Todd and in Charge

2009-06-29T11:13:00.001-04:00

Fred Travalena, RIP

Sorry to see you go, Fred.

2009-06-10T16:02:00.001-04:00

Just Another Liberal Fascist?

Let's see, the neo-Nazi who started shooting at the US Holocaust Museum was a Freeper and Obama birth certificate nut.

In other words, Jonah has found more proof the Nazis were really liberal!

2009-06-08T13:56:00.002-04:00

A Case For Torture?

Torture advocates love to discuss the ticking time bomb scenario as the ultimate justification for torturing "the truth" out of someone.

One thing that is never clear is if you support torturing a suspect because he's a suspected "terrorist," why don't you support torturing your everyday criminal suspect, like say a mass murderer.

Here's a perfect example to raise with your torture-loving GOP friends:

Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he's being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.

"I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder said. When asked by the AP what he meant and if he was referring to another shooting, he refused to elaborate further.

It wasn't clear whether Roeder knew of any impending violence or whether he was simply seeking publicity for his cause. Law enforcement authorities including the Justice Department said they didn't know whether the threat was credible.

How to prevent future, planned acts of domestic terrorism? How do we get info on what he knows, who is next, and how to stop it?

2009-06-02T17:24:00.001-04:00

Meatloaf, Todd (in Tennis Whites), Vitas Geralitus, and Commander Cody?

2009-05-28T17:05:00.003-04:00

Tennis Star Makes News

Never heard of this person before:

TENNIS babe Simona Halep is to undergo surgery - to shrink her 34DD bouncers.
The 17-year-old claims they are a disadvantage and has vowed to have a reduction later this year.
She declared: "The breasts make me uncomfortable when I play.
"It's the weight that troubles me - my ability to react quickly."
Fans of the 5ft 5in Romanian - ranked 317th in the world and hoping to play at Wimbledon - last night flocked to sign an online petition: Save Simona Halep Boobs.
One stormed: "It will be a crime against nature."

Crime against nature? That seems a little much.

2009-05-22T16:23:00.000-04:00

Come and Go Blues

Gregg Allman, solo acoustic:

2009-05-22T11:05:00.003-04:00

Star Trek For Jews

Spock explains the Vulcan salute:

...We come now to the most famous Jewish influence on Vulcan culture, the "live long and prosper" hand gesture. This "Vulcan salute, " as it has come to be called, was invented on the set by Leonard Nimoy during the filming of the second-season opener, "Amok Time." In this episode, Spock goes into something like a male estrus cycle, called pon farr in the Vulcan language. Comparing himself to a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, Spock tells Kirk that he must return to Vulcan to mate with his betrothed bride, T'Pring, or die trying. The wedding ceremony would be the first glimpse of Spock's homeworld in the series.

Nimoy felt that there should be some kind of distinctive greeting among Vulcans, analogous to a handshake or a bow. Alan Dean Foster's novelization, based on an early script, has Spock kneeling before the Vulcan matriarch, T'Pau, who places her hands on his shoulders, like royalty dubbing a knight. But Nimoy didn't care for this. Previous episodes had already established that Vulcans are touch telepaths. Therefore, a touch on the shoulders would be an invasion of privacy. Instead, Nimoy drew upon his own Jewish background to suggest the now-familiar salute. Back in the 1960s, hippies who watched "Amok Time" thought the salute was a variation of the two-fingered peace sign. But we Jews knew better. The Vulcan salute came not from protest marches, but from the pulpit of Nimoy's childhood synagogue.

I loved the movie. Perfect casting that recalled but did not mimic the original cast, great time-travel storyline, and not over-the-top action sequences.

2009-05-19T11:30:00.002-04:00

Jerry Lewis -- WTF??

