ginandtacos.com - shut up and drink the gin

A SNAIL ON A RAZOR'S EDGE

I had a brief moment of hesitation about posting this as a No Politics Friday (tm) entry, because it walks a very fine line between funny and sad. Or, more importantly, between funny and social commentary. We try to avoid the latter on Fridays at all costs around here.

If you haven't heard this 911 recording (and yes, Snopes tells us it's real) I think you need to listen to it right now. Let's not focus on the fact that it's a sickening example of what kind of people we breed in this country; instead, just marvel at the superficial comedic value of gems like:

Woman: Well.....you're supposed to be here to protect me.

Dispatcher: What are we protecting you from? A wrong cheeseburger?

Just remember, out of the 1000 people you see on an average day, a good portion of them are this stupid.

(PS: After I received this blast from the past on Wednesday, I was fondly reminiscing about years gone by and recalling how hard I used to rock the shit out of this during the karaoke era)

THE IVORY TOWER

After two weeks of spastic protesting and near-aneurysms from the right, Iranian president Ahmadinejad finally spoke at Columbia University earlier this week. Just as right-wing talk radio listeners and idiots everywhere (pardon my redundancy) predicted, the leftist ivory tower of cloistered academic socialism coddled the controversial Arab leader.

Among Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's fawning, obsequious remarks were:

For the illiterate and ignorant, (Holocaust denial) is dangerous propaganda. When you come to a place like this, this makes you, quite simply, ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.

According to reports by the Council on Foreign Relations, it’s well documented that Iran is a state sponsor of terror that funds such violent group as the Lebanese Hezbollah, which Iran helped organize in the 1980s, the Palestinian Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Can you tell them and us why Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq by arming Shi’a militia targeting and killing U.S. troops?

A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country (as in your meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations) so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party’s defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more.

I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions...I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for.

It's sad, unfortunate, and pathetic that Professor Bollinger had to go so completely over the top and spiteful with his remarks to fend off the landslide of criticism from the talk radio crowd. I assume they're happy with the extent to which the event turned into a burning-in-effigy of Ahmadinejad. But imagine Bush going to another country and being greeted with an event like this. O'Reilly would be screaming for cruise missiles before the speech even conclused. Ahmadinejad wanted to turn this into a circus, and he succeeded. It was a sad day for academia, this country, and the reality-based community as a whole.

I'm really just starting to pity the kind of people who eagerly await being told what to think by Hannity and Limbaugh like the pack of slobbering dogs that they are. When a person - scratch that, an adult - in a country that claims to educate its population well can't tell the difference between supporting a person's right to speak and endorsing his or her ideas, I don't think there's much left to say. I start to feel like mocking such people is the same as mocking retarded people, which I have been taught repeatedly is wrong.

Ah, fuck it. Retards are hilarious, and I have no sympathy for people who are led around by blatant appeals to their prejudices and ignorance. Pick up a goddamn book. Maybe even read it. Repeat until radio call-in shows no longer seem appealing.

BUT WHO WILL BE HIS STOCKDALE?

I've been trying to think of an organized way to start discussing the impending presidential election but the closer we get, the more opaque it seems. As I've already mentioned a couple of times, I can't imagine who would be the GOP favorite at the moment. Add to that the historically anomalous presence of three strong, well-financed Democrats and the whole thing looks like a toss-up. But I know one thing for sure, and it is that Michael Bloomberg is the 900-pound gorilla in 2008.

Back in 1992, H. Ross Perot took advantage of a very similar situation - a struggling GOP, a toss-up Democratic field, and a deeply unhappy electorate. And Mr. Perot was leading that race until he started the nonsense about quitting/re-entering the race. Even with that bit of flakiness the man got 19% of the popular vote. Given the ways in which the deck is stacked against everyone but the two major parties, I consider that to be one of the most amazing feats in our electoral history. He got 19% of the vote even though he had no organization, no ballot access, and no name recognition. Not to mention that he is absolutely pickin'-corn-out-of-his-crap crazy. But 1 of 5 voters liked him anyway. He sampled from a pool of populist Democratic voters (the rural kind who tend to be socially conservative) and disaffected Republicans. And he very nearly turned the election into a circus.

Michael Bloomberg has made noise about running. There is no doubt that he has considered it and is considering it, even though he now denies it. After he recently changed his voting registration from Republican to Independent, it's clear that he understands his where his potential appeal lies.

He has a lot going for him. He's well-known. He has approximately ten shitloads of money. He sincerely portrays the kind of fiscal conservative, social liberal appeal that made Giuliani attractive a few years ago. While he'd face the same organizational and ballot access obstacles that have slain so many independent candidates in the past, a man worth $5 billion can get around them pretty quickly. Ask Perot.

While this is far from a prediction, consider this hypothetical scenario. Keep in mind that the primaries are ridiculously front-loaded this year and the nominations will be decided for all intents and purposes by early February. Hillary Clinton uses her name recognition and resources to batter the rest of the Democratic field into submission. The GOP cage match produces either the candidate who best motivates the hardcore base (say, Huckabee) or a Kerry-esque default victor who excites no one and dissatisfies many (Romney, Giuliani).

The only thing as impressive as Hillary Clinton's legions of worshippers are the legions of people who loathe her. So let's say there are some swing voters who are leaning towards the Democratic side in 2008 but detest the idea of voting for HRC. Let's also say that there are a ton of Republican voters who are tired of the war and, for some reason, don't think that abortion and gay marriage are the most important (if not only) issues on Earth. Bloomberg calls a press conference on Feb. 15th and formally declares. He picks someone representative of the voters he's targeting as a running mate - Chuck Hagel?

A casual analysis would suggest that a moderate Republican like Bloomberg would cost the GOP more votes than the Democrats, and the odds of Bloomberg actually winning are small if history is any judge. What delicious irony it will be if we elect another Clinton with something on the order of 41% of the popular vote.

