perfidy

(Apropos all the sanctimonious sites that tell me I'm using a crappy browser and should "upgrade" to Firefox)

Any chance they'll now shut their damned cake-holes?

Oh well, even if they don't, Firefox clearly isn't "all that" - as a substitute for whatever else one might use, it's uninspiring, just as uninspiring as considering a switch in the other direction, e.g. to Internet Exploder. At least IE doesn't stake some claim to moral superiority, other than, well, by just working a bit better.

With a hearty "Amen" to Minister GeekLethal's post below, a quick follow up.

In an op-ed from today's WSJ, I saw a line from the Governator that went like this:

How ironic it is to hear some of the same voices who complain about the outsourcing of jobs also complain about the use of immigrant workers here in America.

Realizing that the proper answer to the question I'm about to ask is, "Well, both", I'll ask it anyway.

Is it just me being thick-headed, or does that line not necessarily mean what Ahnuld hoped it would? If by ironic, he meant "totally predictable", then I think I understand. Otherwise, not so much.

Hep me out here.

From Tuesday's WSJ, a newsflash that's neither flashy nor, really, news: DeLay Withdraws From House Race. (sorry - I don't know if the link above is for subscribers only - it might well be)

As the story goes, "...he won't run for re-election in the fall so as not to hurt Republican chances, House colleagues said."

Hogwash, methinks.

A judge in Texas indicted Mr. DeLay last fall for his role in allegedly illegally routing campaign contributions into Texas during the 2002 elections.

Mr. DeLay has also found himself at the center of a broad Justice Department investigation into corruption by Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Mr. DeLay has said that he is innocent in both cases. But two of his former aides have pleaded guilty in the probe, as well as Mr. Abramoff, who once was Mr. DeLay's top fund-raiser.

A federal indictment seems imminent, no? Yeah, that's what I think, too, and yes, it does seem obvious. How the Republicans will do is soon to be so far from his mind that such an assertion by "House colleagues" is giggleworthy.

Indictment or no, good riddance to bad rubbish. And no, I don't just mean to a guy who's courted the lobbyists, or who's alleged to have re-gerrymandered Texas to correct the misallocation of representatives due to prior Democratic gerrymandering (which, itself, was of course to correct the misallocation... rinse, repeat ad infinitum). Those are, frankly, all part of politics. The Hammer has carried it a level beyond all that.

I mean good riddance to a guy who's been willing to play grab-ass with lobbyists to the complete exclusion of actually legislating - you know, the part where you propose a law and then defend it on its merits, rather than simply co-opting/inviting people to the trough or bashing them over the head in private with one form of blackmail or another. I can't honestly tell you what he's stood for on any meaningful issue, aside from his incessant need to acquire a majority. An utterly immoral man, I think, exercising power for the sheer sake of the exercise.

As previously retorted here, here, and (indirectly) here, the dubiously honorable alleged gentleman from the southern suburbs of my home town has been symbolic of much that's wrong in Washington today. If he's the last to fall on his sword for conduct unbecoming a representative of the people, then the game will have stopped too soon.

Not that there was ever a chance of the alternative, but I'm glad I ignored all his pleas for contributions to his primary campaign of several months ago.

Hammer, my ass. Next time you see him, say hi to Duke Cunningham for me, m'kay?

While reading a story entitled "Groundswell of Protests Back Illegal Immigrants" in Monday's New York Times, I came across this nugget, spread across two pages. First, the last paragraph on page one:

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that of more than 11 million illegal immigrants, 78 percent are from Mexico or other Latin American countries. Many have children and other relatives who are United States citizens. Under the House measure, family members of illegal immigrants — as well as clergy members, social workers and lawyers — would risk up to five years in prison if they helped an illegal immigrant remain in the United States.

OK, fine, sez me - that sounds harsh. I've read and heard news stories making it clear that the authors of the legislation have no intention of criminalizing the actions of anyone simply "helping" an illegal immigrant to stay in the US, but I can understand why the Catholic Church, the illegals' families, and other aid organizations would be jumpy about the matter. So I clicked on to see page two, and its first paragraph looked like this:

(Page 2 of 2)

"Imagine turning more than 11 million people into criminals, and anyone who helps them," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, one of the organizers of Saturday's rally there. "It's outrageous. We needed to send a strong and clear message to Congress and to President Bush that the immigrant community will not allow the criminalization of our people — and it needed to be very strong because of the anti-immigrant environment that we are experiencing in Congress."

