birther on toast

u.s. army lieutenant colonel dr. terrence lakin is toast:

and he can't say i didn't warn him.

of course it's always possible that what looks, to both layfolk and seasoned practicioners, like a fatal drop kick to the groin, may be, to more astute eyes, a carefully orchestrated manuever in a larger overarching strategy:

if convicted, easy reversal and remand by SCOTUS [*].

this is a case where def[ense] adnits the alledged action but claims justicication in doing so, so pros[ecutor] must show "criminal intent." they are denying him the ability to show the lack of a "criminal state of mind," a "mens rea" in latin, a criminal intent.

[* supreme court of the united states]

umm, ok ... whatever.

or it's possible that he knows he's tilting at windmills and wants all the glitz and glory that comes with martyrdom — or at least as much as he can get from his cheerleading squad.

but whichever narrative is unfolding, everyone seems to agree that he's one step closer to his all-expense-paid vacation to fort leavenworth:

CNN — a judge on thursday denied a request for president barack obama to testify at a court martial for a U.S. army flight surgeon who refused to deploy to afghanistan until he saw proof that obama was born in the united states.

the judge, army col. denise lind, said any evidence or witnesses related to obama's citizenship is irrelevant to the charges against lt. col. terrence lakin, who has 17 years of service in the U.S. military.

after failing to deploy with his unit in april, lakin was charged with missing a movement, disobeying a lawful order and dereliction of duty.

the uniform code of military justice says the maximum punishment for both offenses -- missing his plane and disobeying lawful orders -- is a dishonorable discharge and up to two years in confinement. a guilty verdict could also result in forfeiture of lakin's pay, which totals $7,959 a month, according to a charge sheet provided by a group sponsoring his defense.

lakin's lawyers argued that all military orders stem from the commander-in-chief. without evidence that obama is eligible to be president, they say, the doctor's deployment order was illegal.

in addition to putting obama on their witness list, lakin's lawyers had asked lind to order obama's official birth records from hawaii be brought to court for trial.

"if the president is ineligible, you need to know that," lakin's civilian attorney, paul jensen, told lind. "col. lakin needs to know that, the government needs to know that, america needs to know that."

the prosecutors in the case argued that obama's eligibility is not relevant because the officers who ordered lakin to go to fort campbell and then ordered him to answer questions about why he didn't go were his proper superiors in the military chain of command, and they gave him legal orders. jensen later conceded that point.

the judge ruled that the matter of obama's eligibility is not relevant because he did not give any orders in the case. she pointed out that while the president is commander-in-chief of the military, it is congress that is constitutionally empowered to raise armies, pay them and equip them.

any contention that any orders are invalid if the president is ineligible "is erroneous," the judge said.

lind also said that military law says that a soldier's personal beliefs or convictions are not sufficient to allow that soldier to determine that an order is illegal. the soldier has to have "no rational doubt" that the order is illegal before he or she can ignore it.

finally she ruled that a military court martial is not the forum in which to determine a president's eligibility, because the constitution says only congress has the power to impeach and remove the president.

afterward, jensen said he respected the judge's ruling, but called it distressing.

"it completely deprives us of any opportunity to present a defense in this case," jensen said.

the court martial is set to begin in october, but jensen said he's not giving up on the matter of obama's eligibility.

"we will be giving the army court of criminal appeals in the next week or two the opportunity to take up the issue, and we are going to fight on for justice to be served in this case."

lakin is among 27 percent of americans who doubt or deny that obama is american-born, according to a recent CNN/opinion research corp. poll. they compose the birther movement, which demands that obama present a birth certificate signed by the doctor who delivered him in 1961.

CNN and other news organizations have thoroughly debunked the rumors about the president's birthplace. the obama campaign released a copy of a birth record issued by the state in 2007, called a "certification of live birth," and allowed reporters to examine the document in person in 2008.

last year, hawaiian state officials issued a statement that they had personally viewed the president's original hawaiian birth record, called a "certificate of live birth," and verified it to be authentic. state law bars the release of the original certificate. in addition, two hawaiian newspapers ran notices in 1961 announcing obama's birth in the state.

lakin's fate was sealed the moment he disobeyed his orders to report to duty. under military law all orders are presumed to be legal, which places the burden of contesting an order on the subordinate. there is only one perilous defense for disobedience:

an order requiring the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. this inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime.

but lakin wants to argue that:

1. his orders come from the president.
2. barack obama might not really be president.
3. obeying obama's orders could therefore be a crime.

unfortunately for lakin, his argument fails on all three points.

first, while obama is certainly his commander-in-chief, lakin's april orders to report came from his immediate superiors, as reflected in the specific formal charges leveled against him:

CHARGE I, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ. ARTICLE 87

THE SPECIFICATION: in that lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin, US army, did. at or near arlington, virginia. on or about 12 april 2010, through design, miss the movement of US airways flight number 1123. departing from baltimore/washington international airport arriving in charlotte. north carolina. in order to deploy for a temporary change of station in support of operation enduring freedom with the 32nd calvary regiment, 101st airborne division (air assault), fort campbell, kentucky. with which he was required in the course of duty to move

CHARGE II, VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ. ARTICLE 92

SPECIFICATION 1: in that lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin. US army. having knowledge of a lawful order issued by lieutenant colonel william judd. to report to the office of his brigade commander. colonel gordon r. roberts. at 1345 hours. or words to that effect. an order which it was his duty to obey. did. at or near arlington, virginia. on or about 31 march 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully not reporting as directed.

SPECIFICATION 2: in that lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin. US army. having knowledge of a lawful order issued by colonel gordon r. roberts. to wit: a memorandum signed by the said colonel gordon r. roberts, dated 31 march 2010, an order which it was his duty to obey. did, at or near arlington. virginia. on or about 31 march 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully not reporting as directed.

SPECIFICATION 3: in that lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin. US army. having knowledge of a lawful order issued by colonel peter m. mchugh. to wit: temporary change of station orders 099-17. dated 9 april 2010, issued by colonel peter mchugh. requiring the said lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin to report to fort campbell, kentucky not later than 1500 hours on 12 april 2010, an order which it was his duty to obey. did at or near washington. district of columbia. on or about 12 april 2010, fail to obey the same by wrongfully failing to report to 32nd calvary regiment. 101st airborne division (air assault), fort campbell, kentucky.