I think I just heard Rush's head explode.

RHETORICAL KEVLAR

As I age, I lose my enthusiasm for having certain arguments. For example, as a pro-choice person the idea of seriously debating abortion with a pro-lifer sounds about as appealing as running my balls down a cheese grater. It redefines "futile." The issue breeds completely intractible and irreconcilable differences of opinion, none of which depend on logic in the slightest. Debating it only serves to go around in circles and piss people off. I hate taking part in something so pointless.

But there is a dilemma. I also hate avoiding such debates, because people of mediocre intelligence walk away from such refusals with the impression that they have achieved victory for their beliefs. So the ideal outcome for the situation, from my perspective, is something that can end the argument quickly and let the other person know that he or she is very, very wrong. It's somewhere between the Holy Grail and bulletproof vest of rhetoric. For instance, feminist bloggers have come up with a pretty terrific way to shut anti-choicers the hell up in a hurry: ask them how much prison time women who get abortions should do once it is illegalized. As you can see, it's amazingly effective.

Such a question offers no safe exit for the Dobson crowd. On one hand, they can stay consistent (if abortion = murder, then they should get somewhere between 25 years and the electric chair) with the understanding that support for their position will immediately plummet to zero. Once we start talking about the reality of criminalized abortion - thousands upon thousands of women going to jail - women suddenly become less enthusiastic about the sanctity of fetal life. On the other hand, they can claim that women shouldn't do any time or that it "depends" on XYZ, which obliterates the "abortion = murder" premise and chops the legs clean off of their argument. If it's murder then how can we rationalize not charging them with murder? Either way, it makes them sound like stammering idiots.

Nice.

To that end, I heartily applaud David Shuster for showing us a similar tactic to stop Congressional Iraq War dead-enders in their tracks. Here's an exchange with Tennessee Rep (and certified moron) Martha Blackburn. As I have cut out some chatter to save space, you can see a full, unedited video here.

Shuster: “Let’s talk about the public trust. You represent, of course, a district in western Tennessee. What was the name of the last solider from your district who was killed in Iraq?”

Blackburn:”The name of the last soldier killed in Iraq uh - from my district I - I do not know his name -”

Shuster: “Ok, his name was Jeremy Bohannon, he was killed August the 9th, 2007. How come you didn’t know the name?”

Blackburn: “I - I, you know, I - I do not know why I did not know the name…” [Snip]

Shuster: “But you weren’t appreciative enough to know the name of this young man, he was 18 years old who was killed, and yet you can say chapter and verse about what’s going on with the New York Times and Move On.org.” [Snip]

Shuster: “But don’t you understand, the problems that a lot of people would have, that you’re so focused on an ad — when was the last time a New York Times ad ever killed somebody? I mean, here we have a war that took the life of an 18 year old kid, Jeremy Bohannon from your district, and you didn’t even know his name.”

Nope, there aren't going to be many McCains and Liebermans in Congress who can answer that one. It's quick and it makes them look like bumbling fools (see video). And that, my friends, is an excellent weapon to have.

NOTHING MAKES ME HORNIER THAN....

I have a generally low opinion of the intelligence of my fellow countrymen, but I also have a sense of humor about it. Nothing, for example, cracks me up quite as much as far, far right-wing rhetoric plagiarized verbatim from the Third Reich. To wit: Have more babies, because the brown people are fuckin' faster than "we" are. The Nazis called it Lebensborn; today in America we call it Focus on the Family.

Among the mental giants who most often flog this argument is John Gibson, who recently got in a little bit of hot water (emphasis on "little," and the water was more tepid than hot) for telling his viewers that if they don't start doing it with their frigid, unstable spouses more frequently, the dirty Mexicans are going to outnumber white people soon. Note that Gibson implicitly understands that all of his viewers are white, and therefore he can address them directly with commands rather than framing his comments in hypotheticals. You also hear this song being sung by people like Pat Buchanan and Mark Steyn, whose America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It proved that it is possible to write a book without ever having read one.

Aside from the moral and logical issues with this argument, let's focus on a more practical flaw. I have put a good amount of serious thought into this, and for the life of me I cannot think of anything that makes me want to have sex less than John Gibson's face. I could be completely horny and ready to conceive a beautiful, pure caucasian baby. I could be in the process of actually having sex. But one look at his pompadour would have me dangling like a windsock in no time. Here. You try it:

Now try to tell me with a straight face that you are in the mood for sex. I may not have a high opinion of the Moral Majority crowd, but I find it hard to believe that they can't understand why John Gibson ordering people to have sex is unlikely to result in more sex. Then again, these are a lot of the same people who idolize Ann Coulter as a sex goddess (I usually don't picture deities looking like bulimic horses, but I digress). So carry on, Christian fearmongering soldiers. Your theory that Pat Buchanan's red, sweaty face is going to make people want to procreate probably just needs a little more time - maybe six more months.

(h/t World-o-Crap)

EPICALLY BAD MOVIES 2 - MAC AND ME

Normally I would not include a children's film on this list - after all, movies intended for little kids are more often than not going to be considered stupid, poorly-acted, and boring by adults. But Mac & Me is special. Sweet baby jesus, is it special.

First (and believe me, this is the least of its sins) the movie is a flat-out plagiarized version of E.T., the blockbuster released just a few years before Mac & Me. The original title of the former was in fact E.T. & Me. Like E.T., Mac & Me is the story of an alien and a young boy ("Mac" is an acronym for "Mysterious alien creature"). Although I have never seen E.T., I am fairly certain that it does not deserve to have been mentioned in the same sentence as this film. My apologies.