With no disrespect to immigrants, and no actual malice toward illegal immigrants, I find myself wondering what part of illegal does Angela Sanbrano not understand?

Those 11 million folks she's worried about are already criminals. Whether they should be or not is an issue best left to another forum, but could we drop the charade that they're not already criminals? And if the issue is immigrants' rights, the matter is pretty simple, according to present laws - as illegal immigrants they have a right to be treated fairly, humanely, and then to be transported back to wherever they came from at the earliest feasible date, absent some mitigating factor, of which there are none related to Mexican immigrants. Shitty government isn't one of the exceptions, you see.

Those that wish to have open borders, with free entry for all, can make excellent points in favor of their positions, as can those against. I find, however, that the arguments of those against purely open borders are more believable on at least one level - they don't generally seem to start their arguments with a bald-faced misstatement of fact.

Where the Times fits into all this is actually moot - the placement of the visual head-fake is probably just an accident. But anyone who read just the first page and moved on might not notice the duplicity of the arguments in favor of what is, today, still a clearly illegal activity. That would be unfortunate, and runs the risk of simply kicking the can down the road rather than addressing the issue once and for all.

For what it might be worth, if the government were to decide to lock the borders tight and properly and then to offer a one-time amnesty to all who've been so fortunate to evade the law to-date, I'd be fine with that, unlike some (many?) to the right of me on the political polarization scale.

Doing one without the other, however, would just be another act of stupidity, and doing neither would be just as bad.

Woot!

Who knew Bradley would beat Pittsburgh? Other than me, that is. Well, "Who knew..." isn't the right word.

"Who pulled out of his ass the crazy idea that..." seems more a appropriate start to that sentence. I apologize for the imprecison.

The NCAA walls will surely come crashing down, real soon now, but until they do, I'm alone in 4th place, with a bullet.

I say again, "Woot!".

And yes, the title of this post works on multiple levels. Thanks for noticing.

[wik] To nobody's surprise, including mine, Ohio State has taken the pipe. Bummer. I'm now #8, with a bullet, to the head. At least I didn't have the Buckeyes winning it. And it could be worse - the two guys who run the pool, no slouches they, has each had his pick to win it all get dusted. So at least I'll probably finish ahead of them.

Help me out here - would this be an example of correlation, causation, or just a craptacular use of computing power?

From this morning's inbox: 

Dear Amazon.com Customer, We've noticed that customers who have purchased The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson also purchased books by Edward Kennedy. For this reason, you might like to know that Edward Kennedy's My Senator And Me : A Dog's Eye View Of Washington, D.C. will be released soon. You can pre-order your copy at a savings of 35% by following the link below. 

While I find that all fascinating, I think it points to the limitations inherent in today's electronic commerce marketing programs. The only suggestions I recall having taken seriously from Amazon (a company, by the way, whose loyal customer I am) are those from the same author as the book which triggered the recommendation. I don't know why that is, it just is.

And I'm reminded of a previous Amazon oddity, found who knows where. The only reference I'm able to find to it is in this entry at a site I'm sure I've never visited until today. I know I originally saw it in a blog somewhere, this past December, and I've convinced myself that it wasn't in an entry from one of my compatriots here at the Ministry, so I'm not going to look back any farther.

Oh, the oddity? If you didn't see it at the time, you might get a chuckle out of it. It was an Amazon search for "laserdisc". At the time, I found it funny enough that I saved it, correctly assuming that Amazon would spackle over whatever glitch existed in their search engine. First page of results, scanned and cropped from an a PDF I retained of the search, below the fold.

[wik] I ought to point out that I'm certain the Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection is worth every penny, even though I've not been able to get my 11 year old daughter to let loose of it long enough to actually read it front to back, four times, like she has.

[alsø wik] Feh. Even saved in an intelligent format, the addition of the picture made the page load too slowly, and I can't see inconveniencing each reader with delays while this post remains on the front page. If you're still curious, however, have a look at it here.