SPECIFICATION 4: in that lieutenant colonel terrence l. lakin. US army. who knew or should have known of his duties at or near washington. district of columbia. on or about 12 april 2010. was derelict in the perforrmance of those duties in that he willfully failed to report to fort campbell, kentucky in accordance with temporary change of station orders 099-17. dated 9 april 2010, issued by colonel peter mchugh. in support of operation enduring freedom. as it was his duty to do.

note that the name "barack h. obama" does not appear anywhere in these charges, and even if it could be demonstrated that every military order traces back to the president, no court is going to agree that every latrine assignment since noon january 20, 2009 has been illegal.

second, lakin takes careful pains to avoid claiming that obama isn't the lawful president (possibly to avoid added charges of contempt). he only claims that he's unsure and just needs his mind put at ease. unfortunately for soldiers, there is no room for doubt in the chain of command, no matter how sincere. lakin is obligated to follow orders unless he has damning evidence in hand at the time of his refusal. asking for the judge's help to find the evidence that he's required to bring to court himself counts for real chutzpah if nothing else.

third, even if obama were proven ineligible, his orders would nonetheless remain perfectly valid, according to the de facto officer doctrine:

the de facto officer doctrine confers validity upon acts performed by a person acting under the color of official title even though it is later discovered that the legality of that person’s appointment or election to office is deficient.

... the de facto doctrine springs from the fear of the chaos that would result from multiple and repetitious suits challenging every action taken by every official whose claim to office could be open to question, and seeks to protect the public by insuring the orderly functioning of the government despite technical defects in title to office.

all of lakins arguments collide head-on with well-established mechanisms essential to maintaining military discipline and those mechanisms are designed to turn recalcitrants like lakin into toast, which he must full well know:

i attempted all avenues i could over a year ago. i submitted an article 138, which is the only way that i could research how to &mdash how to address this issue, asking and begging my leadership for guidance in how to — how to address this issue. and the answers that i got were not ...

... answers that he wanted to hear, apparently — confirmed by former JAG defense attorney charles gittins:

i told LTCOL lakin that he was being badly advised when he called me to join his legal team. i gave him my (very) candid advice. i told him to seek opinions from other military justice experts if he was not willing to accept my advice. he is where he is for a reason. i am very sad for him. he has been deluded by a very incompetent attorney, who has done a disservice [to] our profession and military justice.

now that lakin's legs have been predictably cut from under him, his attorney and his cheerleaders claim that he's not being allowed a defense. but the judge, rightly, wants lakin to defend against the charges he's facing. all that lakin's being denied is the opportunity to rant incoherently. during his trial for the murder of dr. george tiller, scott roeder was not allowed to rant incoherently about perfectly legal abortion procedures. instead, facing a charge of first degree murder, roeder was allowed only to explain if he believed someone's life was in imminent danger or if he were legally insane when he pulled the trigger, because those are the only justifications allowed.

as noted in the cnn report above, lakin's attorney has already been forced to concede in court that lakin's orders were legal. if that leaves lakin without a defense, the person at fault is not the judge.

the toast is ready. it is only waiting to be served.

time for a new ticker?

fool me once for thinking that my first ticker would be enough.

meet mariner energy inc.:

new orleans, LA. — a mile-long oil sheen spread thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the gulf of mexico off lousiana, west of the site of BP's massive spill. coast guard petty officer bill coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform owned by houston-based mariner energy inc. ... the coast guard says no one was killed in the explosion and fire, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the site around 9 a.m. CDT. ... the platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of vermilion bay on the central louisiana coast. it's location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP's well spewed oil and gas for three months after an april rig explosion. ... the platform is about 200 miles west of BP's blown-out well. on friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer, another step toward completion of a relief well that would put a finals eal [sic] on the well. the BP-leased rig deepwater horizon exploded april 20, killing 11 people and setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil.

this ap writer seems to think that bp's well was shut down back on july 16, as noted on my ticker. while we wait for bp to finish installing that "final seal", i'll keep my ticker running, thank you ...

almost famous

dreams die hard, sometimes.

thankfully this time, for the sake of everyone within the probable blast range of this aspiring young celebrity, his dreams of glory fell victim to the same reckless killer that's snuffed the dreams of many a would-be super-predator — his own lack of maturity:

sisseton, SD — an 18-year-old high school student stockpiled bomb-making materials in his bedroom and wrote about wanting to blow up his school, target individuals he hated, rape women and "become the world's most infamous sociopath," authorities said. joseph thomas hansen, of claire city, was arrested aug. 23 after someone tipped off a police school resource officer that hansen had talked about an attack, authorities said. ... hansen pleaded not guilty tuesday to selling, transporting or possessing an explosive device and possessing substances with the intent to make a destructive device, and is due back in court sept. 14. if convicted of all charges, he could face up to 25 years in prison, jackley said. ... during a search of hansen's room, investigators found a list hansen wrote of things he wanted to do, including blow up sisseton high school — where he was set to begin his senior year the day after his arrest — torture and rape women and "become the world's most infamous sociopath," according to an affidavit filed monday. he listed 39 people he hated and the reasons why, and he researched the 1999 columbine school massacre in littleton, colo., in which two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 26 others before committing suicide, investigators said. detectives also found drawings of swastikas, documents outlining two attempts to make napalm, instructional materials on how to make bombs, four guns and a video showing two explosive devices detonating, according to the affidavit. two people whose names were redacted in the affidavit told roberts county sheriff's investigators that hansen told them he "had enough fireworks to blow up sisseton and that the first day of school would be a short one," the court documents state. during an initial interview with police, hansen said he was fascinated by mass murder, read books on the subject and wanted to know what makes killers tick, authorities said. he also expressed an interest in the marine corps, demolitions and becoming a criminal profiler, according to the court documents. ... amanda ostby, a 24-year-old hairdresser at little shop for hair in claire city, said she was shocked by the arrest. "he was a nice kid, well mannered," said ostby. "he was a super nice kid so it's pretty unbelievable."

hansen sounds like a highly motivated young man and he seems to have come close to realizing his dream, since it appears that, above and beyond petty teen revenge, spattering his name across the pages of history was his real ambition. he "wanted to know what makes killers tick" and immersed himself in his chosen craft for a shot at outclassing everyone that's come before him.

but most sociopaths with violent tendencies succumb to those yearnings well before the time they reach a level of emotional maturity and intellectual aptitude that might help them better resist crime, better plan bigger and more ambitious crimes and better evade detection and capture. once captured, all development not related to simply surviving in prison comes to an abrupt halt. this means that unless they are born in an essentially lawless culture that exploits their talents and gives them license to operate freely and openly (think hitler's germany or pol pot's cambodia), most sociopaths fail to advance to the higher levels of sociability and status that would make them as dangerous and terrible as any tyrant straight out of history, such as vlad the impaler. the upwardly-mobile ted bundy was the exception that proves the rule and outside of hollywood there are no hannibal lecters. such monsters can only be scripted, not born.

