On protecting the drunks of New York from underpants bombers and masked bandits

Okay, so it's safe to assume that a holiday like New Year's Eve would be, if any day, one targeted for terrorism--there are a bunch of people wander the streets drunker'n hell, and an attack is likely to get a lot of attention and really stick in the minds of the attacked. Which is why New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg is working to protect Times Square revelers from any threats nuclear, chemical, biological, or Gargamellical:

The NYPD will have radiation and biological detection devices deployed in Times Square, decontamination facilities set up, and sniper teams in position. Backpacks won't be allowed, garages will be searched, and surveillance operations conducted.

Plus, the mayor says, you too can help.

"If you see anything, they'll be plenty of police officers to talk to," Mayor Mike Bloomberg said. "Walk up and say, 'Hey, I may be wrong, but that guy looks nefarious.'" (emphasis mine)

So this Thursday, New Yorkers, keep your eyes peeled for mustachioed men tying women to subway rails, disembodied metal hands accompanied by fluffy white cats, or a short little guy with a head that looks like a football.

And if you see something shifty, don't be afraid to find the nearest cop and tell him, "Listen, I'm not sure exactly what's up, but there are some guys over there in t-shirts with snakes on them who keep yelling, 'COBRA!'"

I mean, they don't look like they'd be able to make more than a momentary stand before being soundly defeated despite their superior numbers, but better safe than sorry.

On true Scotsmen

Or, Won't Someone Rid Me of This Meddlesome President?

Okay, so I realize that we're riding on a truly rough economy and that the elections and subsequent reactions in Iran have given the media a lot of other things to focus on right now. But I do find it curious that so little attention has been paid to the fact that former Southern Baptist Convention officer Wiley Drake told Alan Colmes - on video - that he prays for President Obama to die.

"Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don’t like that, they need to talk to God," Drake told syndicated talk-show host Alan Colmes. "God said it, I didn’t. I was just agreeing with God."

Asked if there are others for whom Drake is praying "imprecatory prayer," Drake hesitated before answering that there are several.

"The usurper that is in the White House is one, B. Hussein Obama," he said.

Later in the interview, Colmes returned to Drake’s answer to make sure he heard him right.

"Are you praying for his death?" Colmes asked.

"Yes," Drake replied.

"So you’re praying for the death of the president of the United States?"

"Yes."

..."You would like for the president of the United States to die?" Colmes asked once more.

"If he does not turn to God and does not turn his life around, I am asking God to enforce imprecatory prayers that are throughout the Scripture that would cause him death, that’s correct." (emphasis mine)

As Pam points out, if it had been a Muslim cleric saying it, the entire country would be outraged and right-wing bloggers would be lighting up the Internet - and that's a best-case scenario, where a worst-case scenario would involve waterboarding and a handcuffed, blindfolded trip overseas.

And now I want you to look me in the eye and tell me sincerely that the Department of Homeland Security was entirely off base in warning of a rise in "rightwing extremist activity."

All 'wingers? Not at all. There are plenty of conservatives who are very passionate about their causes and yet remain unthreatening to the security of those around them. The word extremist in the report indicates that these are people with extreme views on the extreme edge of the spectrum, for whom the "current economic and political climate" might fuel a "resurgence in radicalization and recruitment."

Well, yeah.

I asserted a few weeks ago that the radical anti-choice movement had a lot to answer for in the murder of Dr. George Tiller. While the blame lies purely on and on no one but Scott Roeder for pulling the trigger, he did so as part of a culture that whips followers into a fervor beyond reason, unwittingly - or even fully wittingly - creating a zealous environment where even the most reprehensible of actions begin to look reasonable. As people are starting to realize, that environment is the same that, when it's overseas and the faithful are a little more tan, we call fundamentalist terrorism.

And now, in the wake of Dr. Tiller's murder - which, the alleged murderer says, is just a portent of more such violence to come - and the murder of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum by white supremacist James von Brunn (not to mention last year's shooting up of a Unitarian church because of the "liberals in general as well as gays"), we have a minister with strong ties to the Southern Baptist Convention praying for the death of the president. And that's okay. For some reason.

It's okay, of course, because none of those acts are connected. None of them are true Christians/anti-choicers/conservatives/what-have-you, and we know they aren't, because a true Christian/anti/conservative/whatever wouldn't act that way.

Drake himself said, in the aforementioned interview, that he didn't think Roeder's killer was really an anti-choice Christian.

Drake said he did not believe Tiller's accused killer is a pro-life Christian.

"I'm of the opinion -- and now everybody's going to say 'There goes Wiley down the conspiracy-theory road,' I'm of the opinion that somebody in the Obama camp had this guy killed."

I mean, no real anti would do something like that, right? (For a laugh, read down that article until you find the commenters claiming that Drake isn't a real Christian. It just keeps going.) And James von Brunn wasn't really a 'winger nutball, but wouldn't the liberals love it if that were the case.

I'll bring it back: If the U.S. experienced a similar string of violence from fundamentalist Muslims, the right would be the first people to raise a cry to deport Muslims and wiretap mosques and pull women in hijabs off the street for waterboarding. And Muslim communities would say no, no, we're not all like that, those are extremists, fundamentalists, and we condemn their horrendous actions. And the righties would say well, if you're not a terrorist, you probably shouldn't keep hanging around with all those Muslims.

Know what?

All Muslims aren't terrorists. Islam is not the religion of terror.

Know what else?

All conservatives aren't terrorists. Conservatism is not the political affiliation of terror.

But sweet Jesus in a speedboat, there is a growing trend toward extremism in the right wing, and it has resulted in what can only be described as domestic terrorism. Gawker reminds us that we've got a new president - a liberal president - a black president - a secretly Muslim president, and that not only the right-wing media but quasi-respected personalities like Dick Cheney are saying that a terrorist has stolen the White House. If you are predisposed to violent extremism already, as most of these terrorists are, that constant drumming of danger danger danger is enough to turn anyone into a hero, saving unborn babies and following the will of Jesus.

So I'm sorry, 'wingers, but they're yours. As much as any terrorist organization belongs to the group on which they fringe, they're yours. That doesn't mean that you as individuals or even a movement are responsible for their actions, but it does mean that when you're throwing around words like "murderer" and "baby-killer" and "usurper" and "terrorist," you may want to give a thought to who might be listening. There are ways to make your point and support your movement without the kind of inflammatory language that can whip people into a frenzy, because whether you want it or not, whether it's fair or not, there are terrorists among you, and they are doing it in your name.

On teh ghey, ghey flu

Okay, so I previously wrote about the swine-flu related hysteria, but most of that was of a public-health, sky-is-falling kind of nature. But no disaster panic would be complete without the inevitable O My God Teh Gheys reactions - now with 50 percent more O My God Teh Dirty, Dirty Messicans!

Praise Jesus! The Lord is back.