[alsø alsø wik] The Ministry of Future Perfidy can no longer bring itself to care about page load times, the image is restored.

Some pursuits are more trivial than others. Among the most trivial, NCAA March Madness pools.

Why would I say this? Simple - I participate in at least one, every year, and I'm normally mathematically eliminated by halftime of the "play in" game. What better reason to call an activity trivial than the simple fact that you suck at it? I've no idea why I've done so poorly in most of the last 20 years or so, but there you have it, and it must be due to the triviality of the undertaking (he says to himself).

But not this year, no sirree.

I'm participating in a Toronto-based pool, run by a couple guys whose NFL pool I also joined this past season, and as of 7:30PM Saturday, March 18, I'm tied with one other guy for 13th place out of 75 poolsters. I've given up trying to figure out my odds, say, of beating the poor bastard whose pick for NCAA Champion (Kansas) has already bitten the green weenie. My only clear misstep so far was in thinking Tennessee might make the Final Four.

And my ace in the hole appears to be the (soon to be proven retarded, I'm sure) presumption that my Ohio State Buckeyes will lose to nobody but Duke. In that particular bit of fantasy, I appear to be alone, which will stand me in good stead should lightning strike and I end up correct.

Wait - it just occurred to me why I continue this trivial pursuit: It's just about the only time all year that I find college basketball interesting. It's surely not that, in the abstract, I actually give a care who wins. But now I at least have a specific reason to root for Ohio State against Florida, which has to make me fairly unique, among Texans.

In Friday's OpinionJournal Best of the Web Today, James Taranto included a story entitled "Docs for Starvation", highlighting this news item:

"More than 260 doctors yesterday called on the American authorities at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to allow detainees to starve themselves to death," reports the Daily Telegraph of London. We guess that explains hospital food, but if the docs want the prisoners to die, aren't there quicker and more humane ways of accomplishing it?

Now, I'm clearly a fan of snark, evidenced, inter alia, by the fact that I read and enjoy Best of the Web each weekday that Taranto's not on vacation.

So I read it and chuckled a bit, then moved on. Later, however, I got a link to a story in The Independent that more fully described things, and was somewhat embarrassed by my earlier chuckling. Why I'm telling you this is beyond me, because none of you were there when I was chuckling, nor was anyone else, but mild guilt has strange effects. Among other things, the Indy article points out that:

More than 250 medical experts are launching a protest today against the practice - which involves strapping inmates to "restraint chairs" and pushing tubes into the stomach through the nose. They say it breaches the right of prisoners to refuse treatment.

...

Since August they have been routinely force-fed, an excruciatingly painful practice that causes bleeding and nausea. The doctors say: "Fundamental to doctors' responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that prisoners have a right to refuse treatment.

"The UK Government has respected this right even under very difficult circumstances and allowed Irish hunger strikers to die. Physicians do not have to agree with the prisoner, but they must respect their informed decision." The World Medical Association has prohibited force-feeding and the American Medical Association backed the WMA's declaration.

(ellipses mine)

Damn, I said to myself, the docs have a point. Contrary to Mr. Taranto's punchline, it's not the doctors who want people to die - it's the people who themselves want to die. All of which, in retrospect, is quite obvious, so shame on me.

I'm not of a mind with all other sentiments reported in the article, such as the UN's demands that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp be closed down, at least not that it should be closed down because of the force feeding. But I don't have trouble agreeing with them when they say that "...treatment such as force-feeding and prolonged solitary confinement could amount to torture."

I can even understand why the military command at Camp X-Ray would think force feeding was preferable to body bags filled with dead detainees. Understanding, however, isn't the same as agreement, and I think that if the detainees prefer to shuffle off their mortal coils rather than to remain in detention, that's their right, and that right shouldn't be infringed.

And no, I don't think that because the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist (even though this is self-evident). In fact I don't even think that everyone at Camp X-Ray is a terrorist, or even deserves necessarily to be (or still be) detained. I'm comfortable that some of them deserve it, and I only wish the military could be a bit more crisp about sorting all that out, without releasing folks who will do harm after being freed, and without returning inmates to home countries in circumstances in which they'd be in personal danger. Both types of detainees exist, along with the odd innocent, and not everything at Camp X-Ray is wrong - perhaps most things at Camp X-Ray aren't wrong.

