Recently in Blogosphere Category

Alan at Think New Orleans documents the latest smackdown on one of the "why bother rebuilding New Orleans" crowd. I suppose it's better to increase awareness and refute these assholes, so to that extent, I'm glad Kevin, Tim, Alan and company are willing to do that.

Personally, I don't have either the time or the desire to engage the Flat Earth Society.

It's not like there's any question about rebuilding New Orleans. Those who suggest any outcome other than the city returning to its pre-storm role in the economy and culture of the country are as far out on the fringe as the folks who think they can put up a fence and keep out our little brown brothers and sisters from Mexico, or those who thought that the Eebil Coloreds would stay in Houston after they were bused away during the storm.

Still, just like the ADL engages holocaust deniers, I suppose there's merit in engaging these people.

I just don't have the patience.

That, and I'm talking to a guy who wants to donate a 50+ year old NOPSI bus to NOSRA, so we can restore it and run it in this city that shouldn't be rebuilt.

I was pointed to "Chocolate Rain" last night, and now I can't get this friggin' tune out of my head...viral indeed...

Dearest Digby:

Hi. Big fan here, thanks for your regular wisdom and insight. However, I have to disagree with you on impeachments of BushCo:

I famously set forth my reservations about impeaching Bush and Cheney (and paid the price in pieces of my hide.) But I have none about impeaching this guy and I think it might even be (remotely) possible to get 17 Republicans to vote to convict. Even Jeff Sessions sounded pissed today. But I doubt it would get that far. He would likely feel the need to spend more time with his lawyers and would resign.

This man is an insult to the constitution. Impeach him. Get him out of there. Whatever it takes.

No impeachments or other form of pass-the-popcorn high political theater until the troops come home. People are dying, Digby. The constitution will be there in January, 2009, when a Democrat can do some housecleaning.

Doctor Black has some thoughts on Harry Potter:

Taste

Glancing through the now quite long Harry Potter thread at a Yglesias's place I'm rather amused. Or bemused. Or something.

I always find it quite fascinating when people seem to get angry because you don't like stuff they like or like stuff that they don't like. It's one thing if someone's making a definitive claim such as "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the greatest novel in the English language since Middlemarch," or similar. Such statements can inspire genuine discussion and/or argument. But that's something different than "I like Harry Potter" being responded to with "You're an idiot for liking Harry Potter."

Most of us like and enjoy a full range of stuff from low brow to high brow and everything in between. High culture, pop culture, trash culture are all part of the mix. I'm sure there are a few of those rarified individuals who are never sullied by anything that the rest of us mere mortals enjoy, but who the hell wants to talk to them.

[via Eschaton]

Initially I was scared to go over to Yglesia's and see what the dirty fucking hippies are saying about Potter. My fears were justified; the comments are border on nauseating. What struck me as so odd was how the commenters lump Potter together with mainstream adult fiction. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, and Warner Brothers have made so much money on Harry, Hermione and Ron that people forget the novels are juvenile fiction. It's like diehard fans who fail to make the distinction between an 800-page novel and a 2-hour movie. The novels are yoot fiction first; if adults want to read them, that's great. Better still, when adults and yoot share the experience. That's the part that Dr. Black and the dirty fucking hippies don't get. And I don't think I'm the one to explain it to them. I'm a dad, I've read stuff simply to understand where my kids are coming from. When it happens to work out that what they read is actually good stuff that I enjoy, I just thank the goddess and leave it at that. After all, it could be another "Goosebumps" novel.

Marcotte rants about Brazilian waxes and makeup compulsions from a generational perspective:

The growth in popularity of the Brazilian wax really points to how unnecessary the mandatory disgust-avoidance feminine rituals can be. Im fascinated by the rise of this practice, because it seems to have become mandatory for a certain set of women born after 80-85 seemingly overnight. To me and most people my age and older than me (anecdotal evidence to be sure), the practice seems really odd, and kind of disgusting in itself, due to the pain and bleeding. (And infections that swell your vagina shut.)