I have a confession to make. I’m not a perfect Christian. Sometimes, I lose confidence in God. I’m always apologetic to Jesus after that happens, but let’s face it: God doesn’t punish nonbelievers today to the same degree He did in the days of old. Granted, the tsunami was a fairly powerful sanction on those Orientals who worship everything from cows to obese men with feet where their hands should be. Katrina certainly taught those partiers, sodomites and Kwanzaa celebrants a valuable lesson. And as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson aptly observed, 9/11 reflected God’s fury for our tolerance of abortionists and homos. But lately, the Lord’s slaughter has been limited to the occasional flood, tornado and plane crash which involve just handfuls of nonbelieving sinners. But no more! The Lord is back with a vengeance.

Dakinikat swears this chick is for real. All I can say is that I hope so. God, do I hope so. Such a person has to exist. N.B. - Further examination suggests that such a wonder is not possible. Sigh.

One of God’s favorite conduits for extingushing evil is swine. Surely, we all remember the time that Jesus cast the devils possessing a nudist into a herd of swine which promptly drowned themselves. This time, the swine are staying alive and killing the devils, a/k/a Mexicans, a/k/a Catholics, a/k/a cultists, a/k/a idol-worshippers. Those people have always provoked the Lord with their “veneration” of Mary to the point that she has supplanted Jesus and become the Diana Ross of their religion, with Jesus relegated from THE Supreme to simply a Supreme. The cultists in the country just south claim to see Mary in everything from a stucco wall to an enchilada. They worship mortal “saints” and pray to statues. It was only a matter of time before Jesus became fed up and released the Trinity’s holy wrath on those dog-eaters.

Granted, this epidemic is starting to infect people who don’t belong to the filthy Catholic cult. But those victims had no business visiting that worthless wasteland of lazy idlers anyway. The Lord has never been good at exacting his vengeance with pinpoint accuracy. After all, the infants and unborn babies who died in the Great Flood and the fire and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah weren’t particularly culpable criminals, the firstborn children in Egypt couldn’t really be blamed for the Lord’s beef with the pharoah and locusts generally don’t limit themselves to the bad guys. But hey, whenever God goes on a killing spree to rid us of the wicked, it’s inevitable that there will be collateral damage. Let’s just pray that the INS strengthens its border patrols so wetbacks don’t spread the disease any further into this great nation.

Of course, there is a silver lining to every tragedy. If this disease continues to spread in Mexico, it could substantially reduce our illegal immigration problem. Perhaps that is God’s goal. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

Let's break it down, this comprehensive lexicon of ethnic slurs: "Orientals," "sodomites," ""Kwanzaa celebrants" (is that Ubder-Fundie Dogwhistlese for "black"?), and "devils, a/k/a Mexicans, a/k/a Catholics, a/k/a cultists, a/k/a idol-worshippers," and "wetbacks." And "dog-eaters." Does that mean Mexicans, or are all Catholics meant to eat dog? I'm so confused.

And what's the thing about Jesus casting devils possessing a nudist into a herd of swine which promptly drowned themselves? I don't think they covered that particular Bible verse in my Christian-cultist-idol-worshipping Sunday school. If any Christians out there can explain that story, I'd really like to hear it.
Really like to hear it.

Not to play favorites, Dakinikat also hooks us up with the Jewish perspective:

JERUSALEM - The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Point the first: I just don't buy the "Muslim and Jewish sensitivities" thing, any more than I buy the "Judeo" part when someone says "Judeo-Christian." Not that I don't think Muslim sensitivities are important and worthy of some reasonable deference; I just think they were included as a PR thing.

Point the second: If you're not a pork person, if you think pork is horrible and filthy and an abomination, wouldn't you want it to be associated with something like an influenza pandemic? I mean, if somebody wanted to name this flu after my boss, I'd volunteer to write the press release myself. And when I did, I'd try my level best to find a synonym for "influenza" that carried nastier connotations.

(Just kidding, boss.)

(Kind of.)

Of course, no O My God Teh Gheys! roundup would be complete until we checked in with the last Religion of the Book. An imam in North Carolina tells us that the first chick is way off (which he could have told you anyway), because it was Allah who called down the swine flu to destroy America. But this time it's for the war on terror.

Anyone with eyes can clearly see that this new disease is a curse from Allah upon America. The Mujahideen and those who support them continue to ask Allah to destroy America. Allah responded. Today, they are being destroyed military, economically, and now they are being destroyed with a new disease that is spreading fast. May Allah protect the Muslims in the West from this disease and may this disease reach all the enemies of Allah so that the American Government can no longer move a finger against the Ummah!

Here's the problem: Praise Jesus up there doesn't say it explicitly in that particular post, but I'm sure a quick search of her blog would find a deep and abiding hatred for Muslims (or whatever she would call them. I shudder to think). Which would make the war on terror a good thing in her eyes (and, one might assume, Jesus's). According to the anti-American North Carolinian up yonder, Allah has cursed America with swine flu because of the war on terror. Obviously, it can't be both. It's got to be God or Allah. Tiff or the Good Reverend. Who's it going to be? How do we decide? I know how we decide.

Steel-cage death match.

And I will now go to sleep dreaming of a heavenly nightclub where the Blessed Virgin will appear in sequins and a big, curly wig, backed up by Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, all clad in gleaming white.

Update: Turns out they were all wrong. The real reason is, as always, the Democrats.

On jumping on the panic train

Okay, so Doug sat down in my office today while I was working to help put out our most recent fire - swine flu. Between our general institutional expertise in areas like microbiology and immunology and the recent discovery of an as-yet-undetermined flu in our Child Care Center, the phones have been blowing up, and the fact that we don't actually have a Web page addressing the pandemic has become a glaring problem. So that's what I've been up to.

Doug was able to provide a bit of a reality check. "Do you know what swine flu is?" he asked. "It's the flu. It's avian flu and the regular flu and every other kind of flu, and it's going to end up the same way that the others did. We're all going to go crazy for a couple of weeks, and then it's going to be over until the next thing comes along."

And you know what? I can't make promises that it won't be like that. From a purely epidemiological standpoint, I can't speak to the seriousness of this disease. But from a numerical one, I can, and here it is: As of today, there have been 109 confirmed cases in the U.S. As of today, one of those has died. And he was a toddler. Which is sad, and I feel for his parents. But what do we know about the flu? It hits babies and old people harder than it does the rest of us. As with the regular, seasonal flu, if we keep an eye on our babies and our grandparents, we'll probably be okay.

"As with regular, seasonal flu." Sounds like the refrain from my neck of the woods. Symptoms? Cough, headache, body aches, fever - you know, like the regular flu. Precautions? Wash your hands, try to keep your hands away from your face, stay home if you're sick - you know, like the regular flu. Treatment? One of four different kinds of antibiotics - you know, like the regular flu.

Except this one is different. This one is Mexican. Ooooh.

And I'm not saying the flu, in general isn't a big deal. Epidemiologist David Ozonoff pointed out in a column in the New York Times that even seasonal flu kills about 40,000 Americans a year, which is, like, a lot. And if swine flu ended up causing that much carnage, we'd be in extra trouble. Our economy has it tough enough without massive absenteeism and still-more-overloaded hospitals.