But force-feeding prisoners who'd prefer to let it all end naturally seems clearly wrong.

Found in an AP story:

"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.

A war of religions? "Oxymoronic" doesn't even begin to cover such an idiotic thing.

Yeah, yeah - I know. There have been religious wars for as long as there have been religions. This history is one of the oldest and most valid reasons for eschewing religion entirely, as I hear some people do. The fact that war of religions is an ancient concept doesn't mean such a thing is any less ridiculous. Even when one side or the other is begging to have its ass kicked, the concept of a war presumably demanded by one's God is an idea I have never been able to wrap my head around.

Of course, the latest such kerfuffle is occasioned by the continued and frightening lack of ability of the most fervent of Muslims to recognize irony when it's right in front of their faces. Islam is accused of violence and intolerance by cartoonists in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, and "Islam" complains mightily. Fair enough. Truth can be embarrassing, and embarrassed people complain.

But when their complaints impinge on the modern world's decided preference for free speech, resulting in further and broader publishing of these same 5 month old pictures, the Islamic zealots react by blowing shit up. Smooth move, fellows. I'd suggest they butch up, even though I'm sure there's a sura somewhere that would tell me this, too, offends mightily.

If you're one of the benighted few who's not yet seem what all the fuss is about, you can find, collected at this site, examples of what it takes to puncture the thin skin of the Islamic extremists.

Oddly, according to a poll reported in the Brussels Journal only a mild majority (57%) of Danes thought publication of the opinions behind the cartoons was the correct thing to do, with 31% opposed and presumably the remaining 12% giggling at the stupidity of it all.

As could be expected, Cox & Forkum summarize matters nicely:

But perhaps a better guide to understanding right from wrong on this matter is to temporarily ignore the free speech implications of Islam's demands to be coddled, as such demands are utterly unacceptable, and instead to focus on the lessons of an old Onion classic.

As previously covered hither and yon, politics here in the Lone Star State are "fixin" to "git" interesting. Kinky Friedman's still engaged in a run for the Governor's mansion, and though he's not yet acquired the necessary signatures to get on the ballot, my Spidey Sense tells me that he will. Heck, I might even go to his Houston organizing meeting this afternoon to see if I can help. In any event, if he makes it on the ballot, he'll have my vote, for a lot of reasons not worth boring you about, along with one that is: Based on the constitutional definition of the office, the governor in Texas can't do much harm, and can occasionally do some good. Like the man says, "How hard could it be?"

Friday's installment from Kinky Central arrived via email, and it seemed incumbent on me to pass it along, even to non-Texans, as it could be a the best use of 12 minutes of your Sunday evening:

Dear Kinky supporters,

Please tune in this Sunday evening, Jan. 22nd, to CBS’ “60 Minutes” at 6:00 p.m. CST (check your local listings). Kinky’s interview with veteran journalist Morley Safer will air, along with footage of Kinky on the campaign trail and our mega-fundraiser at Willie Nelson’s private ranch and golf course.

We hope you’ll be watching. And telling your friends to watch. And telling your friends to tell their friends to watch … you know the drill!

Happy viewing!

Team Kinky

I wouldn't presume to suggest contributions to his cause, but there is some cool swag available at his website, and I used it as one of my sources for Christmas gifts for my Dad, a huge fan of the Kinkster.

Speaking of Dad, his response to Kinky's note was that he might not tune in to see the show, out of no disaffection for Mr. Friedman, but instead because

For some reason, "60 Minutes" always puts me in mind of a hairy reasoner.

So please act accordingly, as your mileage may vary.

Luckily, my email filters aren't over-strong. Otherwise, the subject line alone would have triggered them:

Kinky Talking Action Figure now only $29.95!

And, did I worry? Not at all - the potential double entendre didn't even occur to me, since the most enjoyable "local" political story involves our home-grown rebel, Kinky Friedman. From his website, presently devoted mostly to his political aspirations:

And Kinky realizes the needs of Texans:

As we prepare to battle the millions of bucks the parties are going to throw at us, we need a hero, and here he is. The Kinky Friedman Talking Action Figure stands nearly 13 inches tall, and uses Kinky’s recorded voice to deliver wisdom and wisecracks from a repertoire of 25 of Kinky’s famous sayings.