Second, Leonard Maltin described this film as "more like a commercial than a movie" for a very good reason. Mac lives solely on Coke and Skittles, each proudly displayed about 100 times in the film. And "Mac" is of course a reference to the McDonald's menu - unsurprising, once you realize that Ronald McDonald is one of the movie's main characters. Not to mention the way the film manages to place its characters in a McDonald's approximately every 5 minutes. This film is a monument to subtlety.

The legendary moment from this film has thankfully been edited and preserved on the interweb. I will let the Wikipedian introduce the clip:

One scene in the film is a large, impromptu dance-off with the main character, MAC the alien (dressed in a teddy bear costume), a football team, Ronald McDonald, and various other people inside and outside of a McDonald's restaurant.

You need to see this. Really. If you're at work, the sound is pretty irrelevant.

If you're wondering how in the world a dance-off between a bunch of black kids, some gay Boston College football players, and an alien in a horrifying teddy bear costume could advance the plot, rest assured that it doesn't. In this film, scenes succeed by merely failing to inhibit the plot rather than actively advancing it. This is a relatively easy task given that there is no plot of which to speak.

Mac & Me is one of those special films that transcend a normal movie-going experience. It's so bizarre, so completely untethered from reality, and so grotesque that it can only be A) the worst film of all time or B) a masterpiece of surrealism. The film's decision to focus on children and Ronald McDonald a lot makes it legitimately disturbing...like Gacy in the clown costume. For 90 minutes.

Fittingly, the movie ends with a freeze-frame and the words "We'll be back!" Thankfully the pitiful box office returns prevented the producers from carrying through on that threat. Apes with Super-8 cameras could make a better film.

FCC DUMBASS QUOTAS

Is there some sort of fairness doctrine on the books covering sheer idiocy? Having already fulfilled its shrill, leathery, right-wing douchebag quota with Elizabeth Hasselbeck,** I'm struggling to see what other reason The View might have to bring Sherri Sheppherd into the fold.

Now, I am not so naive as to expect intellectual excellence from The View. No reasonable individual would tune in expecting to see four philosophes debating Kierkergaard. Nonetheless I believe that there exists, or should exist, some line below which the level shouldn't fall. And on a show featuring the daily wisdom of a mental infant like Hasselbeck, it was hard to imagine how the bar could actually be lowered.

Until yesterday.

After Ms. Sheppherd expressed her belief in creationism, fellow new host Whoopi Goldberg pressed her. Then things got stupid. In a hurry.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Is the world flat?

SHERRI SHEPHERD: Is the world flat? (laughter)

GOLDBERG: Yes.

SHEPHERD: …I Don’t know.

GOLDBERG: What do you think?

SHEPHERD: I… I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it.

BARBARA WALTERS: You’ve never thought about whether the world was round or flat?

SHEPHERD: I tell you what I’ve thought about. How I’m going to feed my child–

WALTERS: Well you can do both.

SHEPERD: …how I’m going to take care of my family. The world, is the world flat has never entered into, like that has not been an important thing to me.

ELIZABETH HASSELBECK: You’ll teach your son, Jeffery, right?

SHEPHERD: If my son, Jeffery, asks me ‘is the world flat,’ I guess I would go…

JOY BEHAR: You know, didn’t some person already work this question out? I mean, why are we doing this again? (laughter, applause)

Let's overlook, for a moment, the most obviously stupid aspect of her comments - i.e., who really knows whether the world is round? Focus instead on how she responds to Walters' question "You've never thought about...round or flat?"

Why, no! I'm a girl, and girls think about what to cook for dinner!

I was not aware that being a mother and/or a stay-home parent was an excuse for being ignorant of basic science. No, strike that. That's not even science. That's just reality. I'm not sure what aspect of this sad, sad debacle is more degrading:

ED VS. LOGICAL FALLACIES, PART 4: GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

Guilt by Association is the "dirty bomb" of rhetorical techniques. Much as imitation nuclear weapons are built only by nations unable to figure out or afford the real ones, guilt by association is the reflexive refuge of people who aren't smart enough to think of a better, more subtle logical fallacy to use. It's cheap, easy, and plays directly into prejudices and stereotypes that pose as legitimate heuristics in the minds of the inattentive public.

Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1951:

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?"

Right-wing shill Howard Kurtz, 2007:

"But you bash the Bush administration so often that you have become a hero to some on the left. I mean, just in this book, in the first few pages, you talk about Bush and company harming America. You call the president deluded and you speak favorably of impeachment. Do you consider yourself a left-winger?"

The times and names change, but the rhetorical tactic is identical - admit that you are a member of some group or category that will allow us to discredit you and question all of your motives. If the media reports something that contradicts what you believe, cite "liberal bias" as evidence that it must be a lie. Most people, of course, don't even know who are the reporters behind the hundreds of daily newspaper/TV items credited to "Associated Press" or "Gannett News Service." But if he or she is a reporter, then obviously he or she is a liberal. All reporters are not merely liberals, they are lying, deceptive liberals out to distort the truth.

Given what a transparently lame argument it is, Guilt by Association is rarely used except by people who are unable to defend their position any other way. Or by really lousy writers. Like James Taranto:

The most telling moment in last night's [State of the Union] speech came after the president noted that "key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year." In response, notes the New York Times, "some critics in Congress applauded enthusiastically." If Osama bin Laden watched the speech, one imagines him applauding too.

If Osama bin Laden likes something and you also like it, you are his comrade and supporter. Just like how Hitler liked gardening and I like gardening, which confirms that I am a rabid Nazi. The ACLU thinks terrorists should be tried with due process, so the ACLU are terrorists. Your professor does not think Reagan was the greatest president of all time, so he is an ivory-tower liberal trying to brainwash you. What excellent, logical reasoning.

I just feel bad for people who use this argument. It usually indicates desperation or, more often, a stunningly superficial capacity for understanding any substantive issue. Sure, we could talk about why the Patriot Act is controversial...but John Doe realizes that if he just labels everyone a Patriot or a Traitor he can get to Trick My Truck that much faster.