so a closer inspection of hansen's dreams reveals some of their more childish aspects. he wanted to both blow up his school, for starters, as well as torture and rape (and presumably kill) women. it is difficult to envision how he hoped to fulfill both, since his first wish, without an escape plan, amounts to an apocalyptic suicidal act, while the second demands a commitment to an continuing career. one is the act of a mass murderer and the other is the act of a serial killer. one brings instant notoriety, the other requires prolonged anonymity. a person cannot have both and, after hansen's arrest, it is all but certain that, beyond the scope of local news, he will never have either.

hansen's dreams need not have ended this way. his interest in "the marine corps, demolitions and becoming a criminal profiler" shows that he knew full well that there are options on the civil side of the law for people like him who are attracted to high-octane violence. unless, that is, one is dreaming of instant fame ...

alkies awake!

burning up the interwebs this week have been some very encouraging reports for incorrigible alkies everywhere:

... a new paper in the journal alcoholism: clinical and experimental research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. the most shocking part? abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

i'm sorry, but announcements of this sort always remind me of the longstanding faddish nature of nutrition lore, which took a bit of a ribbing in woody allen's 1973 comedy "sleeper", wherein health food store proprietor miles munroe wakes up from an unplanned cryogenic nap 200 years into the future:

dr. melik:	well, he's fully recovered ... except for a few minor kinks.
dr. tryon:	has he asked for anything special?
dr. melik:	yes, this morning for breakfast: uh, he requested something called wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk ... ?
dr. tryon:	[chuckling] oh yes, those are the charmed substances that some years ago were felt to contain life-preserving properties.
dr. melik:	you mean there was no deep fat, no steak or cream pies or hot fudge?
dr. tryon:	those were thought to be unhealthy. precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
dr. melik:	incredible ...

miles:	and, and ... where am i anyhow? i mean, what, what happened to everybody? where are all my friends?
dr. aragon:	you must understand that everyone you knew in the past has been dead nearly two hundred years.
miles:	but they all ate organic rice!

dr. aragon:	[to dr. melik] he's ranting ... we'd better tranquilize him.
miles:	i knew it was too good to be true — i parked right near the hospital!
dr. aragon:	now here, you smoke this. and be sure you get the smoke deep down into your lungs.
miles:	i don't smoke.
dr. aragon:	it's tobacco! it's one of the healthiest things for your body! now go ahead — you need all the strength you can get.

(don't dawdle, folks! catch the movie in its entirety while it lasts ...)

birther bait

oh no, he didn't ...

did the kenyan marxist muslim usurper just go there? just when we thought we'd already seen the last involuntary twitch from the nontroversy that just won't die?

via politico:

[NBC "nightly news" anchor brian] williams, sitting under a tent in a rain-soaked new orleans, where the first family commemorated the fifth anniversary of hurricane katrina, asked obama why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith. "i can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead," quipped obama, who took a deep breath to gather his thoughts when asked if the poll reflected his inability to communicate with voters.

cool!

for popcorn-loving birther-watchers, it's christmas in august as the switchboards light up at our favorite freedumb-loving wingnut watering hole:

1) "obama says he ignored beck rally":

why the psychopath reply?

spoken exactly as one would expect a demonic liar to answer.

always the arrogant, dishonest divisive tyrant. the proper response for a real president: "i can appreciate the hopes and prayers of these fine people. i want us all to find common ground in our love of america. with this shared bond, we will move forward into a bright future." this, or similar human sentiment, is utterly alien to the democrats and obama.

can he start by spending any time with his birth certificate plastered on his forehead? i'm not into that particular conspiracy, but i am very concerned that he refuses to show it at all. especially because it would do massive damage to the credibility of those who oppose him and use that particular argument. the fact that it has not been resolved and he's making jokes like that is insult to injury.

(i'm sure the usurper is deeply touched by your concern ...)

how about chuckles the mulllah explaining whose paying his legal bills for attorneys trying to keep his birth certificate hidden?

this is one narcissistic s.o.m. (son of a muslim). "to hell with what the people think. i don't understand why they don't still worship me."

yep - it really makes me want to see it now. perhaps it's really not about his birthplace, but the fact that it's been amended to show indonesian citizenship by virtue of his adoption, without him ever declaring u.s. citizenship at the legal age. the indonesian adoption would be a link to islam, since he had to be a muslim to go to school there. it's mindboggling that someone so anti-american in his upbringing could occupy the oval office.

2) "obama blasts lies, disinformation":

yeah because "666" is already plastered there.

for once, he tells the truth. he cannot show his birth certificate because he has none.

thanks, brian, for your brilliant follow-up questioning, like, "what birth certificate? they say you haven't shown it." what is this talking head being paid?

he does have a kenyan BC as the people in kenya have said. go home ZERO!

we'd like to believe him, but it's OK for mooselimbs to lie to infidels.

could you use a nailgun instead?

OBAMA WANTS to make this the focus instead of his disasterous presidency. i hope people will drop this soon and focus again on the pathetic job he's doing.

(hmmm — i find this one's lack of faith disturbing ...)

3) "barack obama will not be getting a birth certificate tattoo":

obama could end all of this and make so many critics look like fools easily. all he has to do is to release his actual birth certificate.

(but why spoil everyone's fun?)

i too wonder why he hasn't just made it up yet, faked it or something. i remember when all the moonbats were going on and on about george bush and the weapons of mass destruction. they blamed him over and over, nailing him to a cross. i used to point out "if george bush were half as evil as you people think he is, don't you think he would have faked the wmd?" well here we are, and obama still hasn't presented it.

(i haz a confuzed ... so does this mean the factcheck bc is legit?)

"the lady, she protest too much." (hamlet) the BC, if there is one, may say MUZZIE on it, his "father's" religion

i think the american people would be happy to know who his father was and that he was truly born in the states, i however think he is an imposter because he is not natural born, native born does nothing for me. i am a native born citizen, my parents were born in italy. i cannot be president of the united states. in fact down deep inside i feel a tremendous loyalty to italy in sports and politics. which is what i think the founders wanted to prevent.

(well, at least one of these pretend patriots is willing to admit to high treason!)

he is clearly losing his ability to maintain his composure. i think he knows it's over. one and done.

4) "I CAN'T SPEND ALL OF MY TIME WITH MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE PLASTERED ON MY FOREHEAD":

if he's actually talking to it then you can be assured that he is scarred to death about this issue. marxists use ridicule as a weapon and he's using it here to marginalize people who ask that this be demonstrated in accordance with the law.

all he had to do was show it during this interview.

produce a lefitimate one one time and the issue will disapear just as soon as you get on a plane to kenya!