It's virtually guaranteed to be worth its purchase price, particularly with the wisdom and wisecracks. It's really quite fun to watch the Kinkster's campaign progress, and there was an organizing meeting scheduled here in Houston a couple weeks ago, down in the Heights, a cool "transitional" neighborhood west of downtown. I say "was" because it had to be rescheduled, presumably due to low turnout. Which is a shame - I'd have gone if I'd had the time to spare. Kinky's got a refreshing approach. Workable? Who knows, but when was the last time you saw a campaign slogan for governor of a major state that looks like this:

I'm planning to remain on his (opt-in) email distribution list, and will give him a serious look in the race for governor. The field for governor here in TX is filled with idiots, with Kinky the notable exception. At least there's no Taft on the ballot. And like the man says, how hard could it be?

For anyone not yet ready to pull into the garage, turn on the car, and breathe in the brown cloud of death (off the cuff paraphrase stolen from Richard Jeni) - to push you over the edge, we now have the collected writings of Osama bin Laden: From the November 17, 2005 UK Telegraph: "The world of bin Laden: no drinks, no gambling, no pictures of women". And if the title alone isn't enough to make you turn on the ignition, read just a bit farther, and you'll see:

Osama bin Laden wants the United States to convert to Islam, ditch its constitution, abolish banks, jail homosexuals and sign the Kyoto climate change treaty.

As a lapsed Catholic, I'm generally indifferent to comparative religion, and these "demands" on the part of the increasingly redolent bastard sheep of the bin Laden clan are hardly new. Their inclusion in a "collected words" volume is the only reason they're "news". However, the reminder of the breathtaking stupidity inherent in radical Islam's view of what the world should be, well, almost takes my breath away. And not due to excessive carbon monoxide, either.

On the bright side of the ledger, however, looking at living a life constrained by these and many of the other inane supposed strictures of Islam, I can understand why bin Laden spent so much time tempting, nay, begging for death at the hands of a U.S. Marine. The self-styled head fuckwit among his radical segment of Islamic fuckwits (who knows if it's a small segment? who cares?) must have welcomed death when it came, as I continue to presume it did. (Thus, the increasing redolence.)

The Telegraph article mentions some "horrendous errors" in the initial translations of the book, and alleges they're all fixed now.

So am I the only one who thinks the addition of the Kyoto treaty at the end of the mini-screed attributed to him above is the least bit odd? It fit in there about as well as a declaration of fatwa against the styrofoam-headed guy who plays the lead in the Jack in the Box commercials, fercripesake.

...if such indictments even occur, that is.

I've been struck by the blood-in-the-water partisanship this saga has engendered, even as it's seemed clearer and clearer that no crime was committed under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Yeah, I know, she either was or she wasn't covert, and we can argue about that all day long. Well, you can, because I don't really care. We can also argue about intent to disclose known classified information for the purposes of thwarting the agent's mission, but you'd have trouble finding justification for any assertions of "intent", "known classified" and "thwarting". That, and, well I really don't care about that part either.

The part I do care about is the assumption underlying all this nastiness.

Via an op-ed found in today's Houston Barnacle, which attempts to compare & contrast the role of the press in what the author appears to think are the two defining scandals of our time, the discerning reader can learn that:

The break-in at the Watergate was carried out by a team of burglars hired by a White House operative. The current probe points to a scenario in which the dirty work apparently was done, perhaps unwittingly, by reporters who were fed classified information from officials out to get even with Wilson.

The op-editorialist issues some weasel-like qualifiers and then states with authority what everyone knows, just knows!, about the story, namely that officials were "out to get even with Wilson".

I demur. They weren't trying to get even with him, because it's not like they got Valerie Wilson fired, demoted, or anything else. Absent Administration knowledge of some Joe Wilson peccadillo that relied on the illusion of regular congress with an undercover (or, not, but I still don't care) CIA operative, revenge isn't a credible assertion. Some would call it clarification, some rebuttal, and still others an attempt to discredit Wilson. Sadly, leaving him alone to continue thinking himself crucial and important would have been enough to do that, without any effort on anyone else's part. Wilson, undone by his own yammering cake-hole, would have faded from view many months ago.