"infections that swell your vagina shut?" Huh? OK, those of you out there who shave or wax, are complications really that common for the average woman?

What weirds me out is how Amanda tries to spin a cautionary tale about an Australian woman who developed severe complications from a wax job:

Now, it was kind of an odd thing, so Im not trying to imply that this is common (though buyer beware) or that this is due punishment-far from it. It seems the young woman had a specific set of circumstances that made her likely to get streptococcal cellulitis and toxic shock syndrome-she had herpes and type I diabetes to begin with, leaving her immune system compromised.

I'm not going to re-post the details of this gal's situation, because even the bit that Amanda posts is pretty gross. What concerns me is how limited and anecdotal this appears to be. Trying to turn the medical issues of a woman with diabetes and herpes into some sort of social commentary on hair-removal in general is more than a stretch. It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder if the writer isn't just some sort of goofball in general. Honestly, if Marcotte is going to be this disingenuous on this topic, it makes me wonder if I should process more of her writings through a wacko-feminist filter.

Reynolds:

AN ARMORED SUPER-HUMVEE: Armor's nice, but there's a big sacrifice in cost and mobility to up-armoring everything.

If it was his son or brother in that HMMWV, he's be singing a different tune. Slow and solid would have a totally different meaning/feeling. How about we go ask the Marines and soldiers who'll be driving those vehicles what they think about up-armor?

What a piece of shit this man is.

In a post about Peggy Nooner's latest ramblings inspired by the bottom of the cocktail glass, TS over at Instaputz links to a related post from yet another oddball law perfesser, one Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA. I'll let you follow through to Instaputz if you want to read more about Nooner and her deranged Clinton fantasies, but what caught my eye was the shot TS takes at Perfesser Bainbridge:

Hey, I heard Rowling's got a new book out! Let's hope it's not as venomously anti-American as the last one, eh Steve?

OK, so that piqued my curiosity. Rowling anti-American? I'll admit you draw some comparisons between OOtP's Ministry of Magic and the Bush Administration, but they're pretty broad comparisons. So, let's see what this guy's beef was:

More to the point, however, I can't help wondering whether J. K. Rowling is as anti-American as the evidence seems to suggest. Consider page one of book six, for example, in which the Prime Minister is waiting for a telephone call from a President of an unnamed "far off country" whom the Prime Minister regards as a "wretched man." Three guesses which President she had in mind.

Well, Steve, for openers, one can think Bush is "wretched" and not be anti-American. I guess you don't teach Constitutional Law at UCLA. But it gets sillier:

Just so, there's a American dog in Harry's world that doesn't bark. In Harry Potter's world, there are no Americans. Uncle Vernon doesn't have business deals with Americans. The United States doesn't seem to compete in Quidditch world competitions. There are no American exchange students at Hogwarts. And so on. hence, I speculate, the absence of references to the US is the curious incident in the night. (I'm told by true addicts fans that at least one of the ancillary books refers to American wizards, but I don't recall any references in the main canonical books.

I guess this ass didn't read "Goblet of Fire," where there was an American contingent at the Quidditch World Cup. Dumbass.

As for Quidditch itself, let's face it, the US does not fare all that well in World Cup soccer competitions. Since English football appears to be the (loose) organizational model for Quidditch, it would require a greater suspension of disbelief to include the US in the World Cup final.

Asshattery!

Let me say at the start that I'm a huge Glenn Greenwald fan. His blog on Salon is #2 on my list of Things To Read each day. (Dr. Black's #1, but that's mainly because he's become more of a meta-site, and he invariably points me to Greenwald's daily thoughts.) I just ordered Glenn's new book, A Tragic Legacy, which he discusses in a blog entry yesterday.