(absulootly!)

this is backfiring on him big time. drudge has this on the front page and linked to politico/journ-o-listers which has over 1200 comments so far. the comments are running 99% against imam obama.

the fact that drudge is touching this at all tells you how far we've come. the word of mouth is revealing what no media entity would touch. he can't control us all.

nice straw man bam, just show the real long form once to a "credible" new source (not CNNABCNBCCBSMSNBC) and it will probably go away. unless of course it was typed with the same version of msword used to produce the TANG memos.

(if i were a betting man, i'd put my money on: "probably not" ...)

who wants to live forever?

while i for one have no hesitation in answering that question with an "ooh-ooh-ooooh! me, me, me! pick me!" and an enthusiasm that would embarrass arnold horshack, quite a number of people roll their eyes and "pshaw!" the very notion, as if their contemptuous dismissal of the question were based on principle rather than sour grapes. truthfully, as long as the fantasy lies far beyond the furthest demonstrated capabilities of our best doctors and scientists, it's a sane response. still, one need only pick up the news on any given day to conclude that the instinct for self-preservation handily trumps the instinct for sanity-preservation and i would even argue that the will to survive — or more fundamentally, resistance to entropy — is intrinsic to the very nature of life itself.

immortality through licensing: not everyone's first choice.curiously though, many of the same folks who look down their wrinkled nostrils at what appears to be a selfish and unseemly desire also fail to see the hypocrisy in adopting a religion, every example of which, without exception, dangles the promise of everlasting life as the ultimate door prize for membership. immortality of course resurfaces again and again as a favorite literary trope in science fiction and fantasy, and would merit inclusion among my "great fictions of science fiction" were even the most credulous trekwars fanboy actually taken in by any of sci-fi's most seductive claims. clearly, religion continues to win this contest.

why most popular conceptions of technology-conferred immortality remain so wanting was recently summarized by commenter cerberus at pz myers' science blog pharyngula, in a conversation originally catapulted from futurist ray kurzweil's claim that within ten years we could "reverse-engineer" the human brain, which would allow us, in myers' words, "to write software that simulates all the functions of the human brain":

creating a robotic brain to "download your consciousnes" into or the "i'll make a clone version of myself with all my memories" sci-fi fiction immortality ideas are kinda false immortalities. it's at best, assuming a complete successful procedure a process of ending one's consciousness so that a puppet version of yourself can emulate your life possibly for all eternity. great, but what does that do for [the] real you? real you is just as dead and gone and unable to be a part of and appreciate what your puppet is doing in its absence. i'm sure this has been repeatedly addressed in the various thread wars during my absence, but it seems kind of stupid. i'd love to extend lifespans, i'd love to live forever if that was possible, but as long as we're talking fantasies, asking for the power to fart sparkly flying unicorns seems less stupid than asking for a robot facsimile to live forever on your behalf. i mean, if you're going to be all cult about this, pick something that wouldn't be completely contrary to your intended desire if you got it.

the problem is that neither of these techniques provides any continuity between the real, original you — the unique, dynamic but amorphous energy pattern that emerges as a product of your brain activity — and whatever it is that will emerge from your shiny new robot body or your baby-fresh clone body, even if it seems identical. this is the component that must be bodily transferred (pun intended), and not merely copied or "downloaded", to its new host, in order for the real you to live past your expiration date. otherwise, if all you're accomplishing is creating a vanity being as a monument to yourself, there's still nothing more simple, more efficient, more tried and tested, more mundane and less controversial than finding a partner and just having a child.

however ... since we're already vacationing here on futurist fantasy island with a white-suited ray kurzweil, where we already have his schematics for building an entire artificial brain right in front of us, it's suddenly possible to provide the continuity we need in order to engineer our transference into everlasting life. the means is in fact quite simple: by replacing the brain, in a series of discrete, stepwise procedures, with kurzweil's robot circuitry, we can preserve the continuity of consciousness by progressively swapping out sections of the original organic substrate (ie, the gray matter) with new artificial upgrades until we've completely replaced it, right from under the still actively running pattern! by conducting each procedure without rendering the subject unconscious for even a moment, but instead continuously maintaining communication with and monitoring feedback from the subject and assessing our progress after each procedure, we can assure ourselves that the same person who laid down on our operating table is the same person getting back up.

let's say that kurzweil's brain can be broken down into 100 discrete modules, and let's say that the first step is replacing the area that processes smell. so we open up our patient, reroute her smell center to the new robot smell module, turn it on, then shut down the corresponding area of her gray matter, excise it, and pop the module into place, all the while maintaining a continuous stream of realtime communication with her. now, if we were to end the operation right here with just this one module, with our patient's brain now 1% artificial and sporting a new (and perhaps even improved) smell center, no one would credibly question whether she was in fact still the same person who woke up that morning instead of some soulless android changeling. she'd certainly be no more android than anyone else who's ever received any other kind of artificial limb or organ.

and if we fast-forward to the end of the hundredth and final procedure, in which, let's say, we've replaced her libido, making her brain now 100% artificial, could anyone credibly argue that this individual was not the same person who successfully emerged from the 99th procedure, and who successfully emerged from the 98 procedures before it? it would be very difficult to make that argument without being able to pinpoint any moment or period when our patient, or more precisely, when her uninterrupted brain pattern changed in such a way that would no longer allow us to still call it "the real her". it is precisely because that pattern was not allowed to be interrupted that "the real her" was preserved as we built its new chassis under it. so, in geekspeak, instead of attempting to "download" our nebulous and intangible consciousness into a new machine, we've merely installed a live upgrade or "sidegrade" of its existing hardware and firmware as a series of modular patches, without turning off or rebooting the system. voilà — immortality v1.0! or at the very least a new lease on life until her android body is finished, but considering what we've already accomplished, the rest is just child's play.

