The Adult Video News excerpted a transcript from a Los Angeles obscenity case. It's interesting to hear government witnesses try to draw the line between legal fisting and obscene fisting. What's even more interesting is noting that Det. Steven Takeshita, head of L.A.'s Organized Crime Vice Division, spends 75% of his work time going after pornographers. This work involves "familiarizing" himself with porn and going undercover at porn conventions. All that effort and yet he and the four officers in his unit have brought just three obscenity cases since 1999. This leads me to conclude that the LA Vice squad is a bunch of jack offs.
Polis | 0 Writebacks | #
The American Prospect has an article on how capitulation to American pressure to eradicate coca crops led to the downfall of Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. It's an eye-opening read, especially the fact that from 1997 to 2001, Bolivia destroyed 80 to 90 percent of its coca crop and the percentage of Americans using cocaine during that time remained constant or grew slightly. It's just another way the war on drugs destroys lives without reducing use.
Polis | 4 Writebacks | #
Leonard Lopate is on NPR discussing the concept of evil. I only listened to a minute of it, but here's my definition of evil: Evil is a word used to express a judgment that something is intentionally and exceptionally harmful.
As a signifier of judgment, evil has no objective existence. It's not a force in the world. When I say Bush is evil, I'm saying he's a really really bad guy. I'm not saying he's controlled by satan.
Not that we can exclude that possibility. I'm just not ready to accuse him of it in public.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
The excellent Drug War Rant has an entry on the latest results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. He notes that 46 percent of Americans admit to having used illicit drugs at some point, which is an impressively high number.
What interests me is that the same study shows that 44 percent of white folk and 39 percent of black folk admit to having used illicit drugs. At the same time, about 7 or 8 percent of whites and blacks used ilicit drugs within the past month. What this suggests is that white people are more likely to try drugs but blacks are more likely to keep on using. So blacks are less likely to dislike it, grow out of it, avoid addiction, etc.
And if addiction rates contribute to continued use, that further suggests that whites have better access to resources that enable them to overcome addiction than blacks.
Also, the data shows comparable rates of continued drug use among black, Hispanic and white populations. So why are blacks and Hispanics so over-represented in our drug jails?
Update: Pete Guither, of Drug War Rant, suggests other conclusions that might explain the disparities I describe above:
1. Racial/social strata differences may somehow provide some additional opportunities for some whites to experiment with casual use.
2. The prohibition-caused violent devastation in minority neighborhoods may have had the effect of turning some of the population off to the idea of casual experimentation.
3. The higher rates of arrest/conviction of minorities may have deterred some casual use (but not abuse or regular use).
4. The higher rates of arrest/conviction, etc. may have made minority casual users more cautious about admitting use in a survey.
These are all good points for further research, and I hope somebody does that research.
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
Iyman Faris has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, 15 for providing material support and resources to Al Qaeda and 5 for conspiracy to do same.
Faris pleaded guilty in June. The Statement of Facts and Ashcroft's remarks at the time are pretty good summaries of what Faris did in his support of Al Qaeda:
- Visited an Al Qaeda training camp and met with Bin Laden and senior Al Qaeda officials.
- Researched ultralight airplanes on the Internet and gave printouts to Al Qaeda
- Helped purchase 2,000 sleeping bags and arranged for their delivery to Al Qaeda
- Obtained extensions on five or six airplane tickets to Yemen on behalf of Al Qaeda members
- Delivered cell phones and cash from one Al Qaeda official to another
- Attempted to obtain tools for destroying the Brooklyn Bridge and derailing trains
- Advised Al Qaeda that the plan to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge was unlikely to succeed
This is definitely a victory for the good guys, but there are elements that disturb me. The big question is how this guy ended up with the maximum sentences for both crimes even though he pled. The answer is simple: as reported in the NYTimes, Faris's lawyer says Faris, a US citizen,
was told by prosecutors that he could be declared an enemy combatant and locked up indefinitely at Guantánamo Bay.
