid. Actually, it's a somewhat refreshing departure from the usual logic in evidence in Oro Valley, which can generally be boiled down to no scrap of land shall be left unpaved so long as there is a dollar to be made and the existing inter-Walgreen's distance exceeds 100 yards. You can see the "we're not from here, so screw it" mentality all over the northern end of the Tucson Basin, where thousands upon thousands of acres of the Sonoran Desert ecosystem, and its component wildlife habitats, archaeological sites, historic sites, and pristine scenery have been bladed and built up into a doppelganger of southern California.

Never mind that at least some of Oro Valley's immigrant population (no, not that kind of immigrant; this is Oro Valley, after all, and those people merely work here, shhhhh) is reproducing, given the rate at which elementary schools are popping up all over the northwest, and that those children will technically be "from here" and may even one day develop a curiosity about the history of their home--taxpayer money must be used only for building new roads to accomodate new developments built on top of irreplacable landscapes. Oh, and also for the $172 million that's currently been paid for the town to access Colorado River water, since the metastasizing stucco-and-red-tile housing developments and attendant golf courses are drawing down the levels of the town's wells by over five feet a year.

You may not be from here originally, Mr. Fashion, but you are here now, and you don't get to declare the history, prehistory, or natural history of the Tucson Basin moot simply because it gets in the way of converting Oro Valley to a scaled-down replica of LA, or a scaled-up version of whatever retirement community dreamland was sold to you in a brochure.

Random Weekend Jottings

JordanCornblog likes Boltgirl! I am thrilled. Go read her Granite State perspectives on politics and soccer and say something nice in the comments.

In other news, maybe my long-rumored retirement from soccer will be put off for another season. Yesterday saw a good afternoon at the gym, followed by a pretty decent performance at center mid in a co-ed game, followed by beers with the boys in the parking lot, capped off with a hot shower and a couple o' nips o' Jameson before bed. I woke up at 3 in the morning with the wonderful opposite experience of many other early-morning awakenings where I wondered for a split second if the previous night really had happened that way--only this time I was elated to confirm with the memory that it did indeed happen that way. And I was so happy I didn't mind lying awake for the next hour trying to get back to sleep. A testament both to the depths to which my game had fallen and the level of credibility I managed to pull out of my ass last night.

Anyway. A short hike this afternoon to see the water in Bear Canyon and Molino Basin, a few minutes basking on a rock overhang in the warm sun with the entire canyon all to myself, and life is good.

And, of course, there's a Daily Maddow for today.

Oh, Like You Didn't See This Coming?

Daily Maddow. Just because I can.

Et Tu, Cranium?

We are a rather Cranium-centric household. We play a lot. We have been known to string together all three boards, joined at the corners, for epic all-versions Cranium battles. Even this dour, humorlous feminist has been known to crack a smile while pantomiming "vibrate" without resorting to the obvious. So imagine my consternation when this ad landed in my inbox:

Cranium Bloom: Enforcing Traditional Gender Roles From Day One!

Look closely at the kids on the boxes. Seek & Find at the Zoo? It's a boy. Count & Cook? Shopping? Do you even need to look closely to tell which gender is associated with the last two? Because men never cook. And if they do, they certainly don't shop for the food. Seeking/finding animals? Not for girls. There might be bugs or peril involved, for heaven's sake. Going into the actual Bloom website doesn't tilt the scales much toward the middle. Generic "neighborhood" activities are split between boys and girls, but the other Seek & Find option involving animals (at the park) shows a squirrel being found by... a boy.

I'm disappointed, since Cranium's motto is something along the lines of everyone finding their area to shine in. This is a game that asks you to represent abstract concepts in purple clay, for cryin' out loud. Would it have been too much of a stretch for them to show a little boy wielding a wooden spoon on a box lid? Or maybe it's such an obvious pander that it's satire. Yeah, that must be it.

Just Because

This is nine months old and apropos of nothing, but it's going up just because she's smart as a whip, clever, well-spoken, incisive, and fearless, and provides a bright beacon of sanity cutting through the miasma currently passing as political coverage these days. Thank god Olbermann and Abrams have her on the TV so frequently; when MSNBC decides to hire her as a regular fixture, I will buy a separate, dedicated DVR. Until then, thank god for Teh YouTube and enough backlogged video to provide a couple weeks' worth of daily Maddowness.