---

afterword: of course, immortality does become somewhat problematic in about five billion years from now, when our friend the sun finally implodes. we'd most certainly want a ticket out of town, preferably on a ship capable of faster-than-light travel (not bloody likely) with lots of dvds on board for the tens — perhaps hundreds — of thousands of years ahead of us in the tractless void before we arrive anywhere interesting. of course, we need not be awake for the whole adventure: i know my android body will definitely have a "sleep" mode installed.

not worth rescuing (revised)

sometime during the last half century, blacks pulled off a most amazing trick: they kidnapped a word. they kidnapped it from the white majority that had been using it to demean and oppress them.

there are two parts to this trick that make it so amazing. first, the word's ongoing captivity has served to extend its natural lifespan and potency far beyond that of its increasingly quaint contemporaries. second, blacks have convinced whites that what they've taken from them is something of real value, something that they need to take back.

most offensive words have only a limited shelf-life. whatever signifigance that originally makes them offensive is usually bound up in the zeitgeist of the period in which they are born. eventually, after the passing of enough generations, whatever context that gave them life and power becomes drained by everyday usage and is lost to those who grow up never having personally felt their emotional sting. the surest sign that an offensive term has hit its expiration date is the lifting of any bans on its public usage. after the word "bitch" became allowable on public airwaves, it has since become so flaccid (despite an initial period of titillation) that the slang term "bee-yatch" was squeezed from it in a naked but ultimately futile attempt to milk new life from it.

but in a feat drawing the envy of professional outrage manufacturers and propagandists everywhere, blacks have locked the n-word away in a kind of linguistic cryogenic freezer, safe for blacks' own endless private indulgence, whose continued undisguised flaunting of their hostage has now driven self-annointed self-help counselor and moralist dr. laura to commit professional suicide.

black guys use it all the time. turn on HBO and listen to a black comic, and all you hear is n****, n*****, n*****. i don't get it. if anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing. but when black people say it, it's affectionate. it's very confusing.

their exclusive use of n-word is one of the few possessions that blacks have that whites don't, but most whites fail to realize that its enjoyment comes not from being able to say it, but from being able to watch the veins jealously swell up in the foreheads of racists and race-baiters as the word gets stuck in their throats, trapped there because the consequences of freeing it have become so personally damaging. comedian elon james white conveniently enumerates for us all the different types of outrage he feels free to unleash upon a white person unwise enough to utter the word:

listen, i'm not saying that white people can't say the word "ni**er", okay? what i am saying is that if you say it, i can also hate you, okay? i can mock you; i can not buy your product; i can ask for your firing; i can write letters, march, chain myself to shit. i can do that, okay? but you, you can totally say the word "ni**er". go for it!

to many whites, but especially to shock-jocks and professional rabble-rousers like dr. laura, rush limbaugh, andrew breitbart and sarah palin, being deprived of the use of one more insult is "very confusing" and simply too unfair and blacks are being too oversensitive about their attempts to use it.

well, duh!

of course it's unfair! slavery was unfair. segregation was unfair. redlining was unfair. what happened to shirley sherrod and especially what happened to her father was unfair. that's the whole point! so get used to it, guys!

besides, do whites really want to go to the mat over the right to demean their former chattel? it's just not a fight they're going to win, not when it's being fought for by paid and pampered blowhards, cranks and cynics.

still, there are two ways the n-word will die the natural death it is certainly long due. option one: when blacks release their hostage and no longer exact a price from whites for daring to use it, which, considering its continued effectiveness, as dr. laura can surely attest to, is not bloody likely to happen in this lifetime.

realistically then, this leaves us in the present with only option two: when whites let go of their n-word envy and realize that this is one hostage that's not worth rescuing. it seems most whites already have.

---

addendum: like every white person before her who grossly miscalculated that they could juggle the n-bomb without detonating it, dr. laura and her supporters want to turn her darwin-award-worthy implosion into an heroic constitutional auto-da-fé:

... my contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and i have made the decision not to do radio anymore. the reason is: i want to regain my first amendment rights. i want to be able to say what's on my mind, and in my heart, what i think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent, and attack affiliates and attack sponsors. i'm sort of done with that. i'm not retiring. i'm not quitting. i feel energized actually, stronger and freer to say the things that i believe need to be said for people in this country.

i'm not sure which document she's referring to, but the first amendment of the united states' constitution protects her freedom to speak or write from infringements by the government.

so, if president obama had picked up the phone and said to attorney general holder:

yo, eric ... i'm sick of this dr. laura bee-yatch getting all up in my peeps' grills with her shizz. man, she took it to goddam eleven this time. even clarence's gotta get behind us on this one. put the word out: her hole is closed — today.

... well, then she'd have something to complain about.

but the first amendment does not protect you from public criticism. it does not protect you from your listeners, your sponsors, your owners or your neighbors. and it certainly does not protect you from your own big mouth.

so if dr. laura thinks she can find a venue somewhere on this planet where she can spew her special brand of wisdom "without somebody getting angry" (translation: without someone cutting off her income stream), well then, good luck to the lady. wherever that is, i'm sure it's pretty crowded there already.

quote of the day

hacker masato nakatsuji after his arrest, charged with unleashing the destructive "octopus virus", which replaces all of its victims' files with cartoon images of cephalopods:

i wanted to see how much my computer programming skills had improved since the last time i was arrested.

video of the day

i know it's still early folks, but ...

.

love doesn't last forever

i've been feeling under the weather of late, so of course i'm reminded of this playful 1986 knockoff by soon-to-be comics-to-film crossover heavyweight alan moore and underground artist rick veitch (who was recently featured in my post "bp 2050"), which was originally printed in the farewell issue of marvel comics' first color magazine, the short-lived epic illustrated.

how veitch finagled auteur of the outré john waters into an uncredited feature role and tall thin duke david bowie for the musical arrangements, we can only guess ...

(story by alan moore and art by rick veitch)

coda

for as long and as often as we've heard ordinary folks dismiss political operators with a disgusted "a pox on both their houses!", it is still very easy to separate the democrats from the republicans, just by listening to their apologies. can you tell which is which?

1) tom vilsack:

... i started off by extending to her my personal and profound apologies for — for the pain and discomfort that has been caused to her and to her family over the course of the last several days. ... and then i asked if she would be interested in figuring out a way forward that would take advantage of the extraordinary life experiences that she's had ...

2) andrew breitbart:

[ ... crickets ... ]

lede of the day

via matt yglesias @ thinkprogress

it will come as no surprise to learn that las vegas, nevada is not a model of sustainable urban planning. after all, this is a giant city in the middle of the desert where nobody should have ever put a city.

a majority of one

and to think, come november, the playing field may never be this good for democrats for a long time after ...

from the booman:

there is a very narrow window in the senate where certain very limited things can be done. it is possible to pass bills on our most pressing issues when the democratic party is united and willing to settle for whatever it is that one republican will allow.