Jerry was at the Cannes film festival recently to plug his new movie, and had this to say:

Wearing a bright blue jacket and flanked by photos of himself holding the Oscar he received in March for his humanitarian work, Mr. Lewis sat at a long table and worked the room hard. “Jerry’s here to announce the film he will be starring in next October,” the French translator said. “We’re going to do ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ again,” Mr. Lewis said, as laughter filled the room. “I’m playing the Christian part, and we need an Arab so we can beat” the stuffing “out of him.” Silence fell like a lead curtain. Being an old nightclub performer, he didn’t use the word stuffing. Being an old nightclub guy, he also recovered fast, but he clearly wasn’t going to make himself especially loveable. I wonder if he ever had.

2009-05-12T09:26:00.003-04:00

Star Trek

No, I haven't gone yet, but I have been reading reviews and background on it incessantly. It turned me off that J.J. Abrams made a big point of how he wasn't that much of a fan and didn't know all that much about the franchise, yet I understand the film has many inside references and is pretty faithful overall.

So maybe Abrams is attempting to gain cred among casual sci-fi fans by assuring them that this is no fan boy project, while he curries fanboy favor by throwing them inside references. Who knows?

Here's Jonah G. on Nimoy:

I don’t mean to sound like Christopher Lloyd in Taxi whining that Gene Roddenberry had Romulans do “things no Romulan would ever do,” but consistency matters. Successful artistic realms — be it Narnia or Middle Earth, Arrakis or that faraway galaxy a long time ago — seduce us and hold our loyalty by seeming possible, plausible . . . real. It’s easy to mock fans who get too caught up in the “it could really happen!” spirit, but last I checked, plausibility was a major aspiration of art and even good entertainment (if “art” is too snooty for this discussion). And for the Star Trek franchise, internal consistency is a big part of the show’s success. By staying somewhat loyal to the details, or what some call “the canon,” the franchise has earned the loyalty of generations of Trek fans

And that’s why I was so annoyed with renowned Orthodox Jewish soft-porn photographer Leonard Nimoy’s statement that fans need to “open their minds.” “Canon,” Nimoy explains, “is only important to certain people because they have to cling to their knowledge of the minutiae.”

This creeping Obamaism annoyed me greatly. Recall how last spring, then-senator Obama explained that those stupid hicks in Western Pennsylvania wouldn’t vote for him because they were too busy clinging to their skygod and boomsticks, not to mention their bigotry and xenophobia? It seems in Nimoy’s view, the people who made him a rich celebrity rather than the second fiddle has-been on a short-lived sci-fi TV show 40 years ago need to get over themselves. How convenient he tells us this at age 78, after a lifetime of cashing in on those silly minutiae-clingers.

2009-05-08T11:24:00.000-04:00

Change Myself

2009-05-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

First They Come For the.....

2009-05-04T12:37:00.000-04:00

Hodja!

Teach me to spin....

2009-05-01T10:14:00.001-04:00

For Shame

Turns out he was a "personnel clerk." Oh well:

He was the first prisoner in the "war on terror" to experience the full gamut of ancient techniques adapted by the communists in Korea and, 50 years later, approved by the Justice Department in Washington. He was the first prisoner to have his interrogations captured on videotape -- a practice the CIA ended in late 2002. Two years later, the agency destroyed 90 videotapes of Abu Zubaydah's interrogations, which resulted in a criminal investigation of government officials connected with the program.

Many questions about his interrogation remain unanswered, but two legs of the three-legged stool are firmly in place.

First, they beat him. As authorized by the Justice Department and confirmed by the Red Cross, they wrapped a collar around his neck and smashed him over and over against a wall. They forced his body into a tiny, pitch-dark box and left him for hours. They stripped him naked and suspended him from hooks in the ceiling. They kept him awake for days.

And they strapped him to an inverted board and poured water over his covered nose and mouth to "produce the sensation of suffocation and incipient panic." Eighty-three times. I leave it to others to debate whether we should call this torture. I am content with the self-evident truth that it was wrong.

Second, his treatment was motivated by the bane of our post-9/11 world: rotten intel. The beat him because they believed he was evil. Not long after his arrest, President Bush described him as "one of the top three leaders" in Al Qaeda and "Al Qaeda's chief of operations." In fact, the CIA brass at Langley, Va., ordered his interrogators to keep at it long after the latter warned that he had been wrung dry.

