tourist traps

There are some so egregious, so foul, so base they drive maddened travelers to post their bumper stickers, despite anything reason or rationality would dictate. "Where the heck is WALL DRUG?" screams from every other fender in America. If you've been there, you know. It lies two blocks south of the seventh circle of Hell, near the Corn Palace and the Oregon Vortex. (I refuse to link to these monstrosities, for good reason: they are monstrous.)

Nearly worth a nomination to the list is The Bridge That Shall Not Be Named, just north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Its charlatan purveyors have mastered the time-honored technique for luring in over 800,000 people per year, and it's brilliance, sheer brilliance. They make you pay for parking first. "Only three dollars--Canadian dollars," you think, and the bait is set. Hooked by the grand entrance, you stumble up closer to the price list. $21.95 per adult. Line. Sinker. Sucker.

It's worth half that. The bridge spans a nifty gorge (although on a cloudy day, it's only so nifty). It sways and gallops. Every lurch has you clutching the cable, until you get the hang of the thing and can march across with drunken confidence. (Do not take that literally; drinking and suspension bridges mix poorly.)

The walk through the treetops is somewhat redemptive. The displays are banal; the tour guides sugar-free. Graffiti covers every available inch--make that centimeter--of wood railing.

But the main attraction is the crowd, the jostling mix of foreigners, Americans figuring prominently in that number. If you listen carefully, you can hear "We were duped" in dozens of languages.

Vancouver

Which one? I spent the weekend there. I have much to blog about, but two days of fun-filled staff development await, so I'll have to procrastinate (the blogging, I mean). Non-stop Ruby Payne for sixteen hours. Lord ha' mercy.

the last Keyes post. maybe.

Writing for The New Republic, Sasha Issenberg finally discovers the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain of Alan Keyes' baffling Senate run.

But to the swing-state religious conservatives whose non-participation torments Rove, Keyes is one of the most capable messengers for Bush's cause. He's the political equivalent of a dog-whistle, reaching only those who would heed his urgent call. If Bush wins Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri on the strength of high turnout among religious conservatives in counties that border Illinois, then Alan Keyes--a disastrous Senate candidate who may take other Illinois Republicans down with him--will be able to return to Maryland having finally won an election.

I have a hard time believing that Keyes is a witting suicide candidate, or that the Illinois GOP is really willing to sacrifice votes just to put Bush back in office. But it's an explanation, at least.

funny / not funny

Jack / Oven Mitt

philosophy humor / philosophy of humor

The White House / Casa Blanca

beanies / beanie babies

blogging / flogging

Suggest your own!

slip and slide

From the New York Times:

Ms. Bumiller: Do you think Senator Kerry lied about his war record?

THE PRESIDENT: I think Senator Kerry should be proud of his record.

Ms. Bumiller: But do you think he lied?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't think he lied, and I think that he ought to be proud of his record. Let me talk about a larger issue, and that is 527s. I spoke to John McCain today, and I think these ought to be outlawed. I thought they ought to be outlawed a year ago, when I — whenever I signed the bill. I think they're bad for the system. And when you've got people — you know, billionaires writing checks, large checks to try to influence the outcome of the election. And so I —

Ms. Bumiller: But Mr. President, if you don't think he lied, why can't you talk about this one ad, why can't you denounce it —

THE PRESIDENT: Elisabeth, 527s, 527s; the larger issue of 527s.

Ms. Bumiller: I'm talking about this smaller issue of this attack on Senator Kerry by Swift Boat Veterans —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I understand how Senator Kerry feels — I have been attacked by 527s, too. I think it's a — the issue is, let's get rid of them all. That's where we ought to be — that's where this debate ought to be, how to get rid of this money that's flowing into the system.

Ms. Bumiller: Can I just try one more time? You don't want to address that specific advertisement. Will you condemn it?

THE PRESIDENT: All those ads ought to go, Elisabeth, every one of them, including the ads that have been run on me. Millions of dollars have poured into this system in an unregulated fashion. And for 12 months there was silence. And all of a sudden now, people are taking exception to unregulated soft money. And John and I are going to work together to try to — we're going to file a lawsuit trying to end the process, not only for the money being on TV, but for the money that's involved in other parts of the process. And I hope you join us.