post of the day

i simply decided to steal this post outright since it hit exactly all the right notes — notes that need to be hit. will the white house hear them? more importantly, will obama deliver the much-needed coda? ¹

vilsack will review decision to fire sherrod by brooklynbadboy MSNBC is reporting that agriculture secretary tom vilsack has now decided he wants to conduct a review of the facts with respect to ms. sherrod: vilsack's statement came after the NAACP posted the full video of sherrod's comments tuesday night and retracted its earlier condemnation of her. "i am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the american people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner," Vilsack said. so, if i have this correctly, breitbart and fox news burps, she get's fired immediately. CNN and the NAACP release the undisputed facts, and now there must be a thorough review. (facepalm) i want to return to something the white house keeps saying in response to ms. sherrod: shirley sherrod, a former USDA employee who resigned after a controversial video surfaced, told CNN tuesday that members of the obama administration "harassed" her and demanded she resign her post immediately. in an interview with CNN, sherrod said she repeatedly fielded calls on monday during a long car ride, during which officials insisted that she pull over to the side of the road and quit her post. "they asked me to resign, and, in fact, they harassed me as i was driving back to the state office from west point, georgia yesterday," sherrod told CNN. "i had at least three calls telling me the white house wanted me to resign...and the last one asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it." ... sherrod said the final call came from cheryl cook, an undersecretary at the department of agriculture. sherrod said white house officials wanted her to quit immediately because the controversy was "going to be on glenn beck tonight." "we did not pressure USDA or ms. sherrod," a white house official reportedly wrote in an email on tuesday to the washington Post. i guess the buck stops somewhere else. the white house needs to get off this stance and start showing some sympathy toward ms. sherrod. she has, clearly, been done terribly wrong by the white supremacist fringe of the republican party. the white house acts like they are afraid of a bunch of bigots. martin luther king, jr. would be sickened by how this white house has behaved toward this woman. some racist bigot makes an accusation against her and they don't even waste one minute before firing her without review. yet when the truth comes out, they don't re-hire her on the spot. then, and only then, are they willing to conduct a review. disgusting. if they have the decency to offer her the job back, i hope she turns it down. i wouldn't want to work for people who were so easily pushed around by a by an internet skinhead like breitbart or a certified nutcase like beck. the white house should at least apologize to ms. sherrod and accept responsibility for how this kind and lovely public servant has been treated. that would be the minimum of something to show breitbart and the rest of his skinhead crew that decent americans will not be intimidated by the likes of scum like them. you know what is so pathetic about all this? now that the truth has come out, glenn beck, the same glenn back who had the administration cowering in fear, is attacking the administration over firing her in the first place: how and why would you force the resignation of someone who is just relating a story of 24-year-old incident to make a point? how many times when a controversy comes up have we heard that someone was "misquoted" or they "misspoke" or we're told that "the only point they were simply making was that ..." and then some point that bears no resemblance to the one they made; or they were just "taken out of context?" now here's a possible actual example of someone taken completely out of context and they immediately get rid of her. can you believe this white house is being pushed around by these people? update: it appears ms. sherrod sees the old boss in a different light: the woman at the center of a racially tinged firestorm involving the obama administration and the NAACP said wednesday she doesn't know if she'd return to her job at the agriculture department, even if asked. "i am just not sure how i would be treated there," shirley sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview. i agree. now get yourself a damn good attorney ms. sherrod.

---

1) face it, obama: breitbart and beck were aiming for you when they went after sherrod and they've so far won that much at least, since it's now squarely on you to snatch their victory from the jaws of your defeat — and on center stage where everyone can see.

presidentin' made easy: palin 2012

so easy, in fact, a moose gal could do it:

her candidacy would require almost none of the usual time sinks that force politicians to jump in early: power-broker schmoozing, schedule-intensive fundraising, competitive recruitment of experienced strategists, careful policy development.

we should probably expect her to run again in 2014.

(hat tip to mistermix.)

in case you didn't know

for anyone just tuning in ^[1], this is the definition of a conspiracy theory constitutional crisis of biblical proportions:

former president bush knows his successor could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. former vp cheney knows his former boss' successor could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. former presidential hopeful mccain knows his former rival could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. former presidential hopeful clinton knows her former rival could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. former vp hopeful palin knows her former running-mate's rival could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. vp biden knows the only official ahead of him in the chain of succession could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. the republican national committee knows their rival party head could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. 40 republican senators know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. 178 republican congresspersons know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. 173 electoral voters know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. 9 supreme court justices know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. 6 joint chiefs of staff know their commander-in-chief could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. ken starr and every 5-star conservative attorney in the country know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. rush limbaugh, glenn beck and all the president's biggest critics in the media know the president could be an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it beside making jokes. hawaii's health department knows the president IS IN FACT an illegal usurper and won't do anything about it. hawaii's republican governor lingle knows about her health department and won't do anything about it. BUT ... ... a ragtag assortment of mostly anonymous but scrappy self-proclaimed "patriots" of dubious qualifications and even more dubious personalities from across the internet not only know the president is in fact an illegal usurper, but, despite the combined apathy of everyone who matters and who should take action, CAN also do something about it.

well, either that, OR ...

barack hussein obama ii IS IN FACT the legitimate, fair-and-square resident of 1600 pennsylvania avenue and everyone who matters knows the birthers are all full of shit.

jeepers ...

... just how is a genuinely open-minded citizen supposed to know which is true?

for the sake of every real american and their children's children, we simply cannot afford to choose wrongly ...

---

1) because, i presume, you rightly have more important things to fret about ...

the soon-to-be-senator from minnesota

disclaimer: those who've known me for a long time would never accuse me of developing a mancrush on anybody (not that there's anything wrong with it ...), and really, it's not, but ... there's something about the way al carries his oddball pretend-irascibility (or is it an irascible pretend-oddballity?), even while working the audience to convince us he's no carpet-bagger, a performance that somehow cleverly morphs itself into something bordering on a kind of — dare i say it — adorability?

(of course, smacking bush around does kinda help seal the deal and reminiscing about all the decider's unappreciated genius has become somewhat fashionable at the moment ...)