But Abu Zubaydah, we now understand, was nothing like what the president believed. He was never Al Qaeda. The journalist Ron Suskind was the first to ask the right questions. In his 2006 book, "The One Percent Doctrine," he described Abu Zubaydah as a minor logistics man, a travel agent.

Later and more detailed reporting in the Washington Post, quoting Justice Department officials, said he provided "above-ground support. ... To make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous." More recently, the New York Times, relying on current and former intelligence officers, said the initial assessment was "highly inflated" and reflected "a profound misunderstanding" of Abu Zubaydah. Far from a leader, he was "a personnel clerk."

2009-04-29T16:34:00.000-04:00

Rosie Vela

Magic Smile....

2009-04-29T09:08:00.001-04:00

Todd to Perform AWATS?

Could it really be true:

Todd Rundgren who just recently performed with his rock band in Clevleand will be returning to N.E. Ohio in September to perform, right here in Akron at The Civic Theatre.
What will he do?

For the first time ever (apparently) the singer will perform his dense 1973 breakthrough album A Wizard, A True Star in its entirety as part of Rundgren Radio's Birthday Bash II.

According to one of the guys promoting the show (Doug), not to long ago while Runt was on tour in Europe, a British promoter suggested the idea to Todd on two separate occasions, but never followed up.

But Rundgren–who has a soft spot in his heart for the album because it was a sharp stylistic left turn after Something/Anything which contained hits such as I Saw The Light and Hello, It's Me — liked the concept so much that VOILA!

Akron gets a musical gift.

Tickets for the special (possibly one-night-only) show go onsale, Monday, May 4, prices TBA.

2009-04-28T15:10:00.000-04:00

Thank You, Club For Growth!

You just gave the Dems a 60 vote majority.

2009-04-27T12:46:00.002-04:00

Andrew Sullivan Remembers

Boy, George W. Bush said a lot of things, including this:

It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation.

2009-04-24T11:19:00.002-04:00

Crimson and Clover

The great one on Ellen yesterday:

2009-04-22T16:50:00.003-04:00

Peggy Noonan and Just Keep Walkin'

Much has been made of Peggy's "just keep walking, some things should stay secret" mantra the other day.

It's funny but I immediately thought of Nazi Germany. While many German Army and other armed units had an inkling of what went on at the death camps and mass shootings, the Nazis did in fact work very hard to keep things secret from the German population and from the world at large. That is why even many European Jews had no idea as late as 1944 (or simply refused to believe it possible) that such mass executions were occuring in the name of the German people.

I just read this amazing document from a Wehrmacht officer, reporting in dismay on the mass shootings being carried out in the woods by special SS execution units.

Same impulse, people.

2009-04-22T15:58:00.003-04:00

Rich Lowry Thinks We're Not a "Torturing Nation"!!

Thank goodness we (barely) pass the Lowry test:

As for "torturing nations," I don't think anything we've done—even if you think it crossed the line—makes us anything like a "torturing nation," or risks overturning an element of the American identity. I believe the Bush administration was engaged in a good faith effort to find the line and honor it.

Well, that's that then. Rich thinks we meant well, and that should pretty much end the inquiry.

Small followup -- what do people in other nations think, Rich?

2009-04-21T10:41:00.000-04:00

Utopia

2009-04-20T14:41:00.000-04:00

The Power of Music

2009-04-20T09:39:00.001-04:00

Your Pundits At Work

How disgusting:

Over at "Fox News Sunday," some members of the panel jousted after the program aired, to prove how much they agreed with the Bush administration's torture policies, along with slamming the administration's decision to release the memos.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol started things off by saying: "I'm not confident that forswearing the use of these techniques is prudent."

Then Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume took it a step further by emphasizing that Obama "needs to aware of what he may have unleashed here," warning of the possibility of "Congressional show trials" and emphasizing:

"What we really need is to have all these techniques at our disposal... they talk about the banging of the guy's head against the wall. It turns out to be very controlled and it's a soft wall that gives way... I'm not at all sure that's torture."

