"Dreams of Space" is a swell collection of covers and illistrations from childrens' books about space exploration from the beginning of the 20th Century to the mid 1970s.
Late night comic and Indiana David Letterman was forced to call for help when he discovered a big bear rummaging around in his kitchen. Letterman said that at first he thought the noises were simply someone making him breakfast.
This morning's Washington Post took a look at the specifics of Bush's Iraq funding requests, and some of the line items (A $54 million computer study for the Iraqi postal service) have even Republicans up in arms.
Atrios has been going to town on Imitate Bill O'Reilly Day. Start here and read down.
It took the better part of 20 years to rebuild the Army from the wreckage of Vietnam. With the hard work of a generation of young officers, blooded in Vietnam and determined that the mistake would never be repeated, a new Army rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, now perhaps the finest Army in history.
In just over two years, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides have done just about everything they could to destroy that Army.
Just another unpatriotic liberal media type giving aid and comfort to the enemy, right? Well, Galloway, as Billmon points out, won the Bronze Star as a civilian correspondent in Vietnam for saving several soldiers under fire. In short, he's not only a real journalist, he's a real hero, and Limbaugh and his pasty chickenhawk cronies aren't fit to polish Galloway's shoes.
Remember the Iraqi drones of mass destruction? It turns out that -- surprise, surprise! -- some analysts hotly disputed that they were meant as WMD dispersal units, pointing out that they had freakin' camera mounts! Anyway, it turns out that -- again, surprise, surprise! -- the drones were apparently intended for surveillance after all.
And speaking of prewar fibs, Bush and Powell are trying to explain Powell's 2001 claim that the sanctions had effectively shut down Saddam's weapons programs.
The New York Times blasts the Bush Administration for keeping the President shielded from protestors while inviting his supporters close. The Bush Co.'s lame "security" argument stinks on ice. Here's a hint, bright guys: Anyone who wanted to take a whack at Bush would simply carry a supporting banner.
TalkLeft reports the happy news that TIA has apparently had the final nails driven into its coffin.
Mark Kleiman points out that the cherished conservative myth of Clinton being offered bin Laden by the Sudan is, well, about as factual as most cherished conservative myths.
I haven't blogged enough about the problems with electroning voting machines, but Seeing The Forest is the go-to guy on that issue. Salon recently ran a good interview with the proprietor of Blackboxvoting.com, and the story has been getting some attention in the big media as well. Meanwhile, CalPundit recently noted that Diebold tried to shut down Blackboxvoting.com, not exactly the move of a company with full confidence in the (ahem) integrity of its product. My take: Electronic voting machines simply must provide a hard copy backup, period. That's so elementary a step to ensure accuracy -- especially in the case of a disputed recount -- that its absence is highly suspect. The fact remains that without a paper backup, the only way of checking the vote is to simply have the machine re-report; if the count is flawed in any way, there's no recourse. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Speaking of WKRP in Cincinati, I should mention in the interests of full disclosure that I had a powerful crush on the exquisite Jan Smithers, who played Bailey Quarters on the show.
Here's a fan page that's as rabidly devoted as befits the lovely Ms. Smithers.
Update: Reader Mike T. writes that I should have pointed out that the Jan Smithers fan page has (rather loud) embedded music. Take appropriate caution.
This development is shameful to note the week in which WKRP in Cincinnati star Gordon Jump passed away, but it seems that even if you're lucky enough to enjoy reruns of that awesome show, you're probably hearing a redacted version. It seems that liscensing issues have cause much of the classic rock music featured on the show to be replaced with generic tuneage. I never particularly noticed back when Nick at Nite was airing reruns, but it sux0rz all the same.
[I]n the last few years, a new package of "WKRP" episodes has been distributed, and much of the music has been replaced by generic instrumental music from a music library, or by sound-alike "fake" songs. Also, some of the dialogue has been redubbed by voice impersonators, usually when the actors were speaking over the music, but sometimes to remove references to songs that have been replaced.
