Brokeback
by tristero
An while you’re at the NY Review of Books (NOT the Times Book Review), check out, among other great pieces, Thomas Powers’ review of James Risen’s book, “State of War.”
"what digby sez..."
Brokeback
by tristero
An while you’re at the NY Review of Books (NOT the Times Book Review), check out, among other great pieces, Thomas Powers’ review of James Risen’s book, “State of War.”
Why The Fight Against IDiocy Matters
by tristero
It always amazes me when a practicing scientist and nobody’s fool thinks “intelligent design” creationism is not his or her problem:
Our energy is misdirected if we fight harmless beliefs in angels or intelligent design. There are antiscientific illusions with far more serious repercussions for society. Among these are the continuing belief in ballistic missile defense; or an irrational fear of terrorism when alcohol, automobiles or suicide pose much greater risks. On these fronts, you will find practicing scientists engaged.
The front against creationism is fought mostly by science philosophers, because intelligent design is fodder for their discipline, and by science educators, because creationism infringes on their professional activity.
He makes some good points, but he is utterly wrong.
The reason is this: although I can see how someone might develop an argument that, say, fear of terrorism is irrational, I disagree. At the very least, it’s quite arguable whether a substantial level of fear of terrorism once your town has lost some 3000 citizens in a single day is rational or not. The comparison of terrorism stats with alcohol deaths, et al is specious – for many reasons, this seems apples to oranges to me.
Reasonable people cannot disagree about “intelligent design” creationism. It’s garbage, the same way Star Wars is garbage. But it is not a harmless folk belief. Far from it.
ID is a carefully crafted strategy, extravagantly funded by the most extreme elements of the religious far right, to undermine science. Destroying science is but one front in an openly declared struggle to replace the American republic with a theocracy.*
And indeed, to drive the point home as to how important it is for scientists to combat fake science of the IDiotic variety Atrios points to an article with excerpts from a memo that actually circulated within NASA. There is much that is distressing in this article, but it is this part I want to focus on here:
The Big Bang memo came from Mr. Deutsch, a 24-year-old presidential appointee in the press office at NASA headquarters whose résumé says he was an intern in the “war room” of the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. A 2003 journalism graduate of Texas A&M, he was also the public-affairs officer who sought more control over Dr. Hansen’s public statements.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word “theory” needed to be added after every mention of the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion,” Mr. Deutsch wrote, adding, “It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator.”
It continued: “This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue. And I would hate to think that young people would only be getting one-half of this debate from NASA.
Get it? This fight is not about what kids learn in high school. This is a knockdown drag out fight – no, this is a culture war – in which the extreme right is trying to re-define science as just one more set of religious doctrines. This crap about the Big Bang, discussed in all seriousness in a government document!, comes from the the wackiest fringes of religious fundamentalism, people who think all of particle physics is a lie and what constitutes the universe are not quarks, electrons, protons, neutrons, and so on, but Jesus. I kid you not. This bizarre comic strip is not a parody.
Ominously, the notion that somehow science is just one more set of equally believable opinions about the world, no different than say, astrology, has just been made legitimate in the Times Book Review:
neo-Darwinists [sic] emphasize natural selection, a god-like mechanism
This is so utterly wrong I’m at a loss for words. The reviewer not only doesn’t know a damn thing about modern evolutionary science. He doesn’t even know basic theology.
Thomas Aquinas hedged his bets, saying that astrology might have a deterministic interpretation when applied to people in large populations, but that individuals, in communion with God, are freed from the bondage of the group. This aptly parallels the relationship between Newtonian mechanics
It does not.
quantum physics, in which individual particles are allowed the luxury of free will.
This is bullshit, even in an informal sense, even in an attempt at wit.
Popular astrology, with its simplistic emphasis on sun signs and their psychological traits (e.g., Geminis are fickle; Virgos are meticulous), is a wan replica of traditional astrology.
Bullshit. “Traditional astrology” in terms of accuracy and validity is just as bogus and arbitrary as “popular astrology.” There are just more levels of bogosity.
But astrology can also be seen as early science, an attempt to understand nature.