For all of Faris's clear violation of the anti-terror laws, he's still a U.S. citizen, and he's entitled to all the rights that despicable innocent-until-proven-guilty criminals get in America. Threatening him with indefinite incarceration to force a plea deal is an end-run around his rights. It's also a pressure tactic to get him to waive his rights, including his right to trial.
Faris's bargaining landscape was severely tilted by the Guantanamo Bay threat. He wasn't bargaining down from 20 years. He was bargaining down from indefinite (i.e. life) incarceration in a substandard facility and the suspension of all his rights.
But nowhere in the text of 18 USC 2339B or 371 do the penalties include indefinite incarceration and the loss of your rights as an American. The enemy combatant designation is being used to threaten or apply penalties far in excess of what the law prescribes.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
Dean Esmay thinks the notion that George Bush characterized Iraq as an imminent threat is "political BS".
I disagree, but that's not what's important here. The argument over imminence is a case of an argument over fact devolving into an argument over semantics. The war critics say Bush characterized the threat as imminent. Bush supporters say he didn't. In fact, he said "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."
And still war critics argue he characterized the threat as imminent. What's going on here is that the two sides are using two different meanings for the word imminent. Bush uses a strong definition of imminence. He uses imminent threat to mean something like "an attack is about to occur". The war critics use a weak definition, something closer to "a high probability that Iraq will attempt to harm America in the forseeable future."
These are both reasonable definitions, and arguing over which definition is right or wrong is to miss the point entirely. Words are imprecise. Playing gotcha with words is a sophomore's game, one that both left and right play poorly and often.
The real argument is about facts and judgments, not definitions. The real question is did the Iraq threat justify war, and if not did Bush misrepresent or misunderstand that threat?
If we go by the strong definition, Bush is innocent. He didn't say Iraq was going to attack us tomorrow.
But he did characterize Iraq as a threat of sufficient worry that war was justified. And in my mind, a threat so great must at least meet the standard of the weak definition. If there wasn't a high probability that Iraq was going to attempt to harm America in the forseeable future, then the war wasn't justified.
And I think even conservative hawks would agree with that.
And war critics and war hawks can argue over whether there was a high probability that Iraq was going to attack America in the forseeable future, but that's a mouthful. It takes a long time to say, type, and read. So instead we argue over the definition of imminence.
The real question is one worth asking. Regardless of whether Bush uttered the word "imminent", he certainly characterized Iraq as a huge threat that needed to be removed immediately. In late 2000, Bush said, "The longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become." Either the threat from Iraq was of such urgency as to require immediate action or it wasn't. If it wasn't, we shouldn't have acted immediately but instead sought other means to defuse the threat. War, after all, should be a last resort.
And if we shouldn't have invaded, we need to ask why we were convinced otherwise.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
I'm not an SUV basher. I think SUVs are unnecessary, wasteful, dangerous, and owning one is probably at least mildly antisocial. But I don't hate SUV drivers, mainly because lots of things people do can be described as unnecessary, wasteful, dangerous and mildly antisocial. SUV scapegoating has gotten out of hand.
SUVs waste a lot of gas. So what? Everything we do takes oil. Our entire society is built on oil, whether it's the oil that goes into the plastic plate you just trashed or the oil it took to power the truck that delivered your latest sop of conspicuous consumption. Vinyl bumper stickers protesting SUVs are petroleum products. Those PVC boots you bought to avoid wearing leather boots are also made of petroleum. Do you see the pattern yet?
I ride motorcycles. Motorcycles are much more fuel efficient than SUVs. Congratulations to me. I'm a nice fuel-efficient kind of guy. Or am I? I often ride in groups of three or more bikes. Say it takes an SUV 5 to 10 gallons of gas to transport 4 people 100 miles. On four motorcycles, my 3 pals and I can easily end up using twice that amount of gas to travel that same distance.
And sure, I use my scoot to get around town and jaunt off for the weekend, but I also use it to go raise hell, ripping down every curvy road that lacks a cop on every corner. I'm using up lots of gas to do that. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Oil is a commodity that we as a society use up to create certain benefits-- plastics, an international economy, miles of fun, etc.. The question shouldn't be how much oil is used but how much utility we derive, and that's an intensely personal question. And if that's a personal calculus, why is it that people decided that using oil for my specific selfish purposes is ok but when my sister drives her SUV to work (where she saves lives and stuff) she's somehow evil?