There may be indictments, but my guess is that they'd be for obstruction of one sort or another, rather than for a violation of Title 50421 of the US Code. Which is a real shame, because while Joe Wilson is a fatuous fabulist, the world could have found that out with no outside help. And the underlying theme, that revenge somehow played a part in this drama, is hogwash.

Other views exist. But they, too, are focused on everything but the stupidity of the underlying assumption.

In tomorrow's Telegraph, there's a story entitled "Benefits cheat's high-flying life paid for by 'secret' inheritance".

Standard fare, really. The story's protagonist, while hardly evil, is not among the most sympathetic of characters:

Malcolm Bingley, a former gentleman's outfitter who had not worked for 17 years, was later discovered to have £75,000 in a bank account.

He was among the last passengers of the Concorde, which was a fine, fine ride in its day, but there's a catch:

Bingley, 60, was convicted of 10 counts of benefit fraud by Sunderland magistrates, fined £500 with £300 costs and given 14 days to pay back £5,456 he received for two years' Jobseekers' Allowance while failing to declare his true financial position.

Neil Snaith, for the Department of Work and Pensions, said Bingley was caught when a computer found anomalies between interest on his bank accounts and the fact that he was on means-tested benefit.

Questioned about transactions from his account, one of which he explained was for airline tickets, Bingley told officials: "It was expensive because it was Concorde. I can bring a picture of it in, and a certificate with my name on."

OK, so that explains why it was so expensive, but not the lack of recognition of the ironic juxtaposition between 17 years of unemployment benefits and his extravagance. Turns out he thought, and claims to have had confirmation, that this was all just ducky.

He was less effusive, however, when asked why he had ticked "no" on a benefits claims form asking about savings and accounts. He did not declare his inheritance, after his mother and aunt died, because he "didn't think it was relevant".

He claimed that Jobcentre staff had told him he could carry on claiming.

Not relevant? Of course not.

But while in an absolute sense, the bilked money we're talking about here is truly small beer, the more I read, the more I waited for a punchline, the better to assuage my bulging eyes, bulging caused by the fact this guy clearly has the balls of a brass monkey. And at the end, I got my punchline. Without hint of irony (which is often lost in print media, so perhaps we was being ironic), he said:

"The court's decision is very harsh. I have to pay back the full amount. I think everyone should be entitled to a holiday."

If he wasn't just joshing, I'd contend we've found a role model for the Howard Dean's self-styled Democrat Wing of the Democrat Party.

Well, Harriet Miers just leapt another of the imaginary hurdles to her confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Ann Coulter is neither amused nor impressed. As I said during the Roberts confirmation process, if Ann doesn't like the candidate, then the candidate's probably got at least something going for them.

Why? Not because Ann's unintelligent, quite the opposite - she's very bright. She's also, however, highly caustic, so much so that she's far better fun (not informative - fun) to read than to listen to. I've long thought that if she could lose the whiny high-school know-it-all "can you believe it?" tone to her voice, she'd be far more effective at communicating. In this case, however, her causticity (causticism?) is directed at the alleged difference between the Ivy League law schools and the less-adored ones like SMU.

With a nod to the opinions of those who, like me, aren't impressed by Ivy League degrees when someone's actual work history is also available (i.e. Ivy League degree is an excellent credential for a new graduate, but isn't a balm for any occurrences of observed stupidity or incompetence later in life), Ann admits that it's reasonable to not be swayed by the dueling J.D. degree argument. And then she rides it to the hilt, asserting that a conservative from an Ivy League law school is a better and more solid conservative precisely because they remain one after an Ivy League indoctrination.

30 years later. Right. That would be believable if, in fact, the only forum in which rowdy right/left discourse were available was in Ivy League schools, or in college generally. But it's not, and anyone whose cognitive abilities were fully formed on exit from university, remaining unamended by experience since then, ought to be checked for dain bramage. John Roberts, as a ferinstance, is one bright gentleman, to all appearances a gen-ewe-wine legal scholar. But if he came out of Harvard Law as "that guy", I'd be shocked. He's done a bit since then.

