Generic Heretic

If both Warren Christopher and James Baker are on  board, you can be sure that it will end in disaster.

Minnesota Public Radio:

St. Paul, Minn. — DFL Senate candidate Al Franken is out with a new television ad calling for an end to politicians becoming lobbyists.

In his latest ad, Franken says Congress should not debate how long Representatives and Senators have to wait to become lobbyists after leaving office. Instead, Franken says they should pass an all-out ban on lobbying for former members of Congress.

And to bolster his case, Franken ties his lobby ban proposal to perhaps the biggest political issue of the moment.

"Right now hundreds of former Senators and Congressman are lobbying for big oil and special interests. No wonder gas is at four dollars a gallon. I'm Al Franken in Washington. I'll fight for a new law to prevent members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists," said Al Franken.

In a fund raising message to supporters, the Franken campaign says its new ad will begin running today.

Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's latest ad features Coleman's wife saying that her husband is not influenced by special interests.

Egad. The only thing worse than lobbyist written laws would be the Congressionally written laws. Is there an argument here? Why should former public servants lose the right to pursue lucrative lobbying careers? Would such a ban, which obviously has no (and I mean absolutely zip zero none) chance of ever becoming law, be constitutional under the First Amendment? My gut reaction would be no, but I haven't completely thoght it through.

In any event, it's a stupid idea on its face. Not all that surprising given our choices for Senator in Minnesota this election year.

 I thought I'd taking a break from watching the Turkey/Croatia match (you didn't think I'd be studying for the bar, did you?) to tell a short story about last Wednesday afternoon. As some of you know, my girlfriend and I have a 7-month old shepherd-mix puppy named Maddie, a humane society adoptee who is, quite simply, the greatest dog alive. Greatest, however, is not synonymous with smartest.

We've been giving Maddie sections of bones filled with marrow to eat and chew on. She absolutely loves them. Goes nuts for them. We've given her two or three of them in the past without incident, so we didn't think much about it when we gave her one late Wednesday morning. Maddie carefully manaically ate out all of the marrow and began to chew on the bone. In chewing, however, she somehow managed to fit the ring of bone around her mandible, over and behind her canine teeth, in such a way that we could not remove it without hurting her. Maddie remained calm, but was clearly nervous. We decided that this situation would require professional assistance to reach any kind of happy resolution, so off we went to the vet. Here's Maddie en route:

As you can see, she was in quite a state. Fortunately, we were able to be seen almost immediately after arriving. The vet who saw Maddie, Dr. Bob, said that, while rare, Maddie's situation wasn't unheard of; every two to three years he sees a dog in a similar predicament. He determined that the best course of action was to sedate Maddie and to then remove the bone with various bone cutting devices.This is, in fact, what happened.

After passing out, Dr. Bob used a large scissor-like tool to weaken the bone, cutting the part that was actually inside her mouth. Then, as you will see in the following video, he used a hacksaw to cut a deep groove into the side of the bone, and the scissor tool once again to finally remove the bone from her face.

Afterwards, Dr. Bob administered an anti-sedative and in a few minutes Maddie was up and about. She gave us dirty looks and stumbled around for the rest of the night, but by the next morning she was back to her old happy self.  Needless to say, Maddie doesn't get marrow bones as chew toys anymore.

Carol Williams of the LA Times reports on the latest GTMO kangaroo court development:

A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday.

Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, in his role as chief judge at Guantanamo, ordered the dismissal without explanation and announced Brownback's replacement in an e-mail this week to lawyers in Khadr's case.

Enjoy this nugget:

Let that footnote soak in for a while and get back to me. I'll be reading the rest of the memo.

This is useful and long overdue.

Land of the free indeed:

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 are behind bars but that one in 100 black women are.

Mandatory minimums are wrong and unfair. The "war on drugs" is wrong and counterproductive. One in nine is an absolutely shocking number of incarcerated young black men. Wake the fuck up, people.

Obama sounds assured. Hillary sounds desperate. There is time to be sure, but this race is looking more and more over as the days go by...