TAXONOMY

One cannot watch much televised news these days without being floored by the sheer homogeneity of the kind of dead-enders (a.k.a. 28-percenters) who still loudly proclaim the tremendous successes in Iraq. These people look like a blob of fat, white Play-Doh forced through the same mold a few hundred times. Honestly, it's just one middle-aged or old white guy after another. Sure, there's token diversity (albeit scant) among the punditry - they can trot out "Uncle" Dinesh D'Souza every once in a while if they can knock the AEI's cock out of his mouth for a few seconds - but among the "Sunday talk show" type guests....Jesus. How many times do I have to see Lindsey Graham, Jim DeMint, and John Comryn on Meet the Press? For that matter, can anyone tell those bags of fluid apart? Would their wives notice if we switched them?

Then I read Thomas "Six More Months!" Friedman's latest rant from the New York Times, and I started thinking there is more diversity here than meets the eye. They may all look the same, but there are really two kinds of right-wing chickenhawk.

The first, and far more numerous, kind are the complete pussies. These are guys like Jonah Goldberg, DeMint, Hugh "Man Tits" Hewitt, Dick Cheney, or Michael O'Hanlon. If you drafted and forced them into a combat situation, they could be identified by behavior such as:

Pant-wetting

Numerous draft deferments

Faking injuries to avoid service

Shooting themselves in the foot to get out of duty

Joining something like the Coast Guard Reserve and then spending the rest of their lives bragging about their "wartime service"

This describes about 95% of the chickenhawks we see on the news. They're easy to spot because of their over-the-top bluster and ridiculous masculine grandstanding. They talk a huge game. Huge. They're not just for the war, they're for more wars than anyone else. Iran? Syria? Take your pick, Glenn Reynolds will pound his fist on a desk and proclaim that he's for it. They're locked in a mutual, unspoken struggle with their own kind and constantly feel the need to overcompensate for their tiny dicks by being not just a warmonger but the biggest warmonger.

The second kind of chickenhawk - and this is where Thomas Friedman comes in - are the lunatics. These are the guys who don't quite have the balls to enlist in the military, but if you put them into a war zone they'd be slitting civilians' throats and wearing necklaces made out of ears. These are the kind of guys who bring you things like the My Lai massacre. A guy like Friedman has nowhere near the bluster of his fellow cheerleaders. Just look at his friendly, warm, grandfatherly visage. And his "the sun'll come up tomorrow" outlook on Iraq just proves what an optimist he is at heart.

Yes, those are the warning signs. Put 22 year-old Tommy Friedman in Vietnam or Iraq and he'd be smearing his face with warpaint, talking to his rifle, and spending about 12 hours a day sharpening his knife. Am I being too hard on the Friedman Unit? Re-read that latest op-ed on Iraq. If it's a failure, it's because the Iraqis failed. Whose fault is it? Why, the victims' fault, of course! Refusing to accept responsibility for one's actions and blaming them on the victims are the classic sign of sociopathic behavior. Thomas Friedman and his kind bravely tried to jam democracy down a (colonially-defined non-country) country's throat at gunpoint and, if it didn't work, well then only the Iraqis can be to blame.

BY DEFINITION, SOMEONE MUST WIN

OK, so at the end of a truly awful weekend, I just wrote today's entry and had it disappear into the ether at the hands of a malfunctioning mouse that double-clicks every time I click. To say I nearly propelled it through the wallboard would be an understatement.

The crux of the post was that I have wrapped my brain around the field of presidential nominees a million times and I still can't think of any logical argument regarding who will win the Republican nomination. I'm really just at a loss for words. I had previously developed a logically consistent argument that Fred Thompson would be the front-runner when he declared, but his campaign appears DOA. The neck-breaking yawn with which his announcement was greeted must have been stunning even to his biggest naysayers.

So please, use the comments to make an argument; who in the hell is going to win that thing? I'm out of defensible theories and I'm completely open to suggestion. Don't just tell me who - explain why any of these people could reasonably be considered a favorite over any of the others.

I'll stop making you do all the work on this blog soon, I promise.

Mike: My Last Will and Testament

Hi all. I'm sneaking back on here (shh!) to pimp my new blog No Arts No Letters. Ginandtacos is officially like Three's Company - it has a spinoff site, and this page will be every bit as good as The Roepers. Right now classes are a bitch, so I'll be posting in direct positive proportion to how much work I have to do at any given moment, and how much I want to procrastinate.

I also have to announce that I am declaring myself a winner in an age-old contest Ed and I have been waging. For a long time we've been trying to outdo each other with ideas for absurd wills. It's one of the oldest cliches in books/movies/tv - The Suprise Will! A will that involves a night in a haunted house, leaving a funeral home to a wayward son, taking control of the team if you win the Denslow Cup, etc. etc.

Ed has usually won this contest, thinking of far more absurd and ridiculous requirements to be announced at the reading. But now I have him beat. (Warning: it gets geeky here).

Someone recently told me that there is this company that will take your cremated remains and turn them into jewelry. Yes, you read that correctly. You can get a necklace, a keepsake or a gem created out of the ashes of a loved one who has passed away.

At the reading of my will it will be announced that my remains have been turn into a ring (if this can't be done, a gem on a ring), and that this ring must be carried to an active volcano and destroyed by being thrown into said volcano. A certain Andy S. from Chicago, an old roommate and even bigger LOTR fan than myself, has already agreed to carry the ring around his neck. If we get really old before I pass away (potentially not likely), his nephew will be allowed to carry the burden.