...WHY WAS THE MUSIC REPLACED? The simple answer is: Money. The reason WKRP was shot on videotape (unlike the other MTM sitcoms like "Bob Newhart" and "Mary Tyler Moore," which were on film) was that it was the only way they could afford to use a lot of real rock songs on the show. At the time, ASCAP had a different licensing arrangement for taped shows than for filmed shows; licensing the music for WKRP cost something like half of what it would have cost had it been filmed.
Well, the music licenses expired by the time the show was being prepared for re-distribution in the mid-'90s, and by then ASCAP no longer had a "discount" for videotaped shows. Also by then, the cost of licensing songs had skyrocketed across the board. So it would have been prohibitively expensive for the distributor to re-license all the songs used on the show. They certainly could have done a better job of replacing the songs they couldn't pay for, but it was inevitable that some of the songs would be gone due to rising costs, and that's all there is to it.
Great googly moogly! According to the Website, they even replaced all the references to the Elton John song "Tiny Dancer," including the classic capper line "Hold me closer, tiny dancer" from "The Americanization of Ivan," one of the show's best episodes ever! Yaargh!
(via The Modulator and BoingBoing, which passes along this comment: "[I]instead of getting some money, they succeed in getting no money." Indeed.)
I've tweaked the style sheet to increase the font size by a point. In my opinion, doing so improves the look and makes the text easier to read. I welcome any comments.
Man, Entertainment Weekly sux0rz. Sure, you knew that, but this is simply outrageous: The magazine conducted an interview in which the subject admitted off the record that he's gay. The reporter decided that such an admission was simply too good to honor the pledge of secrecy, and went ahead and printed it, outing both the interview subject and his partner.
This behavior by a so-called professional journalist is outrageous and simply inexcusable. There is absolutely no way to condone a reporter deliberately breaking an "off the record" pledge. The reporter involved should be fired forthwith and never be trusted with such responsibility again.
Holy cow. According to the BBC, prosecutors have moved to drop charges against alleged "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. The Beeb speculates that the maneuver is an end-run against the admitted al Qaeda member's attempt to call other terrorists currently in custody as witnesses.
Correspondents say the extraordinary request by prosecutors is a legal manoeuvre, designed to stop Mr Moussaoui's access to high-level al-Qaeda suspects being interrogated in secret locations by the US military.
...The BBC's Ian Pannell, in Washington, said that what government lawyers have now suggested is a clever legal move. They have called on the judge to throw the case out.
It would not mean that Moussaoui would be released from custody; instead, prosecutors would then go straight to a higher court and appeal the dismissal and crucially, the original ruling that Mr Moussaoui should get access to the al-Qaeda detainees.
But analyst Phil Carter, referring to Washington Post reportage of these developments, believes the move is a precursor to pulling Moussaoui from the civilian justice system and dump him into Guantanamo, where he won't enjoy any such legal niceties.
[T]he real question is political: does the White House have the political capital (not to mention the chutzpah) to put a person in front of a military tribunal, given the heat they have taken for these trials and other issues (e.g. the USA PATRIOT Act). I don't think the White House wants that kind of lightning rod to be planted on its front lawn at this juncture (wouldn't be prudent). In fact, I think the likely fate for Mr. Moussaoui will be that of Mr. Hamdi and Mr. Padilla. An order will be signed designating him an enemy combatant, and that will be the end of it.
If this speculation proves true, I would echo Uncle Fester's comment about this apparent debacle:
This is a horrendous policy and political failure. This was supposed to be a case where we exhibited to the world that the American justice system works even in the face of a difficult case. We have strong suspicians and a direct confirmation from the defendent that he was a member of Al-Quaeda and was engaged in a conspiracy against the United States that if it was successfully carried out would have caused deaths. However the question is the matter of was Moussaoui involved in 9/11 and on that Ashcraft and the Justice Department took what was a strong case on other charges and tried to make it a political show trial. Now it is a farce.