Bullshit. That would mean that any and all creation myths or crystal ball gazing are just crude, early forms of science. This entirely misrepresents what science actually is, and how it differs from creation myths and crystal ball gazing.
Modern man can choose from a veritable smorgasbord of Type 1 errors: string theory, neo-Darwinism, cosmology, economics, God. Astrology is as good as any…
Bullshit. This reviewer doesn’t know the first thing about any of the topics in his list.
There has been a great deal written about the faked memoirs of James Frey. The Times itself has printed editorials deploring the author. But somehow, a genuine peabrain who hasn’t met a fact or an idea that he can’t scramble beyond any recognition – is he, perhaps, this guy using a pseudonym? – was permitted to review in the Book Review, and the paper published it without bothering to run it past a single scientifically literate person who would immediately spot the omnipresent fraudulence.
*I have documented every single assertion, and every single adjective within these assertions far too often to repeat them. Anyone seriously interested in the details is welcome to pick up Forrest and Cross’s “Creationism’s Trojan Horse” which goes into enough detail for most laypeople. Any comments attempting to excuse or advocate for the “worth” of “intelligent design” creationism will be ignored by me in the comments. Even before Dover, that was not an argument intellectually honest people could make with a straight face. After Dover, there are no excuses to give it the time of day.
[UPDATE: Mark in SanFran over at Kos] fills in some details of the science, and some background information on the reviewer of the astrology book.]
Michael Berube Is Professor Keef
by tristero
It’s now official. There’s no point in denying the rumors any longer; we knew they were true long ago. Our very own Michael Berube is none other than the Keith Richards of Academe. Congratulations, Michael! No false modesty now, you’ve earned it. You deserve the title. I hold my lighter to the sky in your praise.
Who sez Berube’s Herr Professor Keith, the inimitable virtuoso of chalk in Open G? No greater an authority than David Horowitz does. Yes, THAT David Horowitz (and I’ll be fried in Crisco before I’ll give him a link). David says so in his new book called The Professors, listing the 101 most dangerous college profs in America.
Close that slack jaw, buster. It’s real, I saw it with my own eyes last night in a store (didn’t buy it, natch). Think I could make something like that up? No one in their right mind could begin to imagine a book about academics that endanger America with their ideas. (Um…Better move right along before anyone notices…)
And in said tome, betwixt pages 71 and 73, we can learn all about the evil Berube, his darkest, his grooviest, his most Keith-iest transgressions:
1. How he supported the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban but then relapsed into standard leftist opposition to war when it came to Iraq.
2. How he teaches a class in creepy postmodernistical deconstructionalistical what-have-you, during which Berube makes the case that sane laws and ethics devolve from people and not from attempts to discern the commands of a divine, supra-human will. Never you mind that sounds a lot like the argumentation in the Declaration of Independence. David Horowitz says this is evil. And David knows a lot about evil. (eh… well, as I was sayin’)
3. Michael Berube dilates in class. That’s right, it’s there in black and white in David’s book, look it up. Michael Berube dilates in class.
Who knew? In fact, I’ve met Prof. Berube twice for dinner and concerts and I never guessed. Again and again, I stared straight into the eyes of one of the most dangerous professors in America. He stared back. I stared. He stared. We both stared. I could swear he never dilated. Not once.
Now, you might ask, “Did he ever get up, excuse himself, and say, ‘I’ll be right back, gotta dilate’ ” ? He did not.
The closest I came to seeing anything remotely like dilating occurred just after dinner. Professor Evil, with a sideways glance worthy of Cary Grant in Notorious, reached into his sports jacket and pulled out a dangerous looking metallic device, flicked it open with a wrist motion that bespoke hundreds of hours of intensive practice, mashed a few buttons and then muttered some cryptic words into it that sounded suspiciously like, “Hey, howru? Jamie ok?”
But everyone knows that’s “dialating” and Horowitz was quite specific. Berube dilates. Daily. And in class, no less.
So it’s official, Michael Berube is fookin’ dangerous. And, just as Keith is proud of his reputation as the Bad Boy of Rock, Michael, too, should take this as a badge of honor. I’m thrilled to know one of the most dangerous men in the country. Let me say it ever so loud and proud. I want the world to know:
I stand completely behind Michael Berube.