So in something of a late night television viewing session I’m watching Michelle Obama on 'Larry King Live'. In fairly predictable fashion the subject of race and how Barack has affected the debate in this country is raised. It revives a theory I’ve read/heard elsewhere in which it is said that much of the support for Obama from white people generally (and college students in particular) stems from a sense of “white guilt.” After having thought it about it for not very long, I reject this premise. It’s not that we feel guilty or that some great historical wrong needs to be absolved, whatever the merit of such arguments. Rather, I suspect it stems from the fact that young people today, as compared to any previous generation, really don’t give that much of a shit about race. In other words, we’re sick of being told that the world should be looked at in terms of black or white or brown or yellow or—and I confess I never saw this color until moving to Minnesota—orange. These are classifications that earlier generations have adhered to and, despite their best efforts, perhaps cannot get beyond. Perhaps when we look at Barack Obama we don’t see a black man but instead just a person who brings not only an inspirational message but seemingly the skills necessary to implement it. By the way, although disclosed to some friends several days ago (before the weekend’s primaries), I’m offering the no longer so bold prediction that Obama runs away with the nomination. Not only is he going to dominate tomorrow, but this race is going to end sooner rather than later and in Barack’s favor, eliminating the need to worry about these bullshit super-delegates.

Came across this somewhat interesting take on Barack Obama's candidacy. It's from a publication calling itself The Root,

In the face of a black electorate that still craves messianic leadership, Obama has skillfully positioned himself as the Martin Luther King of his generation. Unlike King, however, Obama does not aim to disrupt the fundamental structure of society. Rather than dismantling the triple threat of global racism, poverty, and militarism that King warned against, Obama has promoted a doctrine of compromise that is self-serving rather than strategic, milquetoast rather than pragmatic. As opposed to Dr. King, whose legacy has been promiscuously appropriated by his ideological opponents after his death, Obama has freely offered himself up to the enemies of the Left by attaching few material stakes to his grandiose moral and political vision.

Many people, including some of his critics, have come to Obama's defense by claiming that his progressive half-stepping is an inevitable part of national politics. Others have argued that, despite his shortcomings, Obama is still the best choice among the remaining democratic field. While such claims may be true, they prove that Obama is merely the most attractive in a group of political siblings rather than the revolutionary outsider that he's portrayed to be. Unfortunately, Obama isn't selling himself as the best of the pack, but as an entirely new breed of candidate.

So it seems that the guy can't even make a graceful exit from what was an admittedly disastrous campaign. Nice. This from 'Today's Papers' at Slate,

The WSJ fronts an interesting look at how "Romney's campaign exposed a surprisingly virulent strain of anti-Mormonism that had been largely hidden to the general public." This came as a shock to many in the church, who had no idea that their religion had so many vocal critics. "The Romney campaign has given the church a wake-up call. There is the equivalent of anti-Semitism still out there," a Mormon sociologist tells the paper.

Ahhhh let's all have a collective weep for Mitt. Actually, fuck that. Stop the bitching and moaning and just go away...Romney has nobody to blame but himself and the ridiculous course he chose to pursue with respect to religion. That and just generally being a fraud. Good riddance.

Haha, it's official. Well, Mitt, rest assured that your presence on the American political scene will most definitely not be missed. Jackass.

As has been alleged here and elsewhere, it’s more or less true that Mondale Hall is a house of horrors. So to those that would argue that it is, as an institution, bordering on the irredeemable, I take little exception. I do feel it my duty, however, to report that there is at least one good thing about the law school, that being Professor Michael Tonry’s Advanced Criminal Law seminar. Anybody looking for a more robust analysis of mens rea or probable cause or involuntariness will be sorely disappointed; this is, rather, a class devoted entirely to reading fiction and ultimately to the production of a short story dealing in some fashion with the criminal law. For example, this week we read Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, the much celebrated novel addressing issues of violence, free choice, and the powers of the state. Real horrorshow, as the main character might say. Anyhow, the discussion each week has—at least by law school standards—been fairly spirited and even interesting. For the first time, it’s the type of (law school related) conversation that doesn’t make me want to toss myself out the nearest window as the quickest and easiest solution to a profound sense of boredom. I even participate. It does suck that it took until the final semester to find something in law school that isn’t predictable, uninspiring, and otherwise dull, but I’m glad I did. Christ I actually feel like a student again.