Maybe it's because those SUV-driving bastards are driving up our insurance rates.
Update: I've been told that the reason SUVs are evil is because there's all this attention focused on the harms of SUVs. To continue to drive SUVs in the face of all that criticism is like buying Nike in the face of all the news about sweatshops. Sure Reebok and whoever makes the rest of your clothes all use such labor, but buying Nike is a statement that, despite the sweatshop thing, you're still willing to patronize Nike. Similarly, driving an SUV is a statement that you don't care about gas guzzling.
This argument is not very persuasive to me. Driving an SUV might be taken as a statement, and driving an SUV might be an antisocial act for that reason, but that doesn't add up to "evil". The reason we don't like people that wear Nike is not that they're antisocial. We don't like them because they're supporting a company that treats its workers materially worse than Reebok does. Besides, being a bit antisocial or tone-deaf on political correctness isn't enough to arouse the rabid abuse heaped on SUV drivers.
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
PG at En Banc asks what makes the detainees terrorists.
A Brutal Hugger defined terrorists in the past as "non-governmental political actors that use violence against non-military targets.", and I think that's a pretty good approximation of what people typically mean when they use the word terrorist.
By that definition, I wouldn't call the Camp X-Ray detainees terrorists. They were governmental actors in Afghanistan, even if it wasn't a government recognized by the US. The Taliban were governing as a formal group, albeit a horrible and unwelcome one, and as such were a government.
PG offers two reasons why the detainees aren't POWs. First, he says because they are illegal combatants. Second, he says it's because the Taliban didn't recognize the Geneva Convention.
As to the first, see below. The declaration that these guys are illegal combatants has little to do with the Geneva Convention. You can be a prisoner of war and also be an illegal combatant.
As to the Taliban's recognition of the Geneva Convention, this is a pretty good argument to many. After all, we're surely treating these guys better than they would have treated our guys had the fighting gone the other way.
But is that enough? Even if we are not technically legally obligated by our international agreements to observe standards of human decency, shouldn't we do so anyway? I've never heard it seriously argued that the only reason not to abuse prisoners is so that the other side doesn't abuse our prisoners. Isn't the whole point of the war on terrorism to avoid becoming that which we hate? Don't we aspire to win this war because of moral as well as military superiority? Of course we do.
And we also want to be be able to act with justified and legitimate outrage when people are abused. Not that America hasn't adhered to double standards in the past, but we shouldn't do so. If the only guiding principle in America's war on terror is might makes right, we've already lost that which is most significant: our integrity.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
Max Rosenthal defends classifying people as "enemy combatants". He says that maybe we need to define enemy combatant better, but he's comfortable with the classification as long as the classification doesn't mean shucking "the standards of human decency", standards for which he (jokingly) sets the floor at "lopping off heads or hooking people to car batteries at Gitmo".
The problem with the whole enemy combatant thing is that it's a legal classification that was designed precisely to avoid standards of human decency. Rosenthal says, "Detainees at Guantanamo are undeniably prisoners of war in the most traditional of senses." And POWs have certain rights. By calling the detainees enemy combatants, our government avoids calling the POWs, which means we don't have to respect their rights as POWs. Instead we respect their rights as enemy combatants.
Of course, our government has determined that their rights as enemy combatants are not as numerous or protective as their rights would be if they were POWs. As POWs, the detainees would have inalienable rights to certain standards of treatment under the Geneva Convention. They would have the right to humane treatment, religious respect, freedom from intimidation and measures of reprisal, sanitary conditions, adequate heat, clothing, etc. In some cases, they might have claims for release.
If we said the detainees are POWs and they are enemy combatants, that would be ok. Then the detainees would enjoy their rights as POWs. But instead, our government has said these people are enemy combatants as a way of saying they're not POWs which is another way of saying they have no rights. As enemy combatants, it appears the detainees are entitled only to what we give them. Indeed, if we did start lopping off heads and hooking them up to car batteries, there would be very little legal basis for complaint.