Greenwald considers references to Bush's religious beliefs to be "ancillary" to the main themes of his book. He goes on to explain this by saying:

(a) By all accounts -- including his own -- George Bush had a severe addiction to alcohol for many years. Yet he was able, suddenly and with great resolution, to conquer his alcoholism and give up drinking entirely. At the same time, he transformed his life quite fundamentally -- from a carousing drunken hedonist into someone who, again by all accounts, began attending church very frequently and focusing on his businesses and career (usually with very little success, but his priorities nonetheless clearly changed). Whatever you think of George Bush, however many insulting adjectives you want to hurl at him, those are just facts.

I disagree strongly with Greenwald that Bush's "conquest" of alcoholism is a "fact." All we know for a fact about Bush and alcoholism are two things: First, it's clear that he is indeed an alcoholic. Empirical evidence and his own admissions support this. Second, he appears to have stopped drinking at public functions. I have a problem with logically extending his public behavior to what happens in private, either in the White House, or at his home in Texas. Bush's inner circle have been so protective of him that there's no way to be sure that he has indeed stopped drinking.

Greenwald goes on to say, "People do not easily overcome severe addictions like alcoholism and change their lives." Again, where is the evidence Bush has "overcome" anything? One of the crucial tenets of Alcholics Anonymous is that one can never be "cured" of alcoholism. That's why an alcoholic who speaks at an AA meeting introduces themself, "I'm XXX, and I'm an alcoholic." Greenwald makes a huge leap in logic here, that Bush has used going to church, consulting with ministers, and "evangelical fervor" to change his life. He asks, "So, if he is not really religious, what accounts for the fundamental changes he made to his life?"

What fundamental changes? He's flipped the bird at TV cameras. He's taken more days off than any other president in history (including Reagan, who got shot). He needed to be wired with an earpiece to put on a coherent performance at presidential debates. His history of drug use/abuse has never been fully explained. Further, many argue that Bush exhibits the classic symptoms of a "dry drunk."

Is all this a big deal? In spite of this disagreement I'm having with Greenwald's thoughts on Bush the Alcoholic, I'm still confident I'll enjoy his book. What concerns me is the lack of critical thinking and discussion the Left Blogosphere has on these subjects. If you stroll over to Media Matters and do a search on "Jeff Gerth," you find 81 posts on their site debunking "Her Way," Gerth's attack monograph focusing on Hillary Clinton (written with Don Van Natta, Jr.) The expanding mushroom cloud that originates from Media Matters spreads out to every corner of the blogosphere.

As it should, Gerth is a hack and his "work" should be debunked and mocked. When those on the right attack Greenwald, however, are we being totally honest with ourselves when we come to his defense?

To sum this up, an anonymous commenter to Greenwald makes a valid point:

Honesty is the core value of sobriety, and Bush has not been honest with us. This is what makes me wonder if he is honest with himself. The saying "To Thine Own Self Be True" means being honest with one's self. To me, that means taking an objective look at my actions and the underlying motives and the outcome of those actions. I just don't see Bush doing that at this point in time.

Greenwald so totally misses this point that it jeopardizes his entire thesis. Why isn't this discussed while we promote sales of his book?

InstaPutz is going back and forth with Altmouse over her comments about onion rings. In round two, Instaputz points readers to this YouTube vid:

i'm still trying to decide if i'm amused or disturbed by this.

...that's because good onion rings are better than sex. I guess Altmouse has only eaten Burger King onion rings during her pitiful stint on this planet this time around, else she wouldn't try to stretch a onion ring comment by Bill Clinton into a sexual reference:

4. Bill says "No onion rings?" and Hillary responds "I'm looking out for ya." Now, the script says onion rings, because that's what the Sopranos were eating in that final scene, but I doubt if any blogger will disagree with my assertion that, coming from Bill Clinton, the "O" of an onion ring is a vagina symbol.

William Jefferson Clinton is a passionate man. He loves life. He loves food. We damn sure know he loves sex. He's a smart guy. Unlike Altmouse, he's not going to confuse an onion ring with a vagina.