But that hasn't happened yet. So far, there aren't enough swine-flu patients in America to fill out a show at the Roxy. And while I'm sure it's crappy for them, the rest of us would probably be safe to go back to work and stop dousing our kids with Lysol before they come back in the house.

But do keep washing your hands.

On the third annual State of the Union Pledge Extravaganza and Chili Cook-Off

Okay, so tonight's State of the Union address should be a big one, because it's the last one that President Bush will ever make.

(Pause to wait for applause to die down.)

As in past years, I'm putting together my State of the Union Drinking and Donation Game but, truth told, it's kind of a challenge this year, because Bush didn't really do all that much last year and doesn't have a whole lot going for him this year. In past SOTUs, we've had bold statements on Social Security, human-animal hybrids, immigration, the war in Iraq, war in Iran, and deficit reduction. Now, Bush is coming into his lame duck year and has spent the last six months at least without enough personal or political pull or credibility to really throw his name behind so much as a K-Mart ribbon cutting. Despite past protestations by Tony Snow that Bush would never "cease to be bold" despite plummeting poll numbers, this year's SOTU is likely to be more covers, remixes, and old standards than new material.

I'll start by flat-out pledging an additional $20 for either of the following statements: "I know we all have places we'd rather be tonight, so I'd appreciate it if you'd hold your applause until the end of the address" and "The Democrats choose to forgo their traditional response in favor of this performance by U2, live from Washington, aired without commercial interruption."

Per traditional rules, $1 will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project, a really fantastic organization that gives aid in a variety of forms to seriously injured servicemembers and their families, for every occurrence of the following:

- "bipartisan"
- "nucular"
- "terrorists"
- "freedom" ($5 if it's used as a plural)
- "surveillance" or "interrogation" ($5 if he actually says the word "waterboarding")
- "Iran"
- "recession" ($5 if he uses "deficit" in the same sentence)
- "economic stimulus" ($5 if he refers to Ronald Reagan in this context)
- 25 cents every time he pauses for applause, 50 cents per standing ovation

As an added bonus, $2 will be donated each time one of these classics is dredged up:

- "stay the course"
- "surge"
- "benchmark"
- "hard work"
- "they hate our freedoms"

And a whopping $10 if he says, at any point, in any context, "Osama bin Laden."

As always, you're invited to watch along with me and help keep count; as always, if you choose to use the SOTU for drinking games and not donations, be sure to have a designated driver, a trash can, and an ambulance on speed dial handy. Watch this space for commentary, final numbers, and the big take for the Wounded Warrior Project (to date: $200.75). Vaya con Dios.

On the Department of Why Isn't Everyone More Pissed Off About This?: Friendly Skies edition

Okay, so everyone has heard the "he who would sacrifice liberty for security" quote over and over again, and we've all been grateful for the government taking that out of our hands - if we don't have liberty in the first place, we don't need to sacrifice it for security.

For instance, if you really want to keep terr'ists from flying in on airplanes, it shouldn't bother you that much if the government should choose to track your every movement in a carefully-organized database.

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The ATS has actually been in place since the mid-90s, but it was beefed up in 2002 when the Department of Homeland Security determined that nothing threatens the freedom of red-blooded Americans so much as red-blooded Americans exercising their freedom.

DHS spokesman Russ Knocke "flatly reject[s] the premise that the department is interested in what travelers are reading," which goes without saying, since all they're doing is keeping meticulous records of what travelers are reading. They're also not interested in your credit-card information, your rental car, and the kind of bed you request at your hotel. The program isn't to establish, Knocke says, "guilt by association;" it's only meant to establish malfeasance based on what you're reading and whom you're sitting next to on the plane.

Having an encyclopedic record of your favorite vacation destinations, travel buddies, reading materials, vibrator preferences, snack foods, and Sleep Number settings might be considered intrusive if our government did things like, oh, spying on peace groups, environmentalist groups, feminist groups, and religious gatherings as wicked dissenters and potential threats to our government. Good thing our government would never do anything like that.

Which means there's no reason for everyone to be pissed off about this.

On a final observance

Okay, so this is going to be my last post on 9/11. It's sort of become a requirement among even the most vaguely political bloggers to post on September 11 and remember where we were when we heard about the attacks, whether or not we knew or thought we knew someone in the towers or the Pentagon, what happened in the immediate aftermath, what's happened since, what's happened with the families of the victims, why those attacks are such a vital (if you're blogging from the right) or ridiculous (blogging from the left) justification for our current war, and why everyone on the other side of the argument obviously hates America. And then it's pointed out that 9/11 changed everything.

Except the more I thought about it today, the more I realized: 9/11 changed nothing.

Now, don't get me wrong; there are people whose lives are deeply and irreconcilably different since those attacks. The families of these people, for instance. They had to deal with the fear to begin with, and then the pain of losing a loved one, and have since been bombarded with constant images of the attacks and been dragged around and used - by both sides - as political tools and pawns. And the workers who helped to treat survivors and clean up and rebuild, the ones who are now sick after being assured by the government that they were in absolutely no danger, many of whom are being denied affordable treatment for those same illnesses because God forbid we should have anything approaching universal health care. Those people who were directly and immediately touched by the attacks have their own unique experiential set resulting from that day, a set with which I sympathize and which I hope never to be able to fully understand. I begrudge those people no amount of grief or anger, and however they choose to mourn, publicly or privately, I offer no argument.

But for the vast majority of Americans, 9/11 changed nothing. And not just because so many of us were merely riding the grief train in the months following the attacks, manufacturing grief and fear beyond what we sincerely felt so that we could feel like a part of this national outpouring of emotion. And not because nothing changed. Our world right now is, in fact, quite different from the way it was before the attacks.

Since the attacks, Americans have become more jingoistic. We've lashed out at well-meaning allies. We've alienated just about every other country in the entire world with our foreign policy. In the co-opted name of the victims of the attacks, we've sent the men and women who've vowed to keep us safe to invade another, un-9/11-adjacent country without provocation. We're embroiled in a war seemingly without end. We've renamed "French fries" "Freedom fries" and then changed the name back. We've held up the families of 9/11 victims as justification for war, and then we've chastised them when they protested such exploitation or grieved in a government-nonapproved fashion. We've attacked Arabs for possibly being Muslims, and we've attacked Sikhs for looking like Arabs. We've decried the abuses of women in Arab countries, and then we've spat on women on our own city streets for daring to wear the hijab. We've convinced ourselves that the Iraqi people are innocent and worthy of our help and simultaneously ungrateful wretches who deserve anything that comes to them. We've made it okay, even admirable, to be xenophobic and hateful. We've normalized racial profiling. We've criminalized dissent. We've submitted to unconstitutional government invasions of our privacy. We've consented to torture. We've reduced the American flag to an item of apparel and the attacks of September 11 to a smoking-tower logo and "We'll Never Forget" suitable for t-shirt, bumper sticker, snow globe, or Commemorative Coin Forged From Genuine Ground Zero Salvaged Steel. Between American casualties in Iraq and lives lost in the attacks themselves, we're nearly 7,000 fewer than we were six years and a day ago.