The rest of my life may now become dedicated to making enough money to make this as absurd as possible. I'll have to hire people who will travel with him. I'll also need to pay one member to go nuts and, after failing to convince Andy to take the ring to Iraq (or whatever battleground is the latest in the War on Terror), try to steal The Mike Ring. This will cause Andy to disband the fellowship. I'll need to find some sort of junkie to stalk Andy as he walks to the volcano. And I'll also need to purchase a large spider, and pay handlers in advance to put it near the base of the volcano.

This may or may not surprise you, but I am about excited as humanly possible to get going on this plan. Ed, can you beat this Last Will and Testament?

Allright, hope to see some of you over at the new place, or perhaps on a rss feeder.

ONE-UPSMANSHIP

It's time for another audience participation No Politics Friday (tm).

My last band practice featured a heated* debate regarding the infamous Britney Spears performance at an MTV award show this week. Video of it can be found here (although Viacom is deleting YouTube videos approximately as fast as users can add them, so the link may not last. Just search 2007 VMA.) I strenuously argued, prior to having seen it, that it could not possibly top the 2002 Guns 'n Roses MTV performance in which a fat, cornrowed Axl Rose subjected the world to 5 screeching, off-pitch minutes of his art.

After seeing the Spears video, I see no reason to back down. Watching her lip-sync and look like crap is really nothing new. Note to American men: if you have any Britney-based masturbation fantasies you want to indulge, I'd do it soon if I were you. In another few years her ass is going to resemble the rear of an AMC Gremlin in both size and shape. Axl wins. Or loses. Actually, we all lose just for having watched this.

Anyway, now it's your turn to nominate - with linked videos, please - the most appalling, embarassing live performance by an artist who is at least moderately well-known. I don't watch a lot of TV and I don't pay attention to things like MTV video awards, so there is probably a lot that I am missing. Correct me.

*It wasn't heated at all, but it's inherently pleasing to describe an argument as "heated" in prose.

THE MISADVENTURES OF WEALTHY IDIOTS

While I'm on the subject of awful people, I have both sets of fingers crossed that Steve Fossett is found a few months from now as a bleached skeleton minus a generous number of cougar bites. I'd never kill anyone, but I do read some obituaries with a lot of pleasure.

His latest misadventure is one of the more pedestrian; the private plane he was piloting went down somewhere in the sparse Nevada countryside. There's currently a massive rescue party - 50,000 people - searching for him or his remains. But this man is no stranger to large rescue parties.

Fossett, a multimillionaire commodities trader in his 60s, has busied himself for the past decade by trying to fly hot air balloons around the world solo. He succeeded in 2002, but only after five previous attempts ended in failure. Ordinarily that sort of thing wouldn't bother me. In fact, I think pointless adventuring is pretty cool. But on each of those instances, he went down in a ridiculously remote area of the Pacific and needed to be rescued by the Coast Guard or similar rescue agencies from other nations. You'd be stunned at how much it costs to send the Coast Guard to pluck a stranded balloonist out of the uninhabited void of the oceans. And guess who foots the bill?

Let's put it this way: the current search - in Nevada - has cost over $100,000. Plucking him out of the ocean has run well into the $1 million or more range on multiple occasions. Essentially, Steve Fossett, who has more money than Jesus, has his personal hobbies subsidized by the government. No matter how poorly planned or ill-conceived his schemes may be, he goes off half-cocked on his self-financed adventures and waits for the Coast Guard to rescue him. Not like they have anything better to do with their time or budget.

Fossett is not the only person guilty of such stupidity - the cost of rescuing idiots is starting to cast a pall over normal, intelligent people's enjoyment of the outdoors. For example, because group after group of idiots get stranded on mountains like Hood or Rainier (at the cost of $10,000 or more per rescue) more parks and mountains are starting to require significant deposits or climbing fees. That means that those of us who aren't mentally retarded - you know, the kind who have proper equipment and don't climb into snowstorms - end up paying the price. Not to mention, of course, the strain placed on the budgets of our woefully underfunded outdoor areas.

People make mistakes. Accidents happen. Wilderness rescues are going to be needed. However, a climber breaking his leg on Mount Rainier is a lot different than an exceptionally rich moron making a mistake five times and handing us the bill. Hopefully the state of Nevada will put in a claim on Fossett's estate for the cost of his latest misadventure.

WORST PERSON ON EARTH

With all due respect to Keith Olbermann's daily "Worst Person in the World" feature (and by the way, Keith is taking that "#1 Rated Talk Show on Cable" title Bill O'Reilly loves to wave around) I think that we need to honor the anniversary of 9/11 by talking about how George Tenet is the worst person currently alive.

I have been of the opinion for quite some time that the 9-11 commission report should be required reading for every adult in this country. Those of you who are regulars to G&T are probably not sure why I would so strongly recommend the work of such a slipshod, biased collection of political tap water. When Lee Hamilton is your big-time liberal on the committee, there are some problems with diversity of viewpoint. Let's leave it at that.

No, the report is a must-read because of the incredible depth of research in the first ten chapters. The "recommendations" and pontificating that make up the last three chapters are beyond useless, and it is a waste of your time to read them. Period. But the intricate trail of hundreds of small, related decisions throughout the 90s and the early W years is incredible. It's both enlightening and infuriating to read it closely and understand just how close the law enforcement and intelligence communities came to averting this disaster. It's a litany of red flags ignored, inter-agency pissing contests, and bureaucratic nonsense which culminates in 3000 dead bodies. The depth of the biographies of the perpetrators and descriptions of their movements in the years prior to the attack are almost eerie.