letterman:	ladies and gentlemen ... al franken!
	[franken walks onstage, bows, sits] always a pleasure, al.
franken:	always a pleasure for me.
letterman:	so where do they tape your microphone?
franken:	[bends to look at his crotch] well, dave ...
letterman:	heh, heh, heh ... well now, i don't wanna ... i don't wanna bore you, but you might find some of this tedious ...
franken:	yeah ...
letterman:	... but i find it fascinating, ah, a while ago, six months ago? three months ago? a year ago ... you and your wife moved ...
together:	to minneapolis ...
franken:	... that's right.
letterman:	you're originally from minnesota. how's that goin'?
franken:	... great. great! great, i do my show from there. y'know, i'm the hardest working man in show biz politics, and uh ...
schaefer:	[laughing] ... it's a new category to me! hahaha!
franken:	yeah, yeah, and, in fact this thing i'm doing tomorrow night, the reason i brought it up, is it's a big fund-raiser for my group "midwest values PAC" ...
letterman:	at the state theater ...
franken:	yeah, and we're raising money for democrats, y'know, it's called "midwest values" because i feel, i, y'know, i lived here for a long time ...
letterman:	thirty years or so in new york.
franken:	yeah, and uh, but i always felt like a midwesterner, always felt like a minnesotan. you must feel like —
letterman:	y'know, i do, and i feel like i'm at home. i love indiana and i feel that that's a great part of me.
franken:	yeah, and that's ... your values are rooted there, and uh, that's what our PAC is about, and uh, that's because i think democrats win ... on values. we stand for things, for example: ah, accountability. like, uh, bush finally, like a couple weeks ago, uh, was with tony blair, admitted that he made some mistakes ... in iraq. right. [applause] and all he said, he said "i said some things wrong. like, i shouldn't have said 'bring it on.'"
letterman:	right.
franken:	which is kinda common sense, another midwest value: don't goad the enemy to attack you. [laughter]
letterman:	right.
franken:	y'know, and it's all that swagger thing, like, at the ... remember at the republican convention he said: "some people see me, and, uh, [adopts bush drawl] they see a swagger, certain swagger. well, in texas we call that walkin'." in minnesota we call that "being a jerk." [applause] y'know. walk with, with uh ...
letterman:	... dignity ...
franken:	... some humility ...
letterman:	yes, humility, right.
franken:	... humility. ah, bush, y'know, says like he's a big jesus guy. well, jesus didn't walk with a swagger. he didn't go like, [adopts bush drawl] "see that water i turned into wine?" [points to self] "me. that was me."
letterman:	heh — not a show-off ...
franken:	[still in character] "see that blind guy over there? that uh, he's not bumpin' into things any more? [points to self] jesus." [laughter]
letterman:	wasn't a blowhard ...
franken:	[still in character] "yeah. that big boulder i rolled, y'know, in front of, i rolled that outta the entrance to that cave where i was dead and now i'm alive? eh?" [puffs out chest] "bring it on!" [applause] y'know, it's easy — that wasn't jesus. that was ... walk with some, some ... humility.
letterman:	that's right.
franken:	you can be strong, you can be courageous —
letterman:	exactly.
franken:	— it's not, that kind of bluster isn't strong. that's not strength.
letterman:	now, uh, from where you sit, what are your other observations regarding, now we're nearly halfway through the second term of the bush administration. what are your observations generally of, about things now?
franken:	he's ... he's in the toilet. actually, lorne michaels said something very funny to me. he said that jee— uh, ah, that bush ... [laughter, applause] ... i had jesus on the brain!
letterman:	we all do.
franken:	great, great prophet, jesus.
letterman:	yeah.
franken:	as my rabbi told me, he had a lot of great ideas. none of them knew. s'what my rabbi used to tell me. anyway, ah, bush. lorne michaels said to me, "looks like a, a guy whose show's just been cancelled, but he has nine more to do." [applause]
letterman:	heh, i know that feeling.
franken:	you know that feeling?
letterman:	yeah, absolutely.
franken:	like, i mean, obviously the war's just going terribly. uh, if he's going to admit those mistakes, he should have admitted a couple other things. for example, ah, when he said, y'know, that the war on terror is a crusade. that was stupid.
letterman:	poor choice of words.
franken:	it sent the wrong message to a lot of people. muslims, mainly. and, uh, y'know the only defense i can thing of for him is that, um, y'know he didn't know there had been a "crusades". [laughter]
letterman:	[unintelligible]
franken:	y'know, he wasn't a great student. he's admitted he doesn't do a lot of reading. so i think that the thing he needs to do is hold himself accountable. i think he needs to go on TV and admit the mistakes he made. that he kind of ... misled us ... into the war, didn't send enough troops, uh, disbanded the iraqi army by telling them, y'know, by telling 300,000 guys: "you're fired! we're not gonna pay you, get the hell outta here! and take your weapons with you!" [laughter] and say: "i'm sorry i tortured — we tortured people." that turned out to be a mistake, because, y'know, their families don't like it. they get angry. basically, this would be, this is the short version. it'd have to be a six-hour speech he'd have to tell, s'what i'm saying.
letterman:	[laughing] ... six hours ... now, i want to talk to you about your experience with the american military. and recently you gave the commencement at west point.
franken:	it wasn't the commencement. it was just a ...
letterman:	just a "how'ya doin'?" you just dropped in ... ?
franken:	it was, it was sort of in-between.
letterman:	OK. we'll be right back here with al franken, everybody.
	[commercial break]
letterman:	... and i said, mistakenly, you'd given the commencement at west point, and i think, uh, president bush actually gave the commencement.
franken:	yeah, they just ask him to do the commencement, i just ...
letterman:	you were not there for the commencement.
franken:	... gave the sol feinstone lecture on the meaning of freedom. this is last — i had my book out at the time, "the truth, with jokes", this was, i was at west point. it was an audience not so different than this one. [laughter] uh, except, it was all cadets.
letterman:	that's right. that would be the one small difference.
franken:	yeah and i was supposed to talk about the meaning of freedom, and my book "the truth, with jokes" was out at the time and basically, after jollying them up with some jokes, um, i got them on my side, and i told them that the president had lied us into the war, and uh, i said you can't have freedom without the truth. you can have freedom without jokes, as the dutch and the swiss have proven. [laughter] but, they um, gave me a standing ovation, and they —
letterman:	really?
franken:	yeah. i think that, i really admire them, as you said, i've gone over a number of times on USO trips and — a lotta people think that it's dangerous. it's not. i remember that — you're surrounded by the USO, by ...
letterman:	the army.
franken:	by the, yeah, by the ... you're embedded and they don't want anyone in the USO to get ... a coupla years ago i'd done my first one in iraq. i was at a party in hollywood and there was all these celebrities there and i got a little bit overwhelmed and i went to sit in the library and i was — i thought i was alone and i hear this voice: [in deep low voice] "hey, al ..." yeah, i looked around and it was sylvester stallone.
letterman:	oh ...
franken:	and i said, uh "hey ... uh ... sylvester." 'cause i didn't know ... [laughter]
letterman:	riiight ...
franken:	and he said, [in deep low voice] "i understand you went on one of them USO tours." i said "yeah it was great." he said [deep] "yah, well, i was supposed to go, but i didn't." and i said "well, why didn't you go?" he said [deep] "well, i thought it might be too dangerous." i said "well, it's not really that dangerous ..." i said exactly just what i said to you and he said [deep]"yah well lemmee ask ya this: was there ever any moment when you felt in danger for your life?" [laughter] and i said well, OK we did have one point where we took helicopters from baghdad to tikrit and then back again, and some ... had been shot down, so i thought maybe one-in-ten-thousand chance that — [deep] "yah well, that's why i didn't go." [laughter] i said to him "weren't you, weren't you friggin' rambo?" [laughter, applause]
letterman:	friggin' ... friggin' rambo ...
franken:	i didn't say "friggin'", but ...
letterman:	[unintelligible] rambo ...
franken:	he was actually very honest and said [deep] "yah, but i like my life. i got a good life." that's how i got the west point guys on my side. i told them that story.
letterman:	yeah, that's a pretty good story ...
franken:	true story.
letterman:	what's he doin' in the library, fer god sakes ... ? [laughter]
franken:	uh, i, ah ...
letterman:	honestly, that's bizarre.
franken:	he might've followed me in.
letterman:	uh, just wanna quickly, ah, because we're all interested in your political future, if you have one, perhaps running for office, and i think the interesting thing, and important to point out, is you've been married for quite a few years and that's very important. you should use that in your campaign. people like, uh, marriage solidarity. and you certainly represent that, you and your wife have been married how, how long?
franken:	um, thirty years, many of them happy. [laughter, applause]
letterman:	that's good.
franken:	thank you. thank you.
letterman:	don't be afraid to use this, for your campaign.
franken:	um, i credit fear.
letterman:	hm.
franken:	yes, i just, ah, am afraid of being alone. and uh, we have kids. that's —
letterman:	that's good, sure.
franken:	really ... i, uh, i find her incredibly annoying in a lotta ways. [laughter]
letterman:	talkin' about your wife now?
franken:	yah, um ...
letterman:	you might wanna soft-pedal this out on the campaign trail ...
franken:	yeah ... well, it's little things! it's just always little things. she does a lot of like ... she decides to say stuff to me as soon as i've walked out of the room. so i spend a lot of time saying: "i can't, i can't hear you!" [laughter] but we ... "i'm in another room!" and um ... y'know, but we, we met, uh, freshman — can i tell you the story of my, uh ... when my daughter was six years old — 'cause kira's segment was so lovely — i was at my daughter's teacher, when my daughter was six years old, asked her to write a story, asked every kid to write a story how their parents met. and, so, um, we told her: we met freshman year in college at a mixer, i said i saw your mom across the room gathering these, uh, other girls to leave. she was trying to get 'em to leave and i loved the way she like, was taking charge. in retrospect ... [waves hands dismissively] ... and anyway, um, i said — and she was beautiful! she was beautiful! y'know, beautiful, so i asked her to dance, then i, uh, bought her a, got her a ginger ale, and then i escorted her to her dorm and asked her for a date. so my daughter wrote: "my dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink and took her home." [applause] and ...
letterman:	hehhehheh, well ... nothin' wrong with that either! tomorrow night at the state theater in minneapolis. i'm sure it'll be an enjoyable evening.
franken:	it, um ... the website, just in case you wanted to get tickets in minneapolis, midwestvaluespac.org, and that, that is not to be confused with liveorg.org, which is where you get live organs ...
letterman:	heh heh heh. alright ...
franken:	... live human organs, which is another one of my ...
letterman:	no, you wouldn't wanna get those —
franken:	our organs are human.
letterman:	yeah, that's right. good.
franken:	midwestvaluespac.org.
letterman:	thank you very much, al. always a pleasure. nice to see you.
franken:	thanks.