She's also completely fucking adorable. I melt.

Grandma Turns 90

We interrupt today's political blatherings to wish Grandma a happy 90th birthday. Which was actually yesterday, but I did remember to call and the card got there on time, so everything's good.
















Grandma at 90, in my dad's kitchen.


















Grandma at 6, on a cake.

Grandma is still undecided about which way to go in the Illinois primary. She's leaning toward Obama but still considering Clinton; she likes Edwards but thinks he doesn't have a prayer; she's not overly enthused by the possibility of Obama going with Webb as a running mate given his forcefulness and the way Cheney has redefined the vice-presidency. I gave her a copy of The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State and she loves it. She's a big Jefferson fan. Hell, she's old enough to have sat at his knee taking notes. No, not really.

90 years, three sons, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren later, she's still terrorizing the choir and PTO at St. Joe's on a regular basis. We will chat about the developing presidential race next week. Love you, Grandma! Rock on!

And I'm Not Even a Hillary Fan

But this shit seriously needs to stop; at this rate I'm not going to have many people left to believe in. Olbermann piled on Monday night in the aftermath of the voice-catch Complete Fucking Female Emotional Breakdown, Whut Whut with a segment helpfully entitled Clinton Cries, Then Attacks Obama. The video, being the actual video from the celebrated emotional moment, continues to fail to show "crying" as it is conventionally understood--say, as when Mitt Romney does it three times in three weeks on the campaign trail--and the "very same sentence" that purports to contain an immediate personal attack on Senator Obama sounds to these tender ears like any other statement any other candidate has made regarding readiness to take over the top job:

Clinton (from video):But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on Day One and some of us really haven't thought that through enough.

Olbermann (in studio, ominously): It gets worse...

Worse than what? Worse than that clip you just played? Uh, gee, Keith. Given how low you just set the "bad" bar, well, not hard to do. In your smoking gun video, Clinton makes very general, non-personal statements that do not reference Obama either directly by name or obliquely as "other Democrats" or "that one guy Chris Matthews worships." There is plenty of stuff in Hillary's record and stated positions to give you reservations. Don't manufacture shit that simply isn't there, and then have the temerity to allegedly back up your bullshit by playing video that doesn't come close to illustrating what you want your viewers to believe it does. You pillory O'Reilly on a near-nightly basis for this kind of dishonesty.

Men think sexism doesn't exist like whites think racism doesn't exist. Olbermann joins Edwards in the ranks of guys I thought I respected who have now seriously pissed me off. Tom Toles of the Washington Post gets it. I'd like to see Obama prove he gets it by telling his supporters both in and out of the media that he'd prefer to win this race on issues of substance, thank you very much, without the help of bigotry of any stripe.

News Flash: Rudy Cried Once Too! Guess When?

There is no question that cannot be answered by it, no parallel that cannot be drawn to it, no shamelessness so great as to preclude whipping it out. 9/11. The only phrase anyone needs. Also cures migraines when applied directly to the forehead. (via Shakesville)

In Which Hillary Can't Win for Losing

Well, goddamn. The huge news yesterday was that Hillary got choked up while talking about drawing strength from the passion she feels for the country and the need to improve it. Not sobbing, blubbering choked up, but damp-eyed, quavering-voiced choked up. Oh noes, people howled, ain't that just like a typical woman to get all emotional? Can't have that in the White House.

That was followed up by this from a subsequent campaign appearance in New Hampshire:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was about to deliver a line that has become a centerpiece of her campaign since her loss in Iowa.

“Everybody in this race is talking about change. But what does that mean?”

“Iron my shirt!” yelled a man, who stood up in the middle of a jammed and stuffy auditorium at a high school in Salem, N.H., and held up a yellow sign with the same text. He repeated it over and over.

You know, iron my shirt, bitch? The sign young guys think is Teh Funny to hold up at feminist rallies? The new alternate to shut up, bitch? That one. So a couple guys hold the sign and chant the chant, Hillary handles it without breaking stride, making a reference to the glass ceiling she's trying to break through here, and... the majority of online commenters are convinced she staged the whole thing.

Yep, her campaign did plant that questioner in Iowa. Bad move. And they've committed other bits of asshattery, of which going to Barack Obama's kindergarter teacher for evidence of early presidential ambition is the most egregious example. And now she's reached the point that many people refuse to cede even a shred of credibility to any display by or against her, no matter how genuine or not-planned it might turn out to be.