(Obviously. Because if I stood anywhere else, who knows what I might get hit with when he dilates?)
Will there be an award? Will Michael unite with his old band at the ceremony, will the songs sound as fresh as the day they prematurely split, and will they reunite for one last tour of triumph, selling out Albert Hall and the Garden? Stay tuned.
PS As mentioned, I didn’t buy the book and I didn’t have much time. So, perhaps there are more of my buddies listed, both in the blogosphere and in MeatLand. To all of you, my heartfelt congratulations.
Ripping Them Off Again
by digby
Just in case you missed this Diary over at Kos earlier this week, I urge you to read it. Mary Beth Williams of Wampum has put together a series of posts outlining a whole other dimension of the Abramoff scandal, namely his involvement in running a slush fund to obstruct an accounting of the Bureau of Indian Affairs — an accounting ordered by the federal court in the biggest class action suit in American history.
The story is complicated and amazingly disgusting. Apparently, there is just no limit to how often and how thoroughly this country can fuck over the Indians.
Here is a post at Wampum with links to all the posts Marybeth has done on this subject. This is fascinating, amazing work. If the fine folks at Wampum didn’t take themselves out of the running for the Koufaxes, this would be a major contender for best series.
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Stickin’ It To DeLay
by digby
I’m sure all of you already know about the Ciro Rodriguez race down in Texas that the luminaries of the blogosphere are backing. He sounds like a perfect netroots candidate and there could be nothing more thrilling than ousting a preznit Bush kissing Democratic shill.
I think that one of the underdiscussed reasons for supporting this, however, is to stick it to Tom Delay and his scumbag lackeys in the Texas legislature who resdistricted in 2002, (something with which Kos reports today the quisling Cuellar was personally involved.) Delay himself, in what may well be remembered as one of the greatest acts of hubris in American political history, redistricted himself out of a very safe majority and may just go down because of it.
I had great admiration for the Texas Dems’ true grit when they left the state to avoid a quorum. (I wrote about it here, in one of my early tributes to Lord Saletan’s sniffing condescension about partisanship)Those guys and gals had some guts to do what they did and I salute them for it. It would be beautiful poetic justice if we were able to take back a couple of those seats — especially the seat of a “Democrat” whose sole function in life is to give Junior bipartisan cover.
Update: From Crooks and Liars
Delay: This effort is being driven by the left wing groups like Common Cause, Democracy 21, the ACLU and others…their ultimate goal is public financing of campaigns and total isolation of elected officials.”
And don’t forget the ultra-left wing center of the vast Left Wing Conspiracy: the Bush Justice department.
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Lovely Rita
by digby
Dear Gawd. I didn’t think it was possible to drag down the quality of Hardball any further, but the addition of Rita Cosby is a new low. I’m sure she’s a very good tabloid crime reporter. People seem to like her. But her take on politics is so shallow she is making Tweety and Tucker look like intellectual heavyweights. She clearly spent too much time at FOXNews not entirely paying attention. The result is a lethal combination of knee-jerk wingnutism and tabloid silliness. I guess this is an MSNBC attempt to boost her profile, but it’s cringe worthy even by “making a drunken fool of yourself at a dinner party” standards.
Update: I take it all back. Matthews is just as silly and stupid as she is. (Why did Americans like Hugh Grant playing the prime minister in “Love Actually” rather than Billy Bob Thornton’s creepy American president? Because we all love Tony Blair, that’s why! Jayzuz….)
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Pundit Putz
by digby
Atrios linked today to a very insightful post by the man who wrote “What Liberal Media?” I urge you to read the whole thing if you are interested in the cozy, insider nature of political reporting you see coming out of Washington. Nobody gets it better than Alterman.