But those changes aren't because of 9/11. Correlation vs. causation; those changes happened after the September 11 attacks, but not because of them. Those changes happened because someone - lots of someones - saw an opportunity to turn a tragedy into a campaign.

The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, but we're not at war with Saudi Arabia. The attacks were coordinated by Osama bin Laden, but we're no closer to capturing him than we've ever been. Our airport security is and has been weak as water, but the best efforts made for our safety involve putting our travel-sized shampoo bottles in Ziploc bags. The terrorist cells that constantly threaten our safety are holed up on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but our troops are too bogged down in Iraq and our global diplomacy cred is so shot that we can't get into other countries to punish those responsible for the attacks. We're told that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, and all the while the government is systematically stripping those freedoms away unquestioned. We've given complete control of our lives to a man who takes vacations during natural disasters and hasn't mastered the pronunciation of "nuclear" yet and has fed us one untruth after another to justify his war, because he looks convincing in a cowboy hat, and because anyone preaching reason and moderation is far too removed from the "boot in the ass" misguided-revenge-seekers who appeal to the lesser angels of our nature.

But 9/11 didn't do any of that. We did that. We just used 9/11 as an excuse.

You know what would be awesome? If 9/11 really did change everything. If we took that feeling of global unity - "We are all Americans" - that immediately followed the attacks and ran with it. If, instead of alienating our allies and neighbors by lashing our randomly, we worked together to rout out the true causes of global terrorism. If we made it a priority to understand other cultures instead of demonizing them. If we reached out to grieving families instead of using them for our own purposes. If we stepped outside of our own personal bubbles and looked to happiness other than our own. If we reacted with compassion instead of fear. If, instead of playing directly from the terrorists' script and letting our lives turn into a reactionary chaos of fear and mistrust and hatred, we resolved to make our country, and our place in the world, stronger, safer, more welcoming, more understanding, more open. If we realized that life is precious and can be gone in an instant, and that the only way to honor that is to live life, with others, rather than cowering in fear.

We've been there. I've seen it. Right after the attacks, back before those in power set to really cultivating the fear that the attacks seeded, blood banks were overflowing with donors and state troopers were running bucket-brigade relays to get that blood where it needed to go. Anyone grieving or afraid had a set of available arms nearby. Some churches and synagogues and mosques were hosting seminars and gatherings to promote understanding and correct misconceptions between faiths. Firefighters held out boots at traffic lights, and those boots were always full to overflowing with donations. During that first flush, when news coverage showed nothing but disaster footage, for whatever reason we turned to each other in the US and in the rest of the world, and the sheer potential of it all was amazing. Back before it all got really dirty, it was the one shining hope that could arise from the rubble like the clichéd flower poking out of a crack in a sidewalk.

We can be that potential. We can choose, even at this late and seemingly immutable point, to go back and find that place where we could make a good thing out of something that seemed completely devoid of any goodness. And when we do that, you'll get another September post for me saying that I knew all along how 9/11 changed everything.

On a question: How many Capitol police officers does it take to take down a minister?

Okay, so the answer: Six.



Our rights to peacefully assemble and to petition our government for redress now in the crapper, I propose we move on to that whole "quartering soldiers" thing. That'n's been begging to be discarded for a while now.

On the Department of Why Isn't Everyone More Pissed Off About This?: Mark of the Beast edition

Okay, so I hate hearing about this stuff after the legislation is long passed and I don't get to bend my chosen legislator's ear about it:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

The act, signed in 2005 as part of an emergency military spending and tsunami relief bill, aims to weave driver’s licenses and state ID cards into a sort of national identification system by May 2008. The law sets baseline criteria for how driver’s licenses will be issued and what information they must contain.

The [newly mandated federal ID] would be mandatory for all “federal purposes,” which include boarding an airplane or walking into a federal building, nuclear facility or national park, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Conference of State Legislatures last week. Citizens in states that don’t comply with the new rules will have to use passports for federal purposes.

Quoi? Beg pardon? "Real ID Act"? When did this happen? Did Richard Shelby call me and ask me if I wanted all of my personal information stored on some conveniently stealable wallet card? How is it that people are up in arms and state legislatures are passing symbolic bills denouncing it and I haven't heard a damn thing in the maintstream media?

Apparently, applicants for the Real ID (which we're all supposed to have by 2013) have to show up with a photo ID, birth certificate, proof of Social Security number, and proof of residence, all of which the states will maintain in their totally secure, thoroughly impenetrable databases. States may end up charging in the neighborhood of $100 (which, of course, we all have) per Real ID, and in the absence of said Real ID, a passport (which, of course, we also all have) will be required to board a plane or enter public national parkland.

In short: The government wants to store all of the personal information essential to our identities on one, small, easy-to-steal wallet card, so that the guy checking my age at the liquor store has access to my Social Security number, and so that I can be prevented from entering the public national parkland that my tax dollars maintain, and so that I can be prevented from boarding a plane to travel within the United States even if I can show the same state ID card I've had my entire life that's been perfectly satisfactory for that purpose in the past, and so that I can obediently show Papiere any time a government agent demands them of me.

Why isn't everyone more pissed off about this?

On shrinking the government

Okay, so I'm an enthusiastic and unashamed therapygoer myself, and what's more, I don't think I've ever met a single person who wouldn't benefit from a couple or five couch sessions with a professional to help straighten out their heads and articulate the truth that they've been unwilling to tell themselves. And no one would benefit more from a little head-straightening and truth-articulating than the folks currently in charge of our government. Now, I won't pretend to be a licensed therapist, but I've spent enough time with them to have picked up a thing or two to my own benefit and the benefit of others.

I will dispense this advice now.

1. You can't control anyone's actions but your own.

A progress report due out this week is expected to report no progress in Iraq since the surge. The president has said that he doesn't intend to withdraw troops or even shift his strategy in light of the new information and that critics should just wait for General Petraeus's report in September. Then he once refreshed the tired old implication that Iraq was involved in the September 11 attacks. But mostly, the message was "stay the course and give the surge a chance to work."

Here's the problem, six months into the surge: It's not not-working because of the troops (although their very presence is seen as an irritant by many of the people they're bound to protect). It's not-working because of the Iraqi government. We can send as many or as few troops as we want, but the progress that needs to be made needs to be made by Nouri al Maliki and his pals. More Iraqi police and soldiers need to be trained, but they also need to be held accountable, to be required to show up for work, to be properly armed and armored, and to be loyal to the government and the people of Iraq rather than to the militias - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The militias themselves need to be put down and Muqtada al Sadr stripped of his power and his influence instead of just shuffled around until the heat is off and his armies can rise again - and that's something that Iraq has to do. The government needs to find a way to deal with religious freedom, civil conflict, and oil revenues - and that's something Iraq has to do.