Joel Brouwer reviews Robert Pinsky's latest collection in tomorrow's Sunday Book Review:

[I]n “Gulf Music” Pinsky offers us his most valuable contribution yet: not just an argument for but a demonstration of contemporary poetry’s necessity and vitality in our democracy.

“Deciding to remember, and what to remember,” Pinsky has written, “is how we decide who we are.” Poetry’s role in that process is simultaneously to preserve our common American memory and honor our diversity, to make music in the gulf between unum and pluribus. This is an intractable instance of the one-many problem if ever there was one, but Pinsky seeks from the first to address it in his new collection’s opening “Poem of Disconnected Parts.”

At Robben Island the political prisoners studied.
They coined the motto Each one Teach one.

In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as “Profesor.”

Many of my friends are moved by guilt, but I
Am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.

Culture the lock, culture the key. Imagination
That calls the boiled sheep heads in the market “Smileys.”

With its clear language and sturdy blank verse, the poem offers images of state violence past and present, intimate moments of self-analysis, allusions to Homer’s “Odyssey,” ambiguous references to the poet’s own family history that no reader unfamiliar with his earlier books would understand, philosophical conjectures, even the thoughts of a traditional Zulu healer: “The Sangomo says in our Zulu culture we do not / Worship our ancestors: we consult them.”

Mitt Romney, it seems safe to say, will not be the GOP's nominee for POTUS this fall as I boldly and daringly predicted many months ago.

Though Mitt isn't going to get the nomination, he came pretty damn close. I first picked Romney to be the nominee in April 2006, when he was a relatively obscure state governor, after watching a rerun of this interview he did with Brian Lamb. Even though he was undeclared at that point, it was clear to me that the conditions were right for Romney to run, and that the field was thin enough for him to actually pull it off. I maintain that both of my premises were correct. Romney just didn't execute (and I may have underestimated the fear and distrust that many Americans have for members of the LDS church). In the final analysis, my political prognosticating was impressive but imperfect.

Romney's loss is Hillary's victory. McCain is really not the guy that the Republicans (should) want as their standard bearer. He might be the most palatable of what's around (due to an irrational dislike of Mormons), but let's face the facts--"McCain has built his presidential aspirations and image on an angry regimen of poking sticks in the eyes of conservatives on basic principles by working to advance liberal goals." Just how much do conservatives dislike is John McCain? Let's put it this way: Ann Coulter is saying that she'll campaign for Hillary if McCain wins the nomination.

I've never wanted Mitt Romney to be president; I just thought that he was the best shot the Republicans had at maintaining the White House. 

This is a complete tangent, but do you remember 2006? Back when George Allen was the presumptive GOP nominee? I wonder where he is right now? Remember the YouTube clip that took him down?  

Ah, good times.

Anyway, the republican party is in complete disarray right now. It's schizophrenic for the GOP to nominate a man who almost defected from the party to be president, but there it is. November will bring new, larger, democratic majorities in both houses of congress, and a democratic president-elect. I'm not saying that Mitt Romney could have stopped this, but maybe he could have stemmed the tide a bit.

So after not much sleep I awake early this morning to the fairly obnoxious sounds of what must be a million birds; a great migration, it seems, is taking place in this most unfortunate of cities, right above my apartment at the moment. Not thinking too much of it, I get ready for work and head out to the car, having planned on driving today. The first signs of distress soon appear in the form of the occasional pile of bird shit, though I assure you this is no ordinary bird shit. The piles are considerably larger than normal and vary in color from a milky white to bright orange. These birds, I suspect, must have had the feast of their miserable lives before heading out on this triumphant journey. Anyhow, it turns out that my car is parked, of all places, directly underneath a large tree where a few birds remain congregated, the bulk having departed. Here there is no occasional pile; rather, it’s a veritable flood. Compounding the situation is the fact that it’s about a thousand degrees below zero and what started out as large and, from the looks of it, very wet piles of shit are now frozen solid. That a gas station is close by provides some relief, my thought process being that I can at least clean the windows (the windshield in particular got hit hard) while the rest might be left for later. I’m saddened to discover, then, that not one but both of the available wiper/washer things have been maliciously broken. How to explain this, I think to myself, and that recurring thought about why people do the amazingly stupid things they do quickly surfaces. The guy inside informs me that no others are available, sorry. Fuck him. And fuck those people who, for god knows what reason, destroyed the first two. And fuck those birds. I hope those hicks in Wisconsin or Iowa or the Dakotas or wherever they are headed are standing outside with their shotguns ready to blast away. Anyhow, what a shitty start to the day. Having abandoned the driving idea, at least the bus ride was fairly pleasant.