BTW, there is some precedent for this enemy combatant classification. Read Ex Parte Quirin. But Quirin doesn't say it's ok to treat the detainees as non-POWs. What it says is that we can take some of these captured people and try them in military tribunals and deny them access to the courts. Still, it's a start and shows that Bush's classification isn't entirely fiction.
Update: I just recently (December) noticed that Rosenthal responded to this post on his blog. The debate has since moved on, but I did want to point people to it because he makes some good points, even if I do disagree with him.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
Hey Sox fans, stop whining about money. The Yankees get into bidding wars with the Sox all the time. The Sox are right there with the Yankees in being willing to spend a decent chunk of change for players. Sometimes they're even willing to spend more. It's what's on the field that counts.
Besides, the Sox didn't lower their payroll by skimping on star players. They're willing to pay stars over the top. They're completely willing to buy talent. Where they've saved money is on the role players. The Sox's best 8 players (Manny, Pedro, Nomar, Lowe, Wakefield, Nixon, Varitek and Hillenbrand) were paid a total of $60mm this year, up from $40mm in 2001. The rest of the roster earned just $37mm, which is down from $69mm in 2001.
Last year, the Yankee's median salary was $2.5 mm. Boston's was $2,287,500. They were ranked second and third in median salary spending. What was Boston's excuse last year? The Angels median salary was only $450K. If teams just buy rings, the Angels got some serious discount. What'd the Sox do that year? Nothing.
In 2001, the Sox outspent the Yankees $1.9mm to $1.6mm in median salary. The Sox were third in median salary spending, the Yankees 8th. The Yankees battled to game 7 of the World Series and lost it in the 9th. What'd the Sox do? Nothing.
In 2000, the Mets's median salary was $2.2mm and the Yankees's was only $1.35mm. The Yankees almost swept the Mets, winning the World Series in 5 games. The Sox had the second highest median salary that year at $2mm, almost 50 percent higher than the Yankees. What'd the Sox win? Nothing, not even the wild card.
Here's what Sox GM Theo Epstein had to say last December about how the Yankees got their greatness: "We have a lot of respect for the way the Yankees go about their business in a lot of way. We're trying to mimic the Yankees from the early '90's, when they built their dynasty focusing on scouting and player development." He also said, in a December NYTimes interview with Murray Chass, "I think we learned a lesson. We're not going to beat the Yankees by throwing money around."
The Yankees have been dominant for a while now, but before 1996 they hadn't won anything since the late 70's. Their runs of success are longer and more frequent than most teams, but lots of teams have them-- the Braves (who really should have more rings), the A's, the Dodgers have all put together good runs of pennants and World Series appearances in recent memory. It's not all money, and it's not all the Yankees.
MOMA's temporary rents in Queens (or QNS, as MOMA likes to call it) are somewhat smaller than it's spacious Manhattan digs, and so most of the museum is devoted to special exhibits and very little of the permanent collection is on view. Not that most of the collection isn't hidden year-round. After all, MOMA boasts more than 100,000 works in its collection. If you want to see something they own, the only reliable way to do so is to see it on special exhibit. Which defeats the whole purpose of the permanent collection thing.
There is a small glimmer of hope, though. MOMA has put up a web page that lists which items from their permanent collection are on display. Now you can sit at home and find out Monet's Water Lillies are rotting in a closet instead of buyinga ticket and being bitterly disappointed. As somebody who has shed angry tears at the absence of favored pieces, this page is more effective and cheaper than 15 years of therapy. Don't ask me how I know this.
I know people are sad, but it's good the Cubs didn't win. It would have destroyed the Cubs fans. Cubs fans are all about rooting for their beloved losers. If the losers suddenly become winners, the entire nature of rooting for the Cubs would change. All these fans would have to question what it means to be a Cubs fan. These rabid fans, filled with a lifetime of love for their losers, would suddenly have no losers to love. There's only one way to fill that kind of void: depression. This is why Cubs fans riot-- it's existential despair.