George, you can plead with them. You can bargain with them. You can threaten to withdraw troops or withhold aid. You can negotiate with them. You can send advisors to help them plan to disarm and dissolve the militias, to build the police forces and the Army, and to distribute oil revenues, and they might be good plans. But what you can't do is make them do what they need to do. You can only control what you do. And when they choose not to do what they need to do, as they have been doing for two years now, you have only two choices: to keep troops there or to begin a phased withdrawal. You can't make the Iraqi government do what they're supposed to do, but you can control whether or not American troops are in danger while they don't do it.

2. If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting.

In an effort to shake us up and keep us good and scared when we might start to be not-scared, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that chances are good for a terrorist attack this summer. He said there wasn't evidence of imminent attack, but that his "gut feeling" and past terrorist activity patterns made a "spectacular" attack more likely.

You look at their activities around the world: bombings in North Africa from Al Qaeda, conflict in Somalia with radical Islamist groups contending for control over Somalia, training activity taking place in South Asia, the Taliban continuing to try to regain control of parts of Afghanistan.

I think if you look at that picture you see an enemy that is improving itself just as we're improving ourselves. They can't afford to remain static just as we can't afford to remain static. Our edge is technology and the vigilance of the ordinary citizen.

....

I think we do see a greater span of activity in South Asia, so we do worry about whether they are rebuilding their capabilities. We strike at them, we degrade them, but they rebuild. All these things give me kind of a gut feeling, not that I have a specific threat that I have in mind right now, but we are entering a period of increased vulnerability.

"We strike at them, we degrade them, but they rebuild." It's a pattern. "[Y]ou see an enemy that is improving itself just as we're improving ourselves." Pattern. We're in a war with the sole purported goal of fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, and what we get is... patterns. Terrorist activity in north Africa, Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, "spectacular" summertime terror threats in the US, and we degrade them, but they rebuild. Over and over and over.

Do something different, y'all. If what you're doing only knocks them down a little bit, and then they come back with a new plan or strike from a different direction or, heck, rebuild exactly where they were before with nobody saying a thing about it (Taliban, I'm looking at you), then what you're doing isn't working. We've been "staying the course" since 2003, and since 2003, we've been getting the same dismal results. Don't stick with a bum plan. My dad likes to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm just sayin'.

3. You teach people how to treat you.

If you insist on being treated with respect, people will treat you that way. If people give you crap and you take it, they'll learn that you accept crap, and they'll continue giving you crap. If Alberto Gonzales lies on the stand and otherwise obstructs justice, Congress, and you don't call him on it, he's going to keep lying. Because he knows he can get away with lying to you. When Bush tells you you can't talk to his aides because he's extra special and above the law, Congress, you know that he isn't, but if you don't tell him otherwise, he's going to keep stonewalling you. Because he knows he can get away with stonewalling you. When the White House continues pushing the myth that Iraq had a hand in the September 11 attacks, new media, and you don't call them on it, they're going to keep lying to you. Because they know that can get away with lying to you.

The only way to stop the lying, to make them respect you and stop treating you like an idiot and/or particularly gullible toddler, is to call them on it. Call them on it every time. Let them know that you're paying attention and that you aren't afraid to use the brains God gave you and the free speech the Constitution guarantees you. You have to respect yourselves before anyone else will respect you.

4. When you find yourself on the wrong road, the worst thing you can do is keep driving.

Listen, President Bush, we know you've got a lot on your mind right now. You're in the middle of this war that isn't going nearly as well as Dick and Karl told you it would, and you're getting the blame for it. You're trying your hardest to show up your daddy and prove to him that you're just as smart and competent and take-charge as your brother Jeb, but every time you do, you end up screwing it up and looking even more incompetent in a real sitcom kind of way. Your supporters are shearing off. You recently pardoned Scooter Libby so that Dick Cheney, your surrogate father figure, won't be mad at you. George, you made a little girl cry.

You know that something is wrong. You can surely sense that something is very, very wrong. And I know that right now, you're trying to go along to get along, to do whatever you can to skate until the inauguration in 2009 when you officially won't have to worry about any of this terrorism crap or immigration crap or healthcare crap or global warming crap or any of the other crap that people seem to want you to care about. But putting on the blinkers and driving resolutely forward is not the way to go, George. Right now, you're gearing yourself up for a legacy as The President Who Screwed Everything Up So Badly We're Still Trying to Quantify the Fallout. If you want to avoid that fate, the only way to do it is to stop dead in your tracks this second and reevaluate. You need to talk with some people who know how to deal with these things - swallow your pride and talk to your dad's folks, for God's sake - and figure out what you want your legacy to be and how you can get there from where you are.

I can recommend a couple of therapists, if you'd like.

On the power of the president

Okay, so today, President Clinton is still facing down the consequences of her decision to pull the US out of Iraq two years before. Congress, in the course of their relentless investigation into completely unfounded allegations of government intimidation of opponents to her withdrawal plan, has subpoened a number of documents from aides and advisors, and the president has, rightly, told them exactly where they can stick it.

WASHINGTON - President Clinton, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the intimidation of Iraq war proponents.

Clinton's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Gary Ginsberg and former political director Leecia Eve. Congressional panels want the documents for their investigations of Attorney General Sheila Anthony's stewardship of the Justice Department, including complaints of undue political influence.

...

In his letter, [White House counsel David] Kendall explained Clinton's position on executive privilege this way: "For the President to perform her constitutional duties, it is imperative that she receive candid and unfettered advice and that free and open discussions and deliberations occur among her advisors and between those advisors and others within and outside the Executive Branch."

Clinton insists that the arrest and six-month detention of two staffers to Iran war hawk Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) were a result of mistaken identity following more than 18 months of warrantless surveillance, wiretapping, and searches of electronic communications. She has already apologized, through a spokesperson, for the mixup, but she insists that the surveillance and detention were well within her powers as president under Article I of the Constitution.

Scandal - or is it just CDS? - has plagued Clinton throughout her presidency. Her numerous signing statements, most recently on the recently passed Southern Border Security Act, have had detractors accusing her of attempts at unitary executive power, claiming that she considers herself above the law.

And only a year into the administration, Vice President Obama was voraciously questioned about undue influence from and preferential contracts to Clinton supporters. He, too, cited executive privilege on the subject before finally agreeing to testify off the record, in a private meeting with a single member of his choosing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Recent requests for information about classified documents from the Information Security Oversight Office have had him pointing out, accurately, that as President of the Senate, the Vice President fall sunder the legislative, not executive, branch and is thus exempt from that particular rule.

Clinton press secretary Philippe Reines puts it better than I ever could when he said that no statute passed by Congress "can place any limits on the president's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing and nature of the response." Under Article I of the Constitution, the president has the responsibility to protect Americans from attack doing absolutely whatever is necessary.

And moreover, why the hell should she have to answer to us on questions of national security? If she does something that we don't really understand, and then she tells us that she can't explain it because that would reveal information that would endanger national security, well, then, just maybe it would endanger national security.