The program's host, Chris Wallace, agreed with Hume's assessment of the "soft wall" technique -- "it strikes me as fairly cautious and careful."

"Fairly cautious and careful"???

2009-04-17T10:05:00.003-04:00

9th Circuit Judge Jay Bybee

This guy needs to be impeached.

Just consider parts of this August 1, 2002 Memo (.pdf) by then OLC official (and now-federal judge) Jay Bybee, authorizing the following techniques for Abu Zubaydah, who was shot three times during his capture and was still suffering from those wounds when these techniques were authorized (click on images to enlarge - it's worth it):

"Walling" is slamming an individual into a wall. "Cramped confinement" means "placement of the individual in a confined space" that "is usually dark . . . the dimensions of which restrict the individual's movements" -- in other words, a coffin-like space. The memo specifically states that the purpose of "stress positions" is to cause "muscle fatigue." And here is what "insects placed in a confinement box" means (and here is one unexplained redaction):

Later, the memo notes that Zubaydah was to be told that the insect inserted in his box was a "stinging insect." It then provides detailed instructions on how the insects can be used to torment him:

The memo then describes waterboarding in excruciating detail, matter-of-factly noting: "the subject's body responds as if the subject were drowning." Amazingly, it concludes that "the use of waterboarding constitutes a threat of imminent death," but is nonethless permissible and legal because it does not result in "prolonged mental harm."

2009-04-16T08:58:00.000-04:00

Who's In Control?

Interesting thoughts on child-raising here:

It appears that many parents of toddlers, in their anxiety to be neither negligent nor disrespectful, have gone overboard in what may seem to be the other direction. Like the thankless martyrs of the in-arms stage, they have become centered upon their children instead of being occupied by adult activities that the children can watch, follow, imitate, and assist in as is their natural tendency. In other words, because a toddler wants to learn what his people do, he expects to be able to center his attention on an adult who is centered on her own business. An adult who stops whatever she is doing and tries to ascertain what her child wants her to do is short-circuiting this expectation. Just as significantly, she appears to the tot not to know how to behave, to be lacking in confidence and, even more alarmingly, looking for guidance from him, a two or three year old who is relying on her to be calm, competent, and sure of herself.

A toddler's fairly predictable reaction to parental uncertainty is to push his parents even further off-balance, testing for a place where they will stand firm and thus allay his anxiety about who is in charge. He may continue to draw pictures on the wall after his mother has pleaded with him to desist, in an apologetic voice that lets him know she does not believe he will obey. When she then takes away his markers, all the while showing fear of his wrath, he — as surely as he is a social creature — meets her expectations and flies into a screaming rage.

If misreading his anger, she tries even harder to ascertain what he wants, pleads, explains, and appears ever more desperate to placate him, the child will be impelled to make more outrageous, more unacceptable demands. This he must continue to do until at last she does take over leadership and he can feel that order is restored. He may still not have a calm, confident, reliable authority figure to learn from, as his mother is now moving from the point of losing her temper to the point at which guilt and doubts about her competence are again rearing their wobbly heads. Nevertheless, he will have the meager reassurance of seeing that when the chips were down, she did relieve him of command and of his panicky feeling that he should somehow know what she should do.

Put simply, when a child is impelled to try to control the behavior of an adult, it is not because the child wants to succeed, but because the child needs to be certain that the adult knows what he or she is doing. Furthermore, the child cannot resist such testing until the adult stands firm and the child can have that certainty. No child would dream of trying to take over the initiative from an adult unless that child receives a clear message that such action is expected — not wanted, but expected! Moreover, once the child feels he has attained control, he becomes confused and frightened and must go to any extreme to compel the adult to take the leadership back where it belongs.

When this is understood, the parents' fear of imposing upon their child is allayed, and they see that there is no call for adversariality. By maintaining control, they are fulfilling their beloved child's needs, rather than acting in opposition to them.