Walking home, I see an old man in a green peaked cap litter a few spent butts in the gutter. He pulls out his keys and bends down over a crack in the sidewalk. He scrapes in the crack, churning out dirt and filth and finally a smoke that's not just burnt filter. He wipes it off on his greasy shirt and lights it, smiling.
Although the Brutal Huggers are of varied political views, one thing we can all agree on is that Bush needs to go. This Friday, we've decided to chronicle sites that have devoted themselves to running Bush down.
Misleader - The best anti-Bush site we know of and the inspiration for this list, Misleader is a MoveOn site that devotes itself to chronicling Bush distortion. It is well sourced, pulls no punches, and reveals the depth of Bush deception. Read it daily. We do.
GWBush.com - We admit it. We're suckers for parody, and this Bush/Cheney '04 campaign site proves that sometimes imitation is not the highest form of flattery.
Bush Flash - Cue Bad Religion's "21st Century Digital Boy". If you don't quite have the patience to read, you can get your politics in animated flash form. It's not deep, but it sure is easy. Yay shiny propaganda!
Bush Watch - This is sort of an uncritical clearing house of anti-Bush sentiment. It's a constant stream of anti-Bush links, editorials, speculation, with almost no critical filter. Not a whole lot of sense over at Bush Watch, but their heart is in the right place.
Bush Lies - This Bush Watch page is devoted to attacking just one aspect of Bush's character-- his veracity. It's more unedited, unorganized, free-flowing mendacity, but at least it's well sourced. It gets special mention here because Bush's lies are the central element that ties together all the other horrible things about him. His complete lack of integrity is not that unusual in a politician, but the boldness with which he prevaricates is truly impressive.
Drop us an email if there's a site we missed.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
I've gotten a bunch of email from friends of mine today exulting in the news that the Supreme Court has declined to review the 9th Circuit's most recent medical marijuana decision. Some people think medical marijuana is now legal. Unfortunately, they're wrong.
In case there's any lingering doubt about this, the Supreme Court didn't say the federal government couldn't impose criminal penalties for buying, selling, possessing or growing medical marijuana. All it said was that the federal government can't pressure or punish doctors in an effort to prevent them from advising their patients that marijuana can help them. Medical marijuana is still illegal.
In 2001, the Supreme Court said very clearly that the federal government can regulate (and ban) marijuana transactions, growing, and possession, including medical marijuana. Today's Supreme Court action (declining to review the 9th Circuit's decision) is probably more about supporting free speech and the doctor-patient relationship than it is about endorsing medical marijuana. Medical marijuana is still illegal.
That said, it's a great step forward in that the Supreme Court didn't let the marijuana issue blind them to the real issues in the case. In other words, instead of being hysterically hyper-vigilant in supporting the racist war on drugs, the Court followed the Constitution and didn't let the specter of marijuana sucker them into making the wrong decision. It's sad that we call that progress, but it really and truly is a step forward and says a lot about how medical marijuana advocates have forced people to see marijuana as a medically legitimate form of health care.
People might be interested in the following summary of the 9th Circuit opinion, which I did not write, but did greatly simplify:
Patients and doctors sued to prevent government from punishing physicians for communicating with their patients about the medical use of marijuana. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided that (1) Doctors weren't aiding and abetting or conspiring with patients in communicating with their patients about medical marijuana. (2) Government cannot investigate doctors with an aim toward revoking their licenses just because they recommend medical marijuana. (3) Government cannot justify punishing physicians by claiming that recommending medical marijuana might encourage illegal conduct.
Keep fighting to end the racist drug war.
As always, Drug War Rant is the place to go for more info.
TalkLeft has some great coverage on this, by the way. Here and here
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
Everybody is weighing in on Kobe's case, some with gossip, others with arguments over rape-shield laws, and still others are pondering the meaning of "no means no".
Judge Gregg Easterbrook, with whom I often disagree, argues that no doesn't always mean no. Sometimes no means "try harder". Sometimes no means "not in front of your friends". Sometimes no means "not until you lick my toes for an hour". Easterbrook says this ambiguity makes a simple "no" useless in drawing a definite line over which a rejected partner cannot cross. He would advise a woman to say "This is rape!" as a definite way to deflate a man's unwanted passion.