Listen, we elected Hillary Clinton president because we knew that she would be the best person to manage our country and protect our freedoms within our own best interest. She can't do that if we're going to ask her questions and tell her what to do all the damn time. If we really think she's good enough and trustworthy enough to protect our security, we need to stop worrying about things like rights and separations of power and stuff and just sit back, stop asking questions, and freaking trust her to lead. If she's not the kind of person we can trust to do that, why the hell did we elect her?

On the kind of power that doesn't come from a radioactive spider

Oh, fine, have at it. We know you're going to anyway.

Okay, so like many a Marvel superhero, President Bush has an amazing talent for acquiring new powers:

President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.

…The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for “National Essential Functions” of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president’s directives in the event of a national emergency.

“Catastrophic emergency” is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

Basically, the directive establishes an office under the direct authority of the president to oversee the running of the government following a catastrophic emergency. What is a catastrophic emergency? Whatever the president says it is. When is the catastrophic emergency over, and the localized government allowed to regain authority in their area? When the president says it is.

Bush has established this new office, that of "national continuity coordinator," without approval or oversight of Congress, apparently superseding the National Emergency Act, which would require just that.

According to the directive, the job of the national continuity coordinator would be to insert "continuity requirements" into the day-to-day business of all executive departments and branches to ensure the continued functioning of all branches of the federal government and all forms of localized government. If the "catastrophic emergency" comes in the form of a terroristic threat, national security requirements mean that no warning or evidence of the threat has to be provided; the "national continuity coordinator" would just get to take over.

Even in the case of legitimate emergencies, I don't want President Bush unilaterally assigning someone to be in charge; I doubt anyone has forgotten Heckuvajob Brownie (and successor Ellen Sauerbrey). But that, disturbingly enough, pales in comparison to the fact that the president has the power to declare, without providing justification, a state of emergency and assume unchecked unitary executive authority over all functions of government until he decides to give it up again.

Now, I'm by no means surprised at this development. This is, after all, the man who has declared that he has the right to tap your phone and search your computer without legal oversight. Hell, it's the man who has taken for himself the power to declare any American citizen a legal combatant and detain them indefinitely. If anyone is surprised about this, they haven't been paying attention.

And as always in these situations, I have to wonder: Is that the kind of power that the neocons want to see in the hands of, for instance, President Obama? Or (gasp) President Clinton?

On the king of America

Okay, so President Bush (a.k.a. The Decider, a.k.a. The Commander Guy) seems to be campaigning hard for the title of The All-Powerful Despot. Despite previous promises that he would disband the NSA's warrantless surveillance program (even though, he swore, the president unequivocally had the right to do it; he just didn't want to anymore), Bush has decided... not to.

Senior Bush administration officials told Congress on Tuesday that they could not pledge that the administration would continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program, as it agreed to do in January.

Rather, they argued that the president had the constitutional authority to decide for himself whether to conduct surveillance without warrants.

Now, the number of secret warrants approved by the FISA court under the current, constitutionally acceptable, program was 2,176 in 2006, a record high. The number of secret warrants denied by said court? One.

The Bush administration has not yet tried to justify their reversal. They haven't argued that the program ties their hands unduly - in fact, they've argued in the past that the president's prefered program sits fully within the constraints of the Fourth Amendment, leaving one to wonder why they can't just go ahead get warrants if that's the case. The administration hasn't argued that having to get warrants within three days after the surveillance is a burden, or that the FISA court is too stingy with warrants, which is demonstrably not the case anyway.

The administration only argued that the president should do this because, under their interpretation of Article II of the Constitution, he could do this.

Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald took a look at an article by Harvard government professor Harvey Mansfield makes the case for a "strong executive." Mansfield argues that the "Office of the President" is "larger than the law" and has the power to act unitarily in those emergencies in which "law does not apply."

This argument that the president's powers increase toward infinity and the people's civil liberties and basic freedoms decrease toward zero as conflict and insecurity increase is deeply scary to me. It would seem to me that, in times of chaos and trouble, when that visceral fear for life and safety starts to overpower the higher faculties, the Constitution and the rule of law may remain as the only framework that keep us from descending into fascism to one side or anarchy to the other. To throw up our hands and hand over our personal freedoms and complete, unquestioned control of our country, shouting, "Save me, Superman!" when our safety is threatened is taking the very real risk that, when the threat passes, we'll never get our country back.

Greenwald quotes Thomas Paine's Common Sense:

[L]et a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

Maybe that qualified as common sense back in 1776; such sense strikes me as rather uncommon today. Other sense that should be common is the fact that we elect our president to an office that operates under checks, balances, the rule of law, and mechanisms available to reverse human error and malice; if we were electing a president operating without those failsafes, I daresay we'd hold him to a higher standard of intelligence and integrity.

An ongoing discussion over at Hey Jenny Slater examines the distinction between military coup and populist uprising. With respect to the latter, the question is asked that if such an uprising were to seek a return to the original ideals of our founding fathers, which ideals would those be?

I've got some thoughts, myself. Freedom of religion seemed fairly important to our forefathers, and seemed to be observed in a manner rather unlike our current approach. Freedom from undue government intrusion was particularly important to a country recovering from the totalitarian rule of a king. The idea of a press empowered to serve the people, to investigate the government and hold them to account instead of acting as a mouthpiece. The idea of a president who served at the will of the people, rather than the other way around. When I think about a "return to traditional values," that's usually what I have in mind.

Our current administration seems to have a fixation on fighting fire with fire. We fight torture by torturing, we fight kidnapping by kidnapping, we fight religious intolerance with religious intolerance, we fight against a group of people who hate us for our freedoms! by not having those freedoms anymore. We depose a dictator, led by a man who would be dictator. The result is that that which we fight, we eventually become.

But we already established, 231 years ago and ever since, that that isn't the kind of country we want to have. Our founders enshrined in the Constitution the fact that that isn't the kind of country we want to have. And if our president feels entitled to shrug off the burden of the Constitution that he took an oath to defend and uphold, then we need a different president. And we certainly don't need an administration that exists for the sole purpose of telling him that he's constitutionally entitled to do whatever the hell he wants to do with our country.

On four more of 'em

Okay, so back before President Bush's approval rating tanked so drastically and even some Republicans started trying to distance themselves from him, I used to joke (morbid humor, that) that the Republicans were going to try to amend the Constitution to give us four more years of Bush.

Now, of course, such a suspicion, even joking, is ridiculous. Even President Bush himself is gazing with wistful anticipation toward the end of his time in office. But Republican candidates are coming up fast, and some of the frontrunners are looking like they might just revive Bush's legacy of bipartisanship.

Before you click on that link, let's play a game. It's called "Hey, Who Said That?" and the answers are below.

1. "[I]f you believe the way to win this war is to stay on the offense and use every element of national power to protect you, and lay the foundation of peace for a generation, vote Republican."

2. “If any Republican is elected president ... we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it."

3. “I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.”