(hat tip to one good move)

thanks, bp: oils well that ends well ... ?

until the stoppage has been independently confirmed, i'll keep my revised meter running.

BP says it has temporarily stopped oil flowing into the gulf of mexico from its leaking well. it is the first time the flow has stopped since an explosion on the deepwater horizon rig on 20 april. the well has been sealed with a cap as part of a test of its integrity that could last up to 48 hours. US president barack obama said the development was a "positive sign" but noted that BP was still in the testing phase. BP executive kent wells said the oil had been stopped at 1425 local time (1925 GMT) and he was "excited" by the progress.

no imagination needed

... to guess how a non-white version of a certain much-hyped vocal national "grass-roots" movement would go over with the mainstream media:

what if the tea party was black? holding guns like the black panther party was back? if al was rush limbaugh and jesse was sean hannity and tavis was glenn beck would they harm they families? if sarah palin was suddenly sistah souljah would they leave it with the votes or go and get the soldiers? y'all know if the tea party was black the government would have been had the army attack! what if michael baisden was on ya FM dial for 3 hours every day calling the president foul? would they say free speech or find evidence how to charge him with treason like see he's unamerican now? what if minister farrakhan prayed for the death of the commander in chief that he be laid to rest? would they treat it as the gravest threat or never make an arrest even today he's still hated for less? what if president obama would have lost the election? quit his job so he could go talk to the left and bash the government for being off of direction fraught with deception? and told black people they want all of our weapons and we want our own country and called for secession? would he be arrested and tossed in corrections for trying to foster aggression against the people's lawful selection? our question's ... what if the tea party was black? holding guns like the black panther party was back? if al was rush limbaugh and jesse was sean hannity and tavis was glenn beck would they harm they families? if sarah palin was suddenly sistah souljah would they leave it with the votes or go and get the soldiers? y'all know if the tea party was black the government would have been had the army attack! what if black people went on facebook and made a page that for the death of the president-elect we prayed? would the creators be tazed and thrown in a cage? we know the page wouldn't have been displayed all these days! what if jeremiah wright said that everybody white wasn't a real america would you feel scared of him? if he had a militia with pictures that depict the president as hitler they would kill and bury that wait ... what if cynthia mckinney lamented the winning of the new president and hinted he wasn't really a true resident with no proof or evidence? would the media treat it like a huge press event? they would have attacked whatever group she represents! they would have called her a kook on precedent and any network that gave her due preference would be the laughing stock of the news so our question is ... what if the tea party was black? holding guns like the black panther party was back? if al was rush limbaugh and jesse was sean hannity and tavis was glenn beck would they harm they families? if sarah palin was suddenly sistah souljah would they leave it with the votes or go and get the soldiers? y'all know if the tea party was black the government would have been had the army attack!

(hat tip to oliver willis)

quote of the day

from the booman:

i've never seen a fringe movement take control of a party's soul and mind like this before. i was hoping that the governance of dick cheney, george w. bush, and karl rove was the worst the right could offer, but it's not even close. the republicans have been cynical so long that they've been taken over by the duped. ... the republican party that impeached clinton was dangerously insane. they took it up several notches after 9/11. but what we're witnessing now is of a totally different scale. the parasite has taken over the host.

shoulda, woulda, coulda

s'funny how what sounded impossible a coupl'a years ago sounds like a slam-dunk today ...

nader:	what about the more serious violations of habeas corpus. you know after 9-11 bush rounded up thousands of them, americans, many of them muslim americans or arabic americans and they were thrown in jail without charges, they