Easterbrook says
Just hearing the word "rape" in this context would give chills to the majority of men who are not criminals. If this phrase were promoted and widely understood to mean that the woman was changing the situation from age-old male-female play into a legal event, there could be no confusing it with the "no" that might become a "yes."
Dahlia Lithwick, whose column I read and love regularly, counters that no always means no, stop, back up before I grab the pepper spray. She misconstrues Easterbrook, perhaps playfully, claiming Easterbrook believes "no has come to mean yes". Of course, that's not what he said, but I suppose she's just illustrating how difficult and slippery language can be.
But Lithwick isn't done there. She proceeds to construct and then burn the straw man by claiming Easterbrook wants to "put a heavier burden on women to clarify things." She's upset because she thinks Easterbrook is saying that unless a woman screams rape before sex then it isn't rape. Lithwick seems to believe that Easterbrook's plan would take situations we currently characterize as rape (an ignored "no") and characterize them instead as poor communication that doesn't amount to rape. She objects because she thinks Easterbrook would exonerate men that force themselves on women who say "no" but don't go so far as to say "this is rape".
And the reason I say she's hunting straw men is because that's not Easterbrook's argument. He's not trying to place an additional burden on women. He's trying to clear up the oft-encountered ambiguity by urging women to be less ambiguous. He's not saying women are required to scream rape, merely that if they are feeling forced, doing so might prevent further force. It's not a normative argument about law but advice (perhaps somewhat boorish advice) offered to people in crummy situations.
Surely they're both right, and the argument between them is more a misunderstanding than anything else. A simple "no" should suffice, and women should never have to scream rape to prevent unwanted sexual advances. At the same time, in a milieu where communication is notoriously difficult, strong words to destroy ambiguity might be a useful tool to an embattled woman.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
Nathan Newman and Lean Left both report that in response to a union strike by Vons Supermaket employees, two other supermarkets (Kroger's Ralphs and Safeway's Albertsons) have decided to lock out their employees. This sort of management solidarity is the worst kind of class warfare.
Management's responsibility is to do whatever it can to defuse a strike, but instead they're playing brinksmanship with people's jobs. They have a pool of employees willing to work for offered pay while a contract is negotiated, but instead of dealing with those workers honestly, they're punishing them for being in the same union and under the same contract as employees at completely separate grocery stores. This is like boycotting Reebok because of Nike sweatshops. It's dirty politics and bad economics.
Here's a list of some supermarkets and other retail stores affiliated with Kroger, Safeway and Vons. Don't give them your business. Give them a piece of your mind.
- Acme
- Albertsons
- City Market Supermarket
- Dillon Supermarket
- Food4Less
- Fred Meyer Supermarket
- Fry's Supermarket
- Jewel-Osco
- King Soopers Supermarket
- Max Foods
- Osco Drug
- Pavilions
- Ralph's
- Sav-on Drugs
- Smith's Supermarket
- Super Saver
Let us know of any others that need to be added to the list.
Polis | 3 Writebacks | #
Went to RESFEST's By Design show last night because a friend of mine had a cool piece in it. It was kind of Aeon Flux meets Chuck Woolery-- great stuff. As expected of the mostly amateur films, most were crappy or mediocre but the few brilliant pieces made the whole event worthwhile.
The best thing I saw last night was easily Letter to the President, by Dave Ellis and his Barnstormers crew. It was a motion painting, which is basically a sped-up video of the Barnstormers painting a floor, shot from above. They keep painting and painting, covering up the old images with new ones, blacking and whiting out and adding layer after layer of peace art. Highly inspiring, intelligent and funky. The link to buy the DVD doesn't work, but I so wish it did, and so should you.
Another great piece was Nice Weather for Ducks, which features as it's only lyrics "All the ducks are swimming in the water, falda ralda ralda." Go watch it now.
One of the better pieces was also one of the simpler ones. Rosie Pedlow did Tulips at Dawn, which is an animated interpretation of a Roald Hoffman poem. The poem is about chemistry and science books, and how they have changed over time. Where once they were illustrated with line drawings, they now feature lush color photographs. Hoffman notes that the introduction of the photographs coincides with a drop in the ability of students to learn chemistry, hinting that the photos are distracting and that more is sometimes less.