Alterman wrote a similarly insightful column last week in which he took mushy triangulator Joe Klein to task for his insulting mischaracterization of liberals and the facts, even as he plays a “liberal” columnist on TV and in the pages of TIME:
Among the most egregious offenders against journalistic standards and simple honesty for the purpose of abusing liberals is Time’s Joe Klein, who is, amazingly, the most liberal commentator currently employed by America’s highest-circulation newsweekly. (Klein’s animus toward liberals coupled with his cavalier treatment of inconvenient facts could hardly be in greater contrast to that of Newsweek’s high-profile liberal columnist Jonathan Alter, whose solid reporting and tempered idealism serves as a kind of remnant and reminder of the long-defunct liberal Establishment.)
To take just one recent example, a Klein column posted January 8 accused Democrats of “playing too fast and too loose with issues of war and peace.” Now look who’s talking:
Klein writes, “The latest version of the absolutely necessary Patriot Act, which updates the laws regulating the war on terrorism and contains civil-liberties improvements over the first edition, was nearly killed by a stampede of Senate Democrats.” In fact, this “stampede” was led by four Republicans.
Klein writes, “A strong majority would favor the NSA program…if its details were declassified and made known.” In fact, when an Associated Press poll asked Americans if the Bush Administration should be required to get a warrant before wiretapping, 56 percent answered affirmatively.
Klein writes, “Until the Democrats make clear that they will err on the side of aggressiveness in the war against al-Qaeda, they will probably not regain the majority in Congress or the country.” This statement ignores that the Bush Administration diverted resources from capturing bin Laden and destroying Al Qaeda to send them to Iraq, where no such threat existed but where one has since been created. It also ignores the fact that Republicans received a minority of the Congressional vote in 2004, as well as in the presidential votes of 2000, 1996 and 1992.
Joe Klein is everything that is wrong with the allegedly liberal punditocrisy. His anachronistic establishment politics are wrongly seen by many, including many elected Democrats, as the “reasonable” middle ground for which we must strive in order to attract some ephemeral centrist voter who exists only in their imaginations. He is the embodiment of the now wholly irrelevant DLC experiment. With none of the down home common touch of Clinton or the earnest idealism of Gore, he is nothing but a big bowl of warmed over 90’s centrist hype in a time where battles lines are by necessity, sharply drawn. He’s the political equivalent of reruns of “Mad About You.”
Every time he is seen as representing any form of winning liberalism, we lose. He obviously hates real Democrats, the vast majority of whom do not agree with anything he has to say, and his hostility to what we believe contributes mightily to the disdain and fear that the Democratic establishment feels toward the grassroots. He represents nothing but the clubby little world of highly paid poltical pundits who have as much in common with average Americans as Madonna does.
And he is a thin-skinned prick. Here’s is his response to Altermann’s criticisms, via Alternet:
“Eric Alterman is simply not a serious person — and I’m writing about a very serious issue,” says Time columnist Joe Klein, in response to Eric Alterman’s recent ad hominem attack in The Nation, wherein he dubs Klein one of the mainstream media’s “most egregious offenders against journalistic standards and simple honesty.”
“I don’t want to address Eric’s remarks because they’re not worth addressing,” Klein says. “This guy just spews opinions without having any information or doing any reporting. You just did something Alterman has never done, for example, actually calling me to do some reporting!”
In the course of generally noting, “The punditocracy’s ignore-except-to-attack attitude toward liberals,” Alterman dissected a recent Klein column that Alterman claimed “accused Democrats” of playing too fast and too loose with issues of war and peace. He then criticized Klein for his perceived “animus toward liberals coupled with his cavalier treatment of inconvenient facts.”
“That’s typical of his essential narcissistic laziness,” Klein responds. “Alterman has been personally attacking me for years. It’s what he does instead of working … He’s so peripheral, I forget he’s in the business until someone calls or emails me his latest attack!”
[…]
“I’m not nearly as smart as Eric, to have opinions without bothering to report first,” Klein counters. “Instead let me react by speaking to the facts. After all, I’ve lived my life by seeking out facts and then reporting them. One advantage I think I have over other columnists is that I do reporting.”
Klein says he will “have a lot more to say on this (NSA) issue next week — but first I have to learn more about it.”
Asked for an example, Klein says, “The notion of calling it wiretapping is questionable, I think, although I’m still not entirely sure.