It's very hard to read the report and not come away wanting to punch Tenet in the cock. Chapter 4 describes, in painstaking detail, an equivocating pansy at the head of the CIA who talked Bill Clinton out of terrific opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden - repeatedly. No matter how many aerial photos or how much human intelligence they had, Tenet was just never "100% certain" that bin Laden was where we thought he was. Now, I'm not exactly a let's-project-American-military-might conservative who advocates solving diplomatic problems with cruise missiles. But bin Laden had already been identified as a major threat who was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks against Americans and others. It was clear to everyone, including Bill Clinton and pre-9/11 George W. Bush, that bin Laden was a serious threat who needed to be eliminated. Had Tenet said the word (without being wishy-washy or couching his words in cautionary disclaimers) he would have been killed.

Fast forward to 2003, and Tenet is called upon by another president to offer his assessment of a specific threat. Suddenly the enormous pussy version of Tenet who served Clinton was gone. The new, I-attended-a-Tony-Robbins-seminar version of Tenet was just 100% dead sure about everything. Iraq? Weapons of mass destruction? SLAM DUNK! Oh man, the intelligence on that simply could not have been any more solid! If Tenet was ever certain of anything, it was this! Hell, the bin Laden intelligence (aerial photos showing bin Laden walking into his sleeping quarters in a terrorist training camp) was paper-thin. But for WMDs in Iraq, we had the best, most solid kind of human intelligence that can be found in this lifetime: third-hand reports from Eastern European intelligence agencies and Ahmed Chalabi's word. You can see why he was so much more confident with Iraq.

Worst of all, Tenet recently released a pathetic, self-serving book in an effort to paint himself as some sort of hero throughout all of this. I was only able to get through about 15 pages before the urge to projectile vomit was too strong. It is probably the most nakedly cynical effort to revise one person's role in history since Robert McNamara's "I was such a big opponent of Vietnam" performance in Fog of War.

So thanks and go fuck yourself, George Tenet, for your years of service to your country! There is nothing wrong with you as a person that pancreatic cancer or a horrible one-car accident couldn't fix.

HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS

Shockingly, Saint Petraeus sat before Congress on Monday and talked about how much the situation in Baghdad is improving. I don't know about you, but I didn't see that coming. I thought for sure he was going to tell Congress "God, it's totally fucked up over there, and it gets worse every day." His glowing assessment of the situation is as candid as it is surprising.

He repeated a claim he made last week to the Australian media, namely that "sectarian violence" has fallen by something like 75% since last year. Considering that every other source on the planet reports no change - or perhaps even a slight increase - in civilian deaths, how on Earth did the military come up with a bunch of graphs and statistics showing the exact opposite? It's pretty easy, really. I think this Washington Post piece sums it up nicely. I draw your attention to the following quotes:

Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra(...)those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.

Given that we already know that U.S. military statistics do not count car bombs or Improvised Explosive Devices in their civilian death counts, what Saint Petraeus really said today is simple:

"Well, Congressmen, civilian casualties are plummeting, as long as you don't consider Shiites who kill other Shiites, Sunnis who kill other Sunnis, civilians killed by U.S.-armed violent militias, people killed by car bombs, or people shot in the front of the head as civilian casualties."

And clearly, what reasonable person would consider any of those things to be indicators of violence? I mean, hey, our leaders in Washington are realists! When they say Baghdad needs security, they don't mean there won't be a few truck bombs or death squads here and there. Nothing's perfect, right?

FUCK IT, WHY NOT JUST MAKE HIM THE POPE?

The New York Sun richly deserves its reputation as a 9th-rate fish wrapper of a newspaper. It not only makes the Washington Times and Sean Hannity seem fair and balanced but it doesn't even seem to be in touch with reality among hardcore conservatives. They got (and richly earned, I might add) considerable scorn and mockery when they begged Dick Cheney to throw his hat into the presidential race in 2008. I mean, could they even find 20 Republicans who would think that's a good idea? Cheney doesn't even think it's a good idea.

But they're back at it again. Now it's President Petraeus they seek. This editorial, as ridiculous as it is, illustrates two trends very well.

1. The Petraeus worship is really reaching a crescendo just before his "eagerly-awaited" testimony before Congress (likely to be held on 9/11...excuse me, I may have just aspirated my own vomit). What role can't Saint David fill! Pope? Supreme Court justice? Supreme Allied Commander in Western Europe? He's literally the greatest and most honest person who ever lived...so when he says the Surge of Bullshit is working, why, we'd better believe him! Never mind that he's already admitted that it hasn't changed a goddamn thing. I wonder if he'll repeat that quote before Congress this week.

2. Is the GOP presidential field pathetic or what? It speaks very, very poorly of the candidates' ability to excite even the conservative base (let alone the rest of the country) that the right-wing talk-o-sphere is still throwing out additional candidates. They've got eleven people who have either formally declared or put out feelers (Gingrich) and they're still looking for someone to ride in on a white horse and save them. And. AND. This is less than a week after Knight in Shining Armor #1 - Fred Thompson - declared. Boy, they got sick of him in a hurry. When one has the choice of 11 candidates and still can't find one good enough to preclude wistful thoughts of new candidates joining the fray, it's safe to say that trouble's a-brewin'.

EPICALLY BAD MOVIES 1 - BATTLEFIELD:EARTH

I like bad movies. They fascinate me. But I like unbelievably bad movies, movies that actually hurt to sit through. Some movies are passively bad (X-Men 3, Maid in Manhattan, Ghost Rider, etc). They're just boring, dumb, poorly acted, and so on. I like movies that are aggressively bad. They're so bad it's actually shocking, and they inspire reactions like "My God, what were they thinking?" In an effort to lighten things up around here, I'm going to share some of my favorites with you - films that blast through the "awful" barrier with such force that they come full circle back to "entertaining."

So. Battlefield:Earth. I firmly believe that every man, woman, and child on the planet should watch this film. It simply needs to be seen to be believed. And if I can get everyone to watch it, it will greatly reduce the chance that such a mistake could happen again. It took me three tries to make it through this film. Honest to God. It is physically difficult to watch.