On the other end of the complexity spectrum is Ultraloveninja, by MK12. This piece features a silhouetted ninja doing all sorts of ninja stuff--- he flies around, plays with a sword, kills deer, dances with snowflakes and generates "the heat of the ninja" with his tiny hands. The link goes to a short version of what I saw last night, which was perhaps a tad too long.
Over all, I was impressed. The films were well-produced and I kept wondering how people manage to do these on what I know to be rather small budgets, usually with home equipment. Congrats to all the auteurs.
All's fair in love, war, and politics, but fair doesn't mean clean.
Montana Senate candidate, Mike Taylor, has dropped out of the race. He claims this is because the opposition has run an ad, in which he is depicted as a gay hair dresser.
The attack ad accuses Taylor of diverting student loan money to pay costs associated with the Michael Taylor Institute of Hair Design. It features a clip of Taylor applying makeup to a man's face, a clip that was used in a commercial promoting the school.
Taylor says showing him applying makeup to a man's face makes him look gay and that the ad is an attempt to tarnish him in voters' minds.
I'm not sure what Taylor is complaining of here. He was perfectly happy to depict himself putting makeup on men in his commercials when he was promoting his school. All the commercials do is show footage that Taylor himself has shown in the past. The only difference is now the footage is shown in the context of accusing him of diverting student loan money to his business. Anybody who gets "gay" from that is reading deep into the tea leaves. If Taylor was willing to face the stereotype of gay hairdressing men before, I don't see why he shouldn't do so now. Seems to me Taylor is crying gay baiting to deflect attention from his misuse of the money.
New York Liberal hopes that Taylor seeks redress in the courts for what he views as a nasty smear. I'm not really sure what Taylor could sue for. Truth, after all, is a defense to such actions, and the footage is true (it depicts what it depicts, and Taylor himself endorsed its veracity by airing it in his commercials). The supposed implication that Taylor is gay is an inference drawn by the viewer, and isn't really actionable.
Oh, Taylor's a Republican. Does that matter?
I wonder if New York Liberal remembers "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo".
Polis | 2 Writebacks | #
Kobe Bryant's team shifted the focus from basketball to hardball in the preliminary hearing of his rape case. Kobe's attorney "accidentally" let slip the accused's name several times during the proceedings. She also asked questions about the woman having sex with three different men in three days. It's down in the mud from the start.
As for me, I'm not sure I agree with keeping the names of rape complainants secret. Every other crime, even heinous and personal crimes, require a named complainant. One of the requirements of accusing somebody of a crime is that you be willing to do so publicly, that you have to stand in the same light into which you thrust a (presumed innocent) citizen. The only exception to this rule is for children. We often shield their names from public view, both as victims and perpetrators of crime. It always makes me uncomfortable when the law categorizes children with women (in most rape cases, the victims are female) and puts men (in most rape cases, the perpetrators are male) in another group. We're not that far from "women, children, incompetents".
Not that I'm willing to print this woman's name. It's not so hard to find her name on the internet. If you're so interested, go look it up. I did, and I can't say my life is any different except that now I see a more human face when I imagine the alleged victim. Obviously, I'm undecided on this issue.
As for questions about her immediate past sexual history, that's fair game. The questions go to the source of the physical evidence, not to her promiscuity, even if the Defense is slimy for phrasing them in such a way as to make them as dirty as possible.
By the way, Kobe's lawyer's name is Pamela Mackey. She is a partner in the firm Haddon, Morgan, Mueller, George, Mackey & Foreman, P.C.. Her phone number is (303) 831-7364, and her address is 150 E 10th Ave, Denver, CO.
Update: by Ian Skeeling. We don't usually sign entries on this site, but this one might generate some hate mail, so I'll take the heat personally.
Via TalkLeft.
Polis | 1 Writebacks | #
The girl was studying and I kept saying Wow! and Holy shit! and You have to see this! and she said Hey, I'm studying, leave me alone! and I watched for another minute and I said, Lady, get your ass over here, because this is the best stunt video I've seen in a long time. Check it here.