And speaking of having done a bit since then, Ann seems to think that the only thing noteworthy that Miers has done is run the TX Lottery Commission. Others who've opined on the matter, such as Bill Dyer, at great length, aren't nearly as exercised about Miers' qualifications, and neither does Bill think running the Lotto is the most impressive resume item Miers possesses.

To the extent my previous mumblings on this matter aren't viewable as a coherent position, I'd state for the record that I will be emotionally and politically unaffected by the result of Ms. Miers' hearings. The process? Oh, that I'll probably react to, one way or another, because it has nothing much to do with her, and all to do with her inquisitors, but if she's ultimately confirmed by the Senate, that's fine by me, and if she's rejected, likewise.

The Republican Party doesn't have a constitutional prerogative to choose SCOTUS appointees, nor does the "administration", the Senate majority leader, or the President's masseuse. That prerogative falls to the president himself, and, in the words of Richard Jeni (which {ahem} I note after a Google source search for the phrase, I've used in this forum once before, but gimme a break - they apply) “Shut up, fat boy - the gentleman has MADE his selection”.

Perhaps I don't take the internal politics of the Supreme Court seriously enough, or think that there's some sort of cock-fight where they compare sheepskins before each deliberation, and perhaps I don't give enough credit to those who think they can accurately forecast the end result of any single Justice's nomination (see "Souter", "Kennedy", or "Earl Warren"), but a choice is a choice, and if she's confirmed, then so be it. And let the chips fall where they might.

All due respect to Ken Mehlman and the rest of the agitators requesting grass roots support for the candidate, I'd ask "why does it matter"?

Bloomberg, along with everyone else, informs us that "House Majority Leader DeLay Indicted for Conspiracy". Elsewhere, "Republican leadership in disarray after DeLay indictment"

"He's the one person they can't replace," Steny Hoyer, a senior Democrat in the House, said earlier this year of Mr DeLay.

I'm forced to point out that this is a perfect example of everything that's wrong in Washington, and by extension, with our entire political system. Tom Delay was indicted first, foremost, and solely for leading the charge to make the US Congress' delegation from Texas match the political makeup in the state. In essence, he played a crucial role in gerrymandering the gerrymandering of several earlier generations of gerrymandering. And when you're egging Dean Wormer's house, well, you're going to break a few eggs.

Tom Delay being subjected to prosecution in this case is wrong. You see, what Tom Delay should instead have been indicted for the inanity inherent in his assertion that the budget's just about as tight as it needs to be, and there's no fat left to cut. And he should be convicted for believing it, as I'm sure he does. Moron.

Steny Hoyer, quoted in the story up top is right - the Republicans are going to have one heck of a time replacing "The Hammer". I don't know that there is an inexhaustible supply of folks in the Republican delegation with the hubris and stupidity to say and believe the things that Delay has.

If Hoyer's correct, he'll be quite hard to replace, and that's an altogether good thing.

Or so I thought:

It is late in the OSU-Michigan game on an overcast day. Michigan has the ball on the OSU 3, with 2 seconds left, and down 14-10. There is time for one more play.

Lloyd Carr calls timeout. As the team is coming to the sideline, Lloyd looks to the heavens and says, "God - I've been a good man. A churchgoing man. I've tried to do what's right and I've never asked you for anything. But, this is a big game and if I could get a little guidance, I would be forever grateful".

The clouds part, sun shines on Lloyd and he hears a voice bellow "I Right 39 Pitch Trap".

Lloyd can't believe it! God himself gave him the play! It'll work for sure. The team comes to the sideline and Lloyd excitedly gives them the play. The timeout ends and the teams come back on the field. Lloyd can barely contain his excitement - he's going to win.

Play resumes and the ball is snapped. The Michigan QB pitches to the back. For a split second, there's a hole - which is quickly filled by AJ Hawk, who tackles the Michigan back short of the goal line.

Time expires and Ohio State players storm the field to celebrate. Lloyd is in shock - he can't believe the play didn't work. Lloyd looks to the heavens and cries, "God - why did you call THAT play?"

God looks down, shrugs, turns to his right and says, "Woody - why did we call that play?"