I take no pleasure at all in this sorry development. In many areas of the War on Terror, and this one in particular, I genuinely hope the Bush Administration would succeed. While the War on Terror certainly has a military component, it's best prosecuted by denying these thugs political legitimacy and treating them as the criminals they are -- getting the goods on them through careful intelligence, and then hauling them into court and then into jail. As Uncle Fester observe, this case was supposed to show the world that the United States could win even when it plays by the rules and the terrorists don't. A tacit admission of failure will be a tremendous blow to our efforts in the struggle against terrorism.
Well-dressed rocker Robert Palmer has died of a heart attack at the age of 54. As a member of the MTV generation -- that is, back when MTV actually played music -- I was on hand for Palmer's rise to stardom as a solo act and the frontman for The Power Station.
I have two posts over at Destroy All Monsters in which I discuss aspects of the strategy revealed by some of Microsoft's recent announcements regarding its Xbox platform.
John Scalzi has a must-read post on Bush's pervasive dishonesty. It's too good to quote, but I will anyway:
The Bush administration is really the first presidential administration to wholeheartedly embrace the talk radio concept that truth should not get in the way of the larger picture of absolute victory, however that victory may be defined. Other presidential administrations have lied, of course. They all lie. And some lie really, really big -- look at Nixon. But at the very least Nixon and his cronies lied because the alternative was jail time. Members of the Bush administration appear to lie because it doesn't occur to them that they might simply tell the truth. Or to put it another way, they don't appear to affirmatively decide to lie; rather they appear to have to affirmatively decide not to lie.
...This administration is not working from the same baseline reality as I am, or which I suspect most of us are. As a consequence, not only don't I think this administration believes what its doing is best for most Americans, I sincerely doubt it cares about most Americans at all. This isn't a Republican or Democrat thing, a Liberal or Conservative thing. It is a truth or lie thing. This administration doesn't care to default to the truth. Therefore I cannot believe it is telling the truth. Therefore I cannot trust its motives or its goals.
And I hate that. I don't mind that I disagree with my government. But I hate that I don't trust it. I hate the fact that whenever I see my president (because he is my president) I immediately brace myself for a lie. I hate that whenever I see a member of my president's administration open his or her mouth, I assume what comes out is prevarication. I hate that when I see this administration promote any program or action I happen to agree with, my first inclination is to wince and wonder how its going to be twisted to benefit of a select few and a select few goals, at the expense of the rest of us. I hate that for the first time in my adult life, I believe that my government looks at me -- and too many of my fellow citizens -- with something akin to contempt, and the intimation that our job is not to be partners in the stewardship of our country but to be ruled.
But please, read the whole thing. Powerful, sorrowful and angry stuff. Scalzi's observations are spot-on in my view.
I commented on the discussion thread:
The current spiel within the Mighty Wurlitzer is that Bush's critics "hate" him, as if they take as much joy in their vitriol as those on the Right evidently do. I think you speak for me and many others when you describe how absolutely heartsick it makes one to realize that the President is not only much more of a liar than we'd supposed, but that his entire philosophy seems to be built around a sense of entitlement to rule -- a spot-on observation that I'm sure Antonin Scalia would endorse.
I see -- and saw -- dishonesty in everything Bush does because by now it should be obvious -- and more so with each passing day -- that that's exactly the way Bush operates.
I might also add that if Bush's so-called "small government" ideas are so wonderful, he should just propose them outright and let the chips fall where they may. He has control of the White House and Congress, so if he really wants to reduce the size of government, he should just do so, without all the "subtlety" of bankrupting the country first. Of course, he couldn't, and you know well why: Because he'd have to cut those entitlement programs conservatives hate but the voting public loves. So -- as you observe -- he tries to sneak through that agenda by proposing ruinous deficits, and lying about both their costs and benefits to achieve them (a pattern repeatred in the runup to Operation Inigo Montoya, I might add).
The fact that Bush evidently has to lie to get his policies through gives me a pretty good idea of his assesment of their popularity. Bush's failure to do submit his agenda to the approval of the voters is just a mark of his political and moral cowardice. And, as Scalzi said, ample evidence that for all the conservative yammering about the "libveral elite," it's Bush and his cronies who believe that America is theirs to rule, not govern. Shameful.