Battlefield:Earth is based on an L. Ron Hubbard novel. As if that wasn't enough to doom it to the "shit" pile, it stars (and was bankrolled by) Hubbard spawn John Travolta. A friend once asked me what made this film so exceptionally bad - what was wrong with it? The short answer is everything. Everything is wrong with it.

Start with a movie about 9-foot tall aliens called 'Psychlos' and their plucky, enslaved human charges. Add the worst special effects this side of Stargate SG-1 and high school play-quality costumes. Spice liberally with ridiculous, nonsensical plot and a script that sounds like it was written in Urdu and translated into English with a free online translator. Have all the characters act and make decisions like they are recovering from a series of massive strokes. Top it off with jerking, headache-inducing cinematography. Watch until nauseous.

Barry Pepper (who, along with Forest Whitaker, I simply pity throughout this trainwreck) stars as the ringleader of the humans. He is the optimistic one who will show his downtrodden bretheren how to rise up and defeat their Psychlo captors. By the end of the film, he succeeds. I have kept the plot summary brief simply because most of what goes on within that framework is so idiotic that it actually makes one forget what the movie is about.

I will share only one scene, one that captures everything that is stunning and inimitable about this film. Psychlo leader Terl (Travolta) is trying to educate the pluckiest human Johnny Goodboy Tyler (Pepper) in the Psychlo language to make him an effective manservant. He decides that the best way to motivate the dirty, starved human is to tempt it with the promise of delicious food. Unfortunately, Psychlos do not know what humans like to eat. So he decides that the best way to figure it out....is to let all the humans escape and use a hidden camera (secreted in the button of Pepper's shirt) to see what they eat. As my movie-watching companion exclaimed, "That's the worst plan I've ever heard." Anyway, the escaped, starving humans end up eating rats in desperation - leading the Psychlos to think that humans like rats! Hilarity ensues! The icing on the cake is when Pepper discovers, and destroys, the hidden camera. Forest Whitaker leaps to his feet and exclaims "MY GOD, THEY FIGURED OUT THE BUTTON CAM!"

Yep. I find it hard to believe that this film could have been made by members of the same species as me. It just boggles the mind. I'd like to say that was the worst part of the film, but about 20 minutes later some illiterate, loincloth-clad cave men were flying Harrier jets. In the context of everything wrong with this movie, such unbelievable nonsense barely even registered at the time.

See this movie. It is, in the literal sense of the term, amazing. I promise you will be amazed by it.

BROKEN ARROW

A (very) loose acquaintance chided me for being an alarmist yesterday. I expressed outrage over the revelation that a B-52 laden with nuclear weapons (which the Air Force admits it lost) flew its cargo a few thousand miles over the American mainland. The individual lectured me on the exceptionally slight odds of any harm resulting from such an act.

Ten years ago, I probably would have punched him. Instead I punched him with facts.

Believe it or not, accidents and near-misses involving nuclear weapons are not just the stuff of bad John Travolta movies. Why, one might even get a little nervous upon realizing just how many American nuclear weapons are lying around and waiting to be discovered by eager treasure hunters. There's one immediately off the coast of Savannah, GA. Another sits in a roped-off and completely unguarded patch of land near Goldsboro, NC. And in the Puget Sound just outside Seattle since 1959. If you're overseas, there's one very near the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Palomares, Spain is still crackling with radioactivity thanks to four lost hydrogen bombs nearly 50 years ago (two of which helpfully exploded and showered the area in plutonium). And there are a couple more somewhere in the Mediterranean - we don't even really know where! - from a bomber that disappeared without a trace in 1956. Come to think of it, the list of nuclear weapons lost, unaccounted for, or involved in accidents over land is about as long as my arm. I could go on and on, but you can read. From Thule, Greenland to Hardinsburg, KY, the tangible legacy of incompetence is everywhere.

Just think. That long, long list covers only the incidents they've actually revealed to the public (it mysteriously peters out in the late 1960s). So in reality there are probably many more. Given that we can safely assume that the Soviets had at least as many "mishaps," the enterprising terrorist wouldn't have to spend much time online to scout some nice treasure-hunting locales. Oh, and don't forget France and the UK, both of which tote large nuclear arsenals about in accident-prone submarines. But why bother searching for bombs in the ocean when the Soviets left Siberia littered with unguarded, nuclear-powered lighthouses in which they've long since lost interest in maintaining? If terrorists discover the science of winter coats, there's fissile material a'plenty up north! Fortunately there are no Muslim terrorists in Russia today. I think.

So if you're wondering how in the hell the military "lost" 6 hydrogen bombs, rest assured it happens all the time. Given that they actually found these, in the comparative light of history this week's incident looks like a stunning display of competence.

THE PITCHER PLANT

On the heels of yesterday's post about loose credit as a substitute for increases in real income, I'm going to devote today to another fun credit-related topic.

So I'm guessing most of you have a credit card. Those of you who are particularly astute might know the APR on said card. In today's English it should be in the neighborhood of 18% for a "benefits" card (something offering frequent flyer miles, cash rebates, etc) and less for a no-fee, no-benefits deal.

The small percentage of you who actually read the "Terms and Conditions" pamphlet that accompanied your card know that there is also a "Default APR." Regardless of how large or small your card's standard APR happens to be, the Default APR is astronomical - something like 35%. I'm sure you don't worry about the Default rate, because it only applies to people whose accounts go into default. To do so requires several consecutive months (usually 2 or 3) without making payment. But you're conscientious, so that would never happen to you.

Now raise your hand if you've ever heard the phrase "Universal Default." Anyone? Well, let Uncle Ed tell you a story. Universal Default is a provision in your credit card terms which allows the lender to set your account to the default APR if you go into default on any loan to which you are a party. For example, you have a credit card from Citibank. Your account is in good standing. You fail to make several car payments, putting your auto loan (from a different bank) in default. Citibank jacks up your rate to 35%. Pretty simple, no?