In an AP news dispatch from about an hour ago, as I type this, I expected to get the straight poop in a story entitled "Nearly 2 Million Flee Hurricane Rita".

Much of the article contained information I had already gotten from my neighbors and friends in town, or on the non-stop local news coverage of the impending storm. But it also contained nuggets like this:

"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Judie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

As one who looked at the prospects for evacuation 48 hours ago and decided the best answer was not to do so, for a variety of defensible reasons, I'd hope my response to Ms. Judie Anderson doesn't come across as too harsh.

Boiled down to its essence, it goes like this: "I'd be shocked, ma'am, if I could prove anything by you, other than that one needn't have an IQ over 60 in order to be given a driver's license in TX, or to be interviewed by the Associated Press. You've clearly either lost your mind, never driven in Houston, or are incapable of comprehending the implications of the number 2,000,000. Oh, and blow me, you stupid twat."

She and her fellow complainants, who seem to think that, during emergencies, the local superhighways simply expand like water balloons to accept all of the additional flow in a way that they're somehow not capable of doing at any other time in Houston (like, say, during "rush hour"), are representatives of a special breed. That breed? The cadre of mentally and otherwise challenged whining bastards who expect "the government", whomever the hell that is, to simply make all problems, no matter how nasty and intractable, disappear from view.

Houston's officialdom has so far covered itself with glory in the process of preparing the city for what could be a catastrophic event, and while I understand the frustration of those who expected magic pixie dust to be available to free them from the shackles of reality and spirit them to safety (and, by extension, to ensure that hotels were both available and reserved for their use, I'd guess), I don't share that frustration and I wish that such folk would keep the irrefutable proof of their own idiocy to themselves. It's funny, in a cartoonish sort of way, but it's about as helpful as the ability to burp the names of the items in the periodic table of elements. Cute though immature at the beginning, really tiresome at all points thereafter.

As the always-eloquent Velociman put it (sorry, Maps!):

...only the foolish, the impudent, the fucking dumbasses are left.

But he left out one class of folk, the realists like me (although I'm also impudent). There's only so much you can do, and leaving the available road and hotel space to those who indisputably needed to evacuate (those from Galveston, South Houston, and East Houston down by Galveston Bay and the Ship Channel) seemed and seems a reasonable and realistic choice.

And if Rita up and slams my part of town, that'll just be a lot of tough shit, but it won't change the fact that I believe I've made the only logical choice. It sure seems to beat the hell out of a 24 to 36 hour drive from Houston to Dallas or points north, and the fact that drive takes so long has less than nothing to do with some failure of planning on the part of some nanny governmental agency, local or otherwise.

Oh, and for one of the other complainants in the story:

"I've been screaming in the car," said Abbie Huckleby, who was trapped on Interstate 45 with her husband and two children as they tried to get from the Houston suburb of Katy to Dallas, about 250 miles away. "It's not working. If I would have known it was this bad, I would have stayed at home and rode out the storm at home."

I'd suggest she should have had a look at the tee-vee to learn that she wasn't the only one leaving town. I'd then have suggested getting to a library if need be and using a computer. There's at least one way from Katy to Dallas that doesn't involve more than 3 miles of highway, dear, and it only adds 50 miles to the trip. But I suppose that's "the government's fault", too.

Welcome to the physical world, ladies.

While I've still got electricity and a connection to the internets, I figured I'd pass along this weather related news-like information from a friend in Ohio:

When you see this on the way to work you might as well turn around and go back home because it is not going to be a good day!

God may not play dice, but that doesn't imply an impaired sense of humor, or lack of access to Photoshop.

[wik] Message from the Ministry of Future Perfidy: The image above is lost to time. As a minor consolation, here is a random image of an ominous cloud:

OK - on the bright side, New Orleans should be spared too much more of the-rain-they-shorely-don't-need. On the other hand, Rita looks like she's coming straight up the poop-shute of my adopted hometown.

On the bright side in a parallel universe, the original thinking was that Houston would be on the "dirty side" of the hurricane, subject perhaps to a few tornadoes, but is no longer projected to be so situated. On the fourth hand, it looks like we'll be spared that indignity because the eye of this projected category 5 'cane is slated to go right over through Houston. Day-yam.