4. "When it came time to vote on whether the National Security Agency should continue to monitor terrorist communications, almost 90 percent of the House Democrats voted against it. In all these vital measures for fighting the war on terror, the Democrats just follow a simple philosophy: Just say no."

5. "[The terrorists] hate us and not because of anything bad we have done; it has nothing to do with Israel and Palestine. They hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world."

6. "We do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism. The terrorists are at war against us because they hate everything America stands for, and because they know we stand in the way of their ambitions to take over the Middle East."

7. "[I]f you want this country to do everything we can to protect you from further attack and lay the foundations for peace, you vote Republican."

8. "[T]he question is how long will it take and how many casualties will we have? If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer."

9. "However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."

10. “The Democrats do not understand the full nature and scope of the terrorist war against us.”

1. President Bush
2. Rudy Giuliani
3. Rudy Giuliani
4. President Bush
5. Rudy Giuliani
6. President Bush
7. President Bush
8. Rudy Giuliani
9. President Bush
10. Rudy Giuliani

If you thought you might just miss Bush's fiery rhetoric, annihilationist politics, and fearmongering, fear not. It looks like we've got plenty more coming down the line - for the next year and a half at least.

I, for one, can't wait. Can't. Wait.

On Monday Quickies: You know what this country needs more of? Less freedom.

Okay, so _discussing the need to close down Guantanamo Bay, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

said it may require a new law to “address the concerns about some of these people who really need to be incarcerated forever but that doesn’t get them involved in a judicial system where there is the potential of them being released,” Gates told the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

Yeah, because the sucky part about the old laws is that they require a fair trial before the government puts you away for life.

Gotta get that fixed.

On the evils of capitalism

Okay, so just a note to any advertisers considering any kind of unorthodox advertising or marketing campaign in Boston: Take your business elsewhere.

A clue in a Dr Pepper promotion suggested a coin that might be worth as much as $1 million was buried in the 347-year-old Granary Burying Ground, the final resting place of John Hancock, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and other historic figures.

After contestants showed up at the cemetery gates early Tuesday, the city closed it, concerned that it would be damaged by treasure hunters.

"It absolutely is disrespectful," Boston Parks Commissioner Toni Pollak told The Boston Globe. "It's an affront to the people who are buried there, our nation's ancestors."

British candy and soft drink maker Cadbury Schweppes PLC, which makes Dr Pepper, canceled the Boston portion of the 23-city coin hunt promotion on Thursday, acknowledging it had hidden the coin in the downtown graveyard that is visited by thousands of tourists a year. There hadn't been complaints from any other city.

...

Parks officials said the city might seek compensation for the police used to protect the site.

Now, I completely understand fears of grave desecration. I've stepped in gum in an Austrian cemetary, and it came from one of a group of chunky, matching-neon-yellow-t-shirt-wearing, be-fanny-packed American tourists. People have no respect, and it sucks, and it ruins it for the rest of us.

But the phrase "There hadn't been complaints from any other city" call to mind the Great Mooninite Invasion of 2007. Just a hint, Boston city government: If you're flipping your shit over an ad campaign, and New York City is sitting back filing its collective nails, maybe you're investing a little more energy into your wig-out-ittude than is absolutely necessary. Sit back, take a breather, pop a Fanta, and then put that "defending Beantown from the evil advertisers" money toward making a nice park for the kids. Or give flowers to Paul Revere, or something. It's all going to be okay.

On the Mooninite sympathizers: This Is Your Soundtrack

Okay, so of course the entire country is atwitter about the inevitable invasion of the Mooninites. The signs are all there; it's just a matter of time. But I, for one, welcome our Mooninite overlords, and that's why this Friday Not-Even-Random Ten is dedicated to Ignignokt and Err, whom I'm sure will be merciful to their loyalists when the invasion comes.

It's also, incidentally, a Not-Even-Random Ten that's guaranteed to get me on government terror watchlists, if I'm not already.

The Ten:

1. Coldplay, "Sparks"
2. Pet Shop Boys, "Left to My Own Devices"
3. Basement Jaxx, "Red Alert"
4. P.O.D., "Boom"
5. Saliva, "Click Click Boom"
6. Public Enemy, "Louder Than a Bomb"
7. Tom Jones, "Sexbomb"
8. Outkast, "B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad)"
9. Nickel Creek, "House of Tom Bombadil"
10. Lo Fidelity Allstars, "Will I Get Out of Jail"

Your Ten go in comments.

On the Mooninite invasion

Okay, so Boston was rocked Wednesday by nearly 40 suspicious devices made of lights and circuitry that were "consistent with an improvised explosive device." Specifically, and IED that looked like this:



After a $750,000 anti-terror effort consisting of several attempts at detonating them and/or shooting them with water cannons to deactivate them, the objects were declared "hoax devices" by city government officials. The perpetrators of the hoax were quickly exposed: two freelance artists supposedly working for Turner Broadcasting in a guerilla marketing campaign to promote the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Although TBS claims that this was an innocent event, and although the devices appeared in nine other citites (including New York) without the slightest stir, and although the devices themselves turned out to be nothing more than great big Lite Brites with magnets on them, I think we all know what's really going on here.

It's a Mooninite dry run.

After all, just look at the video threat left later by the terrorists in question:



It's obvious that we're at risk for a far greater threat than anyone realizes. After all, two actual fake pipe bombs were also found that day, and the individual thought responsible for them hasn't even been charged. But the two heartless criminals responsible for the Mooninite "hoax" are being charged with placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct, and Mayor Thomas Menino has suggested prison sentences of two to five years for each of them. Why Guantanamo Bay wasn't mentioned, I don't know.

But this underscores the responsibility of each and every American citizen to smother this Mooninite scourge in its cradle. I have no doubt that President Bush is massing a committee to seek out the Mooninite homeland, wherever it is, and bomb it back to the stone age.

Mooninite delenda est.

Update: The Mooninite sympathizers respond.

On lions lying with lambs (the leopard and the kid, yadda yadda yadda)

Okay, so despite his longstanding, vehement protestations that they absolutely, positively, without a doubt, indubitably, unequivocally could not keep us safe if they had to get a valid warrant before (or within three days after) listening in on your phone conversations or reading your e-mail, the Bush administration has announced that... well, that that isn't the case anymore.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it has agreed to disband a controversial warrantless surveillance program run by the National Security Agency, replacing it with a new effort that will be overseen by the secret court that governs clandestine spying in the United States. ...

... Under the new plan, Gonzales said, the secret court that administers the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, will oversee eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails to and from the United States when "there is probable cause to believe" that one of the parties is a member of al-Qaeda or an associated terrorist group.

So by "new plan," of course they mean "old plan," referring to the one that was in place - and was, by all accounts, perfectly effective - back before King George decided that warrants were for sissies.