In my old line of work (medical collections), Universal Default struck me as just about the most unethical, disgusting practice on the face of the Earth. Case after case looked the same. John Doe has no health insurance. John Doe gets in an accident and runs up a $15,000 hospital bill. He defaults on the hospital bill because, lo and behold, he doesn't have $15,000 lying around. Credit card companies respond by breaking it off in his ass. That's perhaps the worst part about UD - it can happen really, really quickly and it exists solely to take people who are drowning in debt and dunk them under the water until the bubbles stop rising.

And you wonder why it's now possible to trade bankruptcy futures.

Our lending industry reminds me of one of those carnivorous pitcher plants. The fly lands on the edge, sticks one foot on the inside, and finds itself irreversably sliding into the acid bath that lies beyond the sweet-smelling lures. Most people who end up getting crushed by debt aren't the caricature portrayed in the media - infantile people going on wild mall spending sprees. Instead, they're people with decent credit, stagnant wages, and an unhealthy reliance on short-term lending to maintain the facade of a middle-class lifestyle. They live on the brink, and if one small thing goes wrong - divorce, layoff, reduced income, medical bill, etc - the credit industry responds with both barrels.

We're a society floating on an ocean of debt, which is to say a society controlled by fear. Sure, we could let real wages grow, but it's so much better to let people charge it and live in fear of falling behind on their minimum payments. Boy, it's amazing how little workers complain about holding two jobs, unsafe working conditions, low salaries, outsourcing, layoffs, and nonexistent benefits when they're desperate and terrified! And sure, we could have free public college education in this country. But without mountains of student loan debt, however will we scare the newest members of the workforce into subservience? What a neat system....pay them little enough to make them borrow enough to keep them in constant fear of falling into the pitcher.

Sweet.

POPULISM, G.O.P. STYLE

I am probably not the most qualified person to comment on this issue, but I have been deriving a significant amount of amusement from the Bush administration's recent comments about addressing the subprime mortgage meltdown. Check out this WSJ piece, which is laden with right-wing comedy clips. My favorite:

"The president wants to see as many homeowners who can stay in their homes with a little help be able to stay in their homes," a senior administration official said. "We're not looking for an industry bailout or a Wall Street bailout. The focus here is on the homeowner."

Translation: good God almighty, is this ever a bailout.

This talk about "helping people stay in their homes" is about as convincing as those "consumer credit counseling" agencies you see advertising on late-night TV (all of which are fronts for credit card companies, if you weren't aware). Such efforts to "help" debtors, mostly people who shouldn't have been issued loans in the first place, is a transparent ploy to keep people out of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy costs the financial industry a lot of money. "Refinancing" to slightly-lower usurious rates of interest costs pennies in comparison.

I always (perhaps unfairly) picture Wall Street, banks, and the credit industry to be populated entirely with Cato Institute market-worshipping types, and therefore the irony of the myriad government efforts to indirectly support the industries' poor lending decisions is even more hilarious. It's a nice little symbiotic relationship. In the future, textbooks will laud the beauty of this scheme.

AND THE SHEEP TREMBLE

Mark Twain liked to say that non-fiction writing was more humorous than fiction because the latter, but not the former, is constrained by plausibility. Accordingly, if I were to sit down and write a fictional skit about a fearmongering neocon letting his imagination run wild, it would never be as funny as this:

The Nevada Republican (Congressman Jon Porter), who returned Tuesday from his fourth trip to Iraq, met with U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Iraqi Deputy President Tariq al-Hashimi and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.

“To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave,” Porter said Wednesday in a phone interview from Las Vegas.

And....your dog would die...and...they'll stop making that flavor of Mountain Dew that you really like....and....you'll gain 20 pounds...and...Sadaam Hussein will come to your house and sodomize you. See? If a fiction writer made up Porter's comments and attributed them to a Congressman, it wouldn't be plausible; they're so fucking stupid that the average reader would consider them inauthentic. The story's claim to realism would be mortally wounded. So, not to get all philosophical or anything, Porter's comments actually had to happen in order to be considered plausible words from the mouth of a Congressman. Plausibility usually precedes an event, but I suppose all rules are made for breaking.

So are you effectively terrified and submissive yet, America? You don't like genocide, do you? And just imagine how badly $9 gasoline will decimate your pocketbook. I guess we better not leave Iraq after all! I mean, Porter "heard" this (although a great argument can be made for suggesting that he fabricated the story entirely) from luminaries like General Saint Petraeus himself and Iraqi "Deputy President" Tariq al-Hashimi. If any two individuals on the planet have complete, total clairvoyance regarding future gasoline prices at the pump, it's those guys.

While all of Porter's claims are idiotic, I'm particularly stuck on the "eight or nine bucks a gallon" part. He is apparently rolling the dice that 99% of America is too stupid to remember that the exact same argument, word for word, was used in 1990. If we don't push Sadaam out of Kuwait, we'll be paying out the nose for gas! Never mind that such an argument makes absolutely no logical sense and the arrived-upon price ("eight or nine" dollars) is pulled, with tremendous care, directly out of Jon Porter's ass.

Second, although I am convinced that Porter fabricated this quote (or at least the dollar amount), let us briefly enter the alternate reality in which it is true. We wake up tomorrow and gas is $9. A novel, alternate solution to such a problem would have been to take the half-trillion dollars we've pissed away in Iraq, divide it equally among the ~230 million Americans of driving age, and send them all a check for $2174. That would buy each of them 241.5 gallons of gas, sufficient for 4830 miles of driving in a 20mpg vehicle.

The preceding paragraph is, of course, fiction. Which is why it is implausible. The actual "solution" - war and bloody, pointless occupation - had to happen to be conceivable.