Miller yesterday recalled a bunch of it's non-alcoholic beer because it turns out it has booze in it after all. Wonder what they're drinking at the brewery.
Now that DARE has proven useless in keping kids off drugs (some studies suggested it increased drug use for some teens), Westchester schools are turning to Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead to get the message across that "Alcohol is bad, mmkay?"
I went through the DARE program in school, and while it was good for a laugh, I can't say it kept any of us from trying drugs. It was a waste of time and money, so I'm glad they scrapped it. But Archie? He was square in the 50's. He's the role model your parents pick for you, the guy you get encouraged to hang with after you get suspended for cutting class to smoke weed with that easy chick in the short skirt and purple hair. Most young teens have probably never heard of Archie. And the ones that have surely don't look up to him. The article quotes one kid as not knowing him and another as saying he's not funny, even if he does like to read him.
Ah, government propaganda. Comical. Unintentionally hilarious. Come to think of it, Archie might be a good fit after all.
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With a website straight out of 1996, you would expect Mixel Pixel to be some sort of Jeff K. happy slobber punk. But Mr. Mixel Pixel's sound ranges all over lo-fi synthpop, from chill downtempo blended beats to get up and strut stuff. Some people have described it as bedroom electronica. I have no idea what that means, but it definitely doesn't mean this is music to make out to. The band is two guys on drums and guitars plus Kaia on the moog and the violin. Kaia is the burner with the presence and the fierce sound. They're a great, fun live act. It's listening music. And it rocks. Highly recommended.
Mixel Pixel is doing a Knitting Factory show during CMJ. Don't know the date yet, but if you can take CMJ crowds, check them out.
The NYTimes editorial page is always good for some adrenaline. Outrage is energy, after all. I hadn't quite counted on the jolt of double espresso cocaine shot rage produced by today's editorial, in which the NY Crimes roots for the underdog Sox over the hometown Yanks.
What the screws from Times Square don't tell you is that they have a dog in this fight-- they own a piece of the Sox.
My hatred for the Times is well known, but I can never resist my hometown paper for long. This is it, though. Such corruption cannot be tolerated.
Via Luskin.
The American Prospect has a decent article on the increasing libertarian frustration with the Republican party. It seems that libertarians are upset by Bush's "heavy-handed approach to the war on terrorism, its spendthrift fiscal plan and its adventures overseas". They're tired of Bush talked libertarian but not actually following the philosophy he pretends to preach.
The article quotes several libs who would vote for Dean. They don't agree with Dean on everything, but they like his "A" rating from the NRA and his opposition to the war mongering.
And that to me is the crux of it. Even the Democratic candidate that supports the most expansionist or intrusive government wouldn't create a government that is as expanded and intrusive as Bush's wartime extravaganza of federal spending and investigation. On straight libertarian grounds, Bush loses every time. Regardless of how you feel about Iraq, national security, or terrorism, you can't deny that Bush is spending an awful lot of our children's money. Even if these things are necessary, they don't look like fiscal responsibility. They look like expansionist government.
Even if a Democrat wanted to create a government as large and abusive as Bush's, he wouldn't be able to do it. In the same way that only Nixon could go to China, only a Republican (and one regarded as conservative at that) can push all this expansionist policy and legislation. If Gore were in the Whitehorse trying to build Big Government and Big Brother, the conservatives would riot. They'd throw themselves in front of the tanks, like students in Tiananmen square. They'd martyr themselves like Lee Kyung Hae on the barricades in Cancun.
But Bush gets away with it, just like Reagan did.
I've been saying that the left (esp. the racial minority left) needs to bolt the Democratic party, needs to keep voting Green or Working Families Party or else the DNC will forever take them for granted. Libertarians are in the same position in the big tent GOP, as mentioned by Jim Henley in Unqualified Offerings:
Neolibertarians are to the Republican Party what African-Americans are to the Democratic Party - taken for granted because they have nowhere else to go.
I wonder what libertarians think of Clark?
Via Gene Healy of the Cato Institute, over at AFF Brainwash.
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