I'm now calling for a concession speech. So let's hear it, Nick. I understand that there may be no way to bow out gracefully from what has been, since the beginning, a far-fetched and otherwise flawed prediction, but I wish you all the best in your efforts.

While Heath Ledger’s passing is no doubt sad, the media coverage of it is somewhat amusing in its own right. It seems pretty clear that family, friends, and the media are putting the full spin machine into effect in an effort to portray his death as nothing more than an accidental and indeed completely inexplicable overdose. (Was it some freak combination of drugs recommended by what are presumably some of the best doctors money can buy? Was it these crazy European pills he was prescribed, as though medications on that continent are fundamentally unsound?) As proof for this claim it has been loudly asserted that a rolled up $20 bill found nearby tested negative for illegal narcotics. Hmmm, let’s review some basics. (1) While I must confess my inexperience in such matters and thus arguable lack of knowledge, I’m quite certain I’ve never seen or heard of another human being rolling a $20 bill (or $100 or $1 or any foreign currency) for any purpose other than to snort drugs. (2) Heath Ledger would not be the first person to snort Xanax, Valium, or any of the four other prescription drugs found in the vicinity. (3) A person who snorts a drug—legal or illegal—is clearly no novice when it comes to narcotics. It’s not like you wake up one day and, innocent of all drug related activity, say to whoever, “Hey, look, my doctor gave me a prescription for this or that…let’s cut these up and snort ‘em!!” (4) Mary Kate Olson is apparently a close pal and the first person his housekeeper thought to call (Why, you ask? Good fucking question) upon discovering his lifeless body face down on the floor, naked; enough said. So, putting this all together, what I don’t get about the whole situation is why people and the media don’t just call it what it is: an overdose of somebody who was clearly doing significant amounts of not one but several drugs, if only of the prescription variety. Overdoses happen. Sure, it’s sad, but to portray it as some sort of freak accident is a bit disingenuous. On the other hand, if it were somebody in your or my family, I kind of get it; sometimes the truth hurts. It just feels weird though when what clearly seems to be bullshit is spread far and wide. To the extent that I have a point here (I grant this is highly debatable), it would be this: Why does Ledger’s death require some sort of dumbed-down, transparent, and otherwise “nice” explanation? Does this make people feel better? Why not just say, because he was a public figure and to the degree that people seem to care, what actually happened, all the more so since it seems fairly obvious?

Concerning the candidate's alleged efforts to woo the (probably) not insignificant racist element in South Carolina, this from Slate,

Thus, as well as crassly behaving exactly like someone "from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," former Gov. Huckabee of Arkansas deliberately aligned himself with the rancorous minority who are still not reconciled to the idea that South Carolina may not officially consecrate racism and slavery and secession. " Your flag"? What an insult, not just to the descendants of slavery but to the many, many other loyalists and Unionists who fought and died to bring their state back into the Union. And what is the point of the "outside the state" slur? Wasn't this exactly what Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas used to say, as if to make it seem that all was hunky-dory in his own tight little dominion until them goddam "outside agitators" arrived? In the end, as Gov. Huckabee may or may not recall, the 101st Airborne Division, most of them "outsiders" not from Arkansas, had to be sent by a Republican president to integrate the schools of Little Rock. That was a lot of trouble and expense that the big-mouth rednecks put us all to, but it was worth it. It's insufferable to hear this glib idiot make a mockery of it now in order to try to get the Klan vote in South Carolina.

"Glib idiot"...I like that. May even have to borrow it some time...

According to weather.com, the current temperature is -2, though in actuality it feels more like a balmy -25 when considering wind chill. Tomorrow's high is listed at N/A, which can't possibly be a good sign. So I say fuck off, Al Gore, global warming is a total crock of shit. That this guy won the Nobel Prize is, to say the least, shocking.