No out-and-out condemnation. Why not? What does Bush have to lose, except the support of disgruntled liars?

harsh words

If you're still planning to vote for this cretin in November, stand up and tell me why this is not an act of rank stupidity and hypocrisy and an attempt to destroy freedom of speech for his own political advantage. It's one thing for a politician to sell out his own principles to insure his reelection. That's loathsome enough. But selling out the first amendment to get reelected should, in a just and rational world, disqualify you from holding any office higher than drain commissioner. You are a sellout and a fraud, Mr. Bush, and you have betrayed your office and your oath. If you had any honor you'd resign in disgrace, if only because, after spending the last 2 years telling us that the terrorists want to destroy us because they "hate freedom", you've just revealed that you hate it as well.

What has Ed Brayton so riled up that he's blogging at 2:30 in the morning?

blah blah

First, go to Pharyngula and read. Then, go to freethoughtforum and watch the movie (Quicktime required). Next, read about how it works, and what it means. Last, try to stop laughing. It works. Brains are tricky things.

primary colours

Disenfranchisement! Out with the incumbents, all of them! If I'm a registered Republican and want to vote for the weakest candidate for governor in the Democratic primary (you know, that vox populi where the Democrats are forced to choose whomever the populi pick, too bad, sucka?), then that is my right, as an American, and no court, local, state, federal, global, or intergalactic, can take it away from me, not even from my cold, dead, hands, locked as they are in rigor mortis, clasping that right in their American clutches! If I'm an unregistered swing voter, I want to swing both ways! I will not be cajoled into submission by patronizing radio ads! I will not have my rights stripped by judicial hippie activists! I want my blanket primary back!

hold your nose

The title is "Rock band's effluent offence," which immediately brings to mind the musical byproducts of just about every rock band in recent memory.

Not that I'm bitter. I wasn't on the boat.

essential reading

As Salon's Todd Gitlin writes, the only victim in the Swift Boat crapfest is the truth.

Then this week, the same smear artists opened up with their bigger -- as it were -- guns. The second SBVFT commercial includes clips from Kerry's April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... cut off limbs, blown up bodies ... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ... crimes committed on a day-to-day basis ... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

What happens during those ellipses is SBVFT members talking about Kerry's accusations in these terms: "Just devastating." "It hurt me." "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnamese prison camps took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us." "Betrayed us." "Dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out."

Note well: These bait-and-switch artists don't dare say that Kerry's statements were false. The anti-Kerry crusaders issue classic non-denial denials. The subtext of their outrage against Kerry is simple: They are still averse to facing the awfulness of the Vietnam War. What they are really saying with their slanders is that the truth hurts.

Read it all here. (Day pass required.)

holy shuttle launch, Batman!

Over on Pharyngula, reader aab points us to this article, wherein Bruce D. Callander of the Cheboygan Tribune blames NASA for bad weather. Read it to believe it.

A small sample:

If it takes that much power to raise a rocket, then according to Newton, the same amount of force is being exerted on the earth. Considering the earth's bulk, one lift-off may not have much effect, but think how many launches there are from Cape Kennedy every year and assume that each launch pushes the planet a few feet out of its normal orbit. In the course of a decade, that could amount to a major displacement, enough to have a major effect on the earth's climate.

To test the theory about landing on other planets, the only thing to do is to stop sending out those probes until we see if the weather returns to normal. If it doesn't, the problem probably is the launches themselves.

In this case, we can resume launching but set off a corresponding explosion on the other side of the world each time we fire one from Florida. Bangkok looks like about the best place to do it.

There is so much wrong with Callander's thinking, it's hard to know where to begin. First, he has no (zero, zip, zilch, etc.) data. How much force does an individual launch exert? How much of that force is absorbed by the earth's crust (which, by the way, "floats" atop magma)? How much force is required to knock an earth-sized planet off its usual orbit? If launches have already thrown Earth off, why would stopping them return the weather to normal? What about the effects of European and Chinese space programs?

Callander also makes the (laughable) assumption that since we always fire rockets in Florida, then setting off an equal number from Jakarta would blast us back the right way. He seems to forget a tiny, but crucial, fact: the earth not only rotates, but revolves, so each blast, if it has any measurable effect, would push the globe in a different direction relative to the sun.

I'm sure competent physicists are already debunking Callander's tripe. Or maybe they haven't yet stopped snorting their protractors in fits of uproarious laughter.

Update: The op-ed is too funny to be true. I received an email from the editor of the Tribune, who writes, "Mr. Callendar [sic] writes satire. This was satire." Too bad the robots at Google News can't figure that out, posting it in the Sci-Tech section.

It reminds me of the time I spoke at the Evergreen State College commencement, back in 2002. I gave a funny speech patched together from a letters-to-the-editor war in The Olympian. I got booed at several points, until I pointedly reminded the audience that "for those of you just joining us, this is satire." The best is obvious only in retrospect. Kudos to the Cheboygan Tribune.

trash talk

The wife and I spent the evening at a big-box art store putting in an order for custom frames--some Miro, Klee, and Kandinsky prints, tres chic. The fun part was yakking about art with the framer on duty. I have a formative understanding of art history (thanks to a sleep appreciation class), and love to gab in general. The framer, my wife, and I all shared a deep loathing for the Painter of Syrup, Herr Thomas Kinkade. The framer was especially vitriolic ("I hate his work, hate it, hate it. He's a master all right--a master salesman. Light isn't yellow"). Her rant made the trip--and the expense--worthwhile.

bleeding purple

When I correct papers, I use either a blue or black pen. I've never seriously considered using red--it's not my favorite color--but I remember hearing in grad school that it's a "bad" color, with all sorts of negative connotations. Blood! Pain! Anger! Whatever.

So, the Boston Globe reports, the hot tone of choice is Royal, Hip Purple. Pleasing to the eye; easy on the self-esteem.

"If you see a whole paper of red, it looks pretty frightening," said Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Northampton. "Purple stands out, but it doesn't look as scary as red."

That's the cue pen makers and office supply superstores say they have gotten from teachers as the $15 billion back-to-school retail season kicks off. They say focus groups and conversations with teachers have led them to conclude that a growing number of the nation's educators are switching to purple, a color they perceive as "friendlier" than red.

There's just one small problem: the march of history. Within a generation or two, purple will be The New Red. What will teachers do then?

movin' on up

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars has a snazzy new home. Update accordingly.

astro

So the hitching went off without a hitch. (Snare tap, cymbal crash.) It was the most momentous weekend of my life, and what could be more appropriate than mountains of momentous desserts? From raspberry-soaked cake, tulip cups, and black-out torte at "The Old House" to strawberry tunnel cake, Texas sheet cake, and Nanaimo bars at the Old Folks' House, it was a dessert-packed sugarfest at all times.

<mush> Perfect, really, for celebrating the sweetest woman I know--who I'm now proud to call my wife. I love you, Melissa. </mush>

goin' to the chapel

I'll be gone for the rest of the weekend. In the words of Emerson (though I don't think he meant them quite this way), I'm going to "hitch my wagon to a star."

Keyes: man of the hour

First, read this article by Jon Rowe on the strange intellectual upbringing (and, perhaps, cognitive dissonance) of Alan Keyes. In his conclusion, Rowe notes:

I termed Keyes a “gentleman” because, according to Straussians like Bloom, “philosophers” must make alliances with “gentlemen.” Philosophers are inherently nihilistic; they know there is no God; they are capable of gazing into the abyss without flinching; but they ought to keep philosophy secret. They should publicly support the “gentlemen,” those who believe in “noble lies” like orthodox Christianity. The public needs religion and it needs eloquent spokesman on behalf of religion, hence Alan Keyes. Bloom may have helped to create this “gentleman” Keyes. But in reading Keyes’s above mentioned screed against homosexuals, one wonders if Bloom helped to create, not a gentleman, but just a crank.

Next, read Ed Brayton's deconstruction of recent Keyes inanity. Keyes has flip-flopped on federalism (as we all knew), and now, more notably, has a new reparations policy sprouting in his fertile brain--this from the man who claimed, in no uncertain terms, that Union blood already paid the debt.

Odds are, Keyes will claim a moral victory after the Illinois election. Sadly, he won't even have that.

ask away

I want to go to an "Ask President Bush" event. I have a lot of questions to ask him. Oh, wait, never mind--he just spends most of his time speechifying, and has time to answer only a few questions (mere minutes after an hour's worth of bloviation).

Sample passages:

When it came to funding our troops, we have a difference of opinion in this campaign. I put a supplemental up to the Congress in September of last year. It was money for body armor and spare parts, ammunition and fuel, that which is necessary when you've got people in combat both in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I want to thank the members of both political parties for their strong bipartisan support. We had great bipartisan support, so much so that only 12 United States senators voted against it, two of whom are my opponent and his running mate. (Applause.) It's an issue in this campaign. He -- when pressed, my opponent said, you know, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." It's kind of an interesting explanation. People around here are plain talkers. And then he went on, when pressed, to say, well, gosh, it was -- you know, I did the right thing, or he's proud of his vote, I think he said, and then, said "it's a complicated matter." Now, there's nothing complicated about providing for our troops in combat. I will continue to be a Commander-in-Chief who supports our troops. (Applause.)

He's right in one sense--it's not a "complicated" idea, that troops in combat need body armor. But Bush lives in a dream world. First off, when he sent troops to Iraq, they didn't have enough body armor. (This is the president, mind you, who can't think of even one mistake or error worthy of regret in his entire term of office.) Second, though, Kerry voted for a bill that would spend the $87 billion while simultaneously repealing part of Bush's tax cuts, and then voted against the bill with the tax cuts intact. You can't raise expenditures and cut taxes (hoping that the economy will magically--and quickly--take care of things), except in Bush-world. This is the same Bush who said (in this very press conference!), "My philosophy is that government meets priorities; once it meets its priorities, then the people can spend their money better than government can." Cutting the deficit, to Bush, just isn't a priority.

What is, then? How about North Korea--where Bush has practically handed Kim Jong-Il a blank check to produce nuclear weapons?

Just real quick, I believe freedom changes societies, and I believe a free society is a peaceful society. And therefore, it is in our national interests to promote a liberty in a part of the world that is full of hatred and resentment and intolerance. I talk about a dinner I had with Prime Minister Koizumi, and I think I talked about that today with some people on Air Force One, if I'm not mistaken. And anyway, so I'm having dinner with Koizumi, and we're talking about North Korea. See, I made the decision that no longer can we convince Kim Jung-Il to disarm if it's only the United States talking to the North Koreans. I felt it was important to bring other countries into the mix, like China and Japan and South Korea and Russia, so there's now five countries saying to the tyrant in North Korea, disarm, disarm.

And he's not listening--a fact Bush carefully ignores.

On second thought, I'd like to visit one of these question sessions just to meet the kind of people who flock to them, starting every question with "We're praying for you."

Q I'm a local youth minister, recently hired. And one of the things -- two of the things we've talked about today are enemies and freedom. And I believe that the enemy that we need the greatest freedom from right now happens to be Satan, and it's the enemy that we also don't necessarily always see. There's so many people who are being attacked on every level. A lot of those people are youth that are in our middle schools and our high schools. And I was just wondering how we can do more for faith-based initiatives for children, before they're drug addicts?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I appreciate you saying that. Look, well, first of all, it's for me to call upon people such as yourself to interface with children early, before it's too late. You answered the question by your actions. But in terms of reducing demand for drug -- you ask a specific issue on drug use, for example. We've got a collaborative effort with faith-based groups, community groups, neighborhood groups all aimed at sending the same message you're sending. And it's a kind of universal effort necessary to say to a child, drugs will destroy you. And it's working, frankly. We've reduced drug use by 11 percent in three-and-a-half years -- it's not "we," it's community groups have done so in three-and-a-half years. (Applause.)

I hope Bush will commit some kind of angelic shock troops to the war on Satan--er, drugs. And that 11 percent statistic? Utter bilge. Meth abuse is up. Nearly all drug trends are steady or increasing, especially the number of new users of marijuana. Which planet is Bush on--or from?

neologism

From a recent press conference:

THE PRESIDENT: Let me tell you something. Part of the tax relief for small businesses was not just cutting the rates. We also incentivized people to buy equipment. In other words, if he bought equipment, he got a little extra help in the tax code.

There is no end to the Bushism phenomenon. At least, until November.

(And hey: I scooped Weisberg!)

Update: each speech Bush gives is a goldmine of rhetorical bungling. Another example:

We don't need as many troops stationed overseas anymore because the Soviet era is no longer a threat.

More to follow, I'm sure.

Second update: Bush isn't the first to use "incentivized." It's originally attributed the great orator Dick Gephardt. The Prez is in distinguished company.

swift boat sinking

Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg expose the Swift Boat ad as a pack of lies. (Registration required.) A sampling:

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."

"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."

Now, to be fair, connections to Bush cronies don't constitute conspiracy. But Bush has done little to distance himself from the ad, and has not (as John McCain has urged) condemned it, a now-indefensible sin of omission.

[Thanks to PZ Myers over at Pharyngula]