“People like me who favor this program don’t yet know enough about it yet,” he says, “Those opposed to it know even less — and certainly less than I do.”
According to Klein, the NSA employs a “powerful front-end computer program that can scan computers and cell phones and access all previous communications.” Then, he says, analysts look for patterns in the calls and emails.
“Once they’ve gone through that process,” he explains, “Then they go to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) special court.”
In Klein’s analysis, “the liberals are reacting to this issue in their usual reflexive way. Meanwhile, George Bush and others in his administration are being very cynical.”
The political flap over the NSA actions, Klein says, could be easily resolved. “All that’s needed is an updating of the FISA Act or the Patriot Act.” But this is unlikely to happen, Klein believes, “because George Bush is spoiling for and creating a fight on this issue, since he thinks it’s a fight he will win in the court of public opinion.”
As for his fight with Eric Alterman, Klein’s willing to forfeit. “Who cares, really?” he concluded. “He’s written lots of inaccurate, foolish stuff about me before. It’s just silly. If it were someone who actually KNOWS stuff or caught me in an inaccuracy, then I’d be concerned. But Eric? He can say what he wants.”
Yes, well, there is no need for Klein to be concerned because he holds a very important perch as a faux liberal in the punditocrisy, a highly paid profession that specializes in pushing the “liberals are icky” meme that serves the Republicans so well. He’s a good lapdog “liberal” and he and all his lickspittle cohorts are killing us.
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It Would Be A Cakewalk. After All, More Soldiers Speak Spanish Than Persian, Right?
by tristero
To hell with Tehran. Real men covet Caracas. Doesn’t it seem like the Bush administration is deliberately being as obnoxious as possible so they can start a war somewhere, anywhere, it doesn’t matter, just as long as there’s some bang bang? Where do you find people like Donald Rumsfeld?
“I mean, we’ve got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money,” Rumsfeld added. “He’s a person who was elected legally _ just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally _ and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.”
There have been increasing signs of hostility between Washington and Caracas, and on Monday Chavez said Venezuela’s intelligence agencies have “infiltrated” a group of military officials from the U.S. Embassy who were allegedly involved in espionage.
Venezuelan authorities, including the vice president, have accused officials at the U.S. Embassy of involvement in a spying case in which Venezuelan naval officers allegedly passed sensitive information to the Pentagon.
It was not the first such charge by Chavez.
I have a favor to ask. Occasionally, I’ve tried to understand Chavez but can’t. The mainstream press in the US has been worthless (worse than usual and that is not a good sign, frankly). There were a few interesting articles in the New York Review of Books – no fans of the Bush administration – from which I took away the impression that Chavez must have been born in Macondo. It sounded like he was completely nuts but that somehow, through a thicket of immense corruption, life for some poor people in Venezuela were marginally improved under Chavez for the first time.
If anyone has any suggestions about a knowledgeable article or book to read on Chavez, please drop the reference in comments.
In any event, when I start to agree with commentators about how vicious and uncivilized it is to use rhetoric that reminds people that Nazi admirers have no business in the US government and that anything in their past is fair game to humiliate them and get them out of it, i just have to read something like these remarks from a high Bush official to recall precisely the nature of the fight we’re in. Bush’s vicious discourse cannot be ignored, minimized, deflected or muted. It must be met head on. Always.
As Zappa sez, The meek inherit nothing.
(By the way, I’m gonna predict 10 comments or less.)
America’s Nominee For The International Monty Python “Walking Up And Down The Square” Competition
by tristero
With the United States beginning its February presidency of the Security Council, John R. Bolton, the American ambassador, reported the failure of his first effort from the chair, to get the 15 Council members to begin meetings promptly at 10 a.m. “Starting on time is a form of discipline,” he said. “I brought the gavel down at 10. I was the only one in the room, though.”
A Belated Open Letter To George W. Bush
by tristero
Dear George,
In your recent TV show, you read
[E]ven tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger. To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of good will…
Given that you only listen to what fellow Republicans have to say, I can only quote the immortal words of your Vice-President, Richard Cheney:
Go fuck yourself.
Love,
Tristero