Anyone remember Mitt Romney talking a couple weeks ago about being so overcome with emotion on learning that his church had decided black people are humans too that he had to pull his car over since he was blinded by tears? Did he catch any backlash on that for being too quick to dissolve into tears at the slightest provocation? Well, no, he caught hell for exceeding most people's bullshit thresholds with the elements of the story that don't conform to temporal or spatial reality. But not for the emotion itself.

I listened to a John Edwards consultant spin this on Rachel Maddow's show as proof of Hillary's unfitness for the Oval Office, and cringed as my regard for Edwards plunged straight into the tank. Well, if she cracks under the pressure of the campaign, what's she gonna do when something really big happens? Hey, Mudcat, or whatever the fuck your real name is, this wasn't "cracking under pressure." It was a wholly appropriate and in no way excessive display of patriotic emotion. It pisses me off when the front man for a candidate who positions himself--and who I believe really is--a populist falls back on the easy if dishonest meme of female=weak. Maddow was flabbergasted herself. And the dude just would not let it go.

So we would appear to have dual lessons being reinforced here. One is that the old saw your grandparents kept whacking you with when you were a kid, you know, the one that goes it's easier to maintain your reputation than to repair it? Yeah, that's pretty much true. And the other one, that holds that a woman who shows no emotion is a stone-cold bitch, while a woman who shows any emotion is a fragile, irrational creature who shouldn't be entrusted with Really Big Responsibilities? Unfortunately, that one got propped up yet again too.

By the way, it turns out that Hillary didn't stage the Iron My Shirt incident at all. A couple of Boston shock jocks did. Will her quick, on-her-feet, coolly dispassionate dispatching of them buy her back any steely resolve cred with the No Crying In Politics faction? Nope, didn't think so.

Back in the Saddle

God, that took long enough. The annoying bug that hopped into my throat the day after Christmas ended up inviting several friends and relatives along for an extended tour of my entire respiratory system. This morning they seem to be in the process of packing up the last of their bags and waiting at the desk for the hotel shuttle. All I can say is that motherfucker better be on time. Two weeks away from the office database and the maps and tables strategically piled on my desk or taped to the walls has not advanced the chapter I am trying to write.

Today, however, science will be going on.

Quick roundup of things to think about while sussing out the details of how folks living in A.D. 950 in Arizona organized themselves to crank out arrowheads and distribute them across the state without the aid of internet ordering, trucks, or NAFTA:

Our traditional primary system and Americans' predisposition to be bandwagon jumpers will combine to be Hillary's downfall. Obama came out of the blocks fast and she's into negative mode before New Hampshire has even happened. Of course, that model probably doesn't apply to the Republican side, unless they really are going to go for a Pastor President Huckabee across the board. Weird.

Too. Many. Bowl. Games. And way too much time now elapsing between the old payoff of New Year's Day (cultural memory is very hard to overcome, after all) and tonight's national championship game. It might not have been so bad without the baffling entre'act of the International and GMAC bowls and their forgettable matchups. What are Ball State and Bowling Green doing in January bowls, other than serving as cannon fodder for barely-top-tier teams to set records against? I don't know either. Put the feckin' championship game back on January 1 as the last bowl of the day, and then let us get on with conference basketball.

Stewart and Colbert are back tonight, but as WGA members are banned from writing their own material. I don't know whether to watch or Tivo and wait for the reviews. Either way I'm mildly hopeful but still cringing.

I Do Not Heart Huckabee

I am of two minds this morning. One thinks that Mike Huckabee suddenly being the Republican front-runner is the best news EVER, since once the campaign starts in earnest, the crap swirling around him on the blogs (his applauding the Southern Baptist convention for telling women to submit to their husbands, his major fundraiser who's in favor of doctors being barred from working on the sabbath and compelled to preach to their patients under a Christian theocracy, his psychotic dog-hanging son) will have to hit the mainstream media and will have to scare even the most brain-dead American voters away from him. Right? Right? Then the other mind chimes in and says, yeah, and all that shit makes him the absolute wet dream of the average brain-dead American voter who has a vague sense of being a persecuted Christian because Bill O'Reilly and innumerable forwarded e-mails from people like my brother tell him he is.

Come one, mind one. I'm pulling for you.