I snark, because that's my way, but don't pretend that I'm not happy to see George Bush doing the right thing for once. As a matter of fact, that he is doing the right thing is practically a parade-worthy event, and I will be wearing something red, tight and sparkly tomorrow to celebrate. And despite concerns that this New Old-Fashioned Way lacks some of the civil liberties protections of the original, effective FISA legislation, I have faith that our lege can work it out and, if necessary, push things through, because just for tonight, I believe in miracles.

Not too miraculous, though:

White House and Justice officials said the president was not retreating from his stance that he has the constitutional and legislative authority to order warrantless surveillance on international calls but said the new rules promulgated by the surveillance court have satisfied concerns about whether the FISA process can move quickly enough to authorize surveillance.

Allow me, in my good and gracious mood tonight, to set something straight: You don't, Georgie. You really, really, really don't. I don't know what Alberto "VO-5" Gonzales has been telling you, but you're not giving in here because he thinks the program is fine as-is. You're giving in because you don't have a legal leg to stand on, and he knows it. If you really had that authority, do you really think Bert would have you punting it mere weeks after the newly Democratic Congress took office?

Oh, you did? That's so cute.

Anyway, points to the Bush administration for doing the right thing for once, whatever the motivation. While y'all are feeling so magnanimous, let's talk about this thing you're doing in the Middle East...

Update: While I'm passing around gold stars, it would be wrong to ignore signs that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki might actually be honoring his commitment to crack down on Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, arresting in the neighborhood of 400 militia members and forcing many others into hiding. If this keeps up, and I truly hope it does, good on 'em; it's the first step to peace in Baghdad and a non-sectarian government in all of Iraq.

Of course, Maliki has also announced that in light of these developments, it's time for the US to get out. Out! Three months, six months, don't surge, don't escalate, just get out! But, um, leave those Humvees behind. And that heavy artillery. And, wow, that is a nice looking helicopter.

On a Monday, which was bound to suck anyway

Okay, so I'm writing this, and outside, it's gorgeous. The unpleasant, unseasonable mugginess of the past week is gone, as is the torrential rain we had yesterday; the sky is clear, the sun is shining like crazy, the weather is appropriately crisp, and I'm about to ruin my own day. Such a me thing to do. But the fact is, I've been saving things up during the holiday crush of non-blog-related program activities, and I shot my proverbial wad of good news on Friday, so now it's back to reality.

- Justice was served to Saddam Hussein before New Year's, not solemnly and by uniformed government agents but by hooded executioners in front of a cheering crowd. As was to be expected, video was shot and leaked by a witness with a camera phone, but it was the official photo of Saddam with noose around neck shown by the major media that led a 10-year-old Houston boy and a 9-year-old Pakistani boy, in separate incidents, to hang themselves in imitation of the images seen on TV. This is our legacy; welcome to 2007. (H/T Eschaton.)

- In other Iraq news, right-wing bloggers who doubted the existence of Jamil Hussein, the Baghdad police officer who acted as a source to the AP following a November attack on a Sunni mosque, now have an answer. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has confirmed that, contrary to previous report, Jamil Hussein is, in fact, an active member of the police force in Baghdad. He also faces arrest for speaking to the press. To quote Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker, "Congratulations, bloggers. He won't be talking to AP again now."

- Anyone trying to justify, rationalize, or excuse the treatment of "unlawful combatants" in US custody might want to read reports of suspected terrorist and confirmed American citizen Jose Padilla's condition after what amounts to four uninterrupted years of solitary confinement and abuse.

[...] Padilla's lawyers contend that as a result of his isolation and interrogation, their client is so mentally damaged that he is unable to assist in his own defense. He is so passive and fearful now, they maintain, that he is "like a piece of furniture."

Even at this late stage, after dozens of meetings with his lawyers, Padilla suspects that they are government agents, says Andrew Patel, who is on the legal team. Padilla may believe that the lawyers assigned to represent him are in fact "part of a continuing interrogation program."

[...]

The experts believe that Padilla suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his isolation and interrogation. [...] Padilla is so fearful that he will not discuss his interrogation, will not look at videotapes of it and will not even review a transcript. In their view, he is not able to understand the significance of legal proceedings against him.

Doctors Say He's Not Faking It

There is no indication that Padilla is faking it, Hegarty says. To the contrary, Padilla denies that he has any problems and tends to identify with the government's interests more than his own.

[...]

Both Hegarty and Zapf administered a variety of objective tests to evaluate Padilla. While they found that he is able to understand the basic charges against him, he is "unable to assist" his attorneys because of his mental condition and the "paranoia" resulting from his treatment during two years of total isolation, followed by an additional year and a half of similar treatment. Zapf also suggested that Padilla may have suffered "brain injury." Both doctors noted his tics and spasmodic body responses.

The government adamantly denies mistreating Padilla, though it does not dispute the particulars cited in Padilla's legal papers. Rather, the government says its treatment of Padilla was humane and notes that it provided medical treatment when necessary. The government agreed to the additional psychiatric evaluation that has now been ordered by the judge.

Indeed, there are even some within the government who think it might be best if Padilla were declared incompetent and sent to a psychiatric prison facility. As one high-ranking official put it, "the objective of the government always has been to incapacitate this person."

In cases such as this, there are always concerns that certain interrogation techniques might, in the end, weaken the government's ability to prosecute the war on terror or protect the homeland by making key witnesses and testimony inadmissable. In Padilla's case, however, his incapacity to stand trial is likely to have little effect on homeland security. After all,

[e]ven former Justice Department spokesman Corallo concedes that in hindsight, Padilla was a bit player.

(H/T Hullabaloo and Balkinization.)

- And in other "How was I supposed to know the car would blow up when I filled it with TNT and pushed it off a cliff?" news is the report that the Bush administration was fully prepared to resettle 500 Iraqi refugees in 2007. Reality? It's estimated that tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the country. Every month.

Until recently, the administration did not appear to understand the gravity of the problem.

I'm sure we're all shocked.

In the grand tradition of Heckuvajob Brownie, Bush's appointee to make it all better is Ellen Sauerbrey, whose extensive experience with humanitarian efforts and refugee crises includes work as Bush's Maryland state campaign chairwoman in 2000. Iraqi refugees in need of aid may want to question whether or not Katrinaland is the best administration to help them anyway.

- And in domestic news, those who missed it the first time around might want to make note that, through the magic of signing statements, our fearless leader has declared his right to open your mail without a warrant. The statement, one of over 400 written during the course of his presidency, "is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it." In light of his previously asserted warrantless wiretapping powers, Bush now has a matched set of blatant civil liberties violations, which I'm sure he can use to bookend his outdated and useless copy of the Constitution.

(H/T Pandagon.)

- Did someone say "civil liberties"? Slate brings us the "10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006."

In other news, I saw Children of Men over the weekend, and I must agree with Josh at Martians Attacking Indianapolis (best blog name evah, btw) that it was ridiculously powerful, certainly the best movie I've seen in the past decade (or, very possibly, "ever"), and that everyone should run out and see it right away. And then come back and talk with me about it, because I'm still trying to figure it all out.

Happy New Year once again. I do believe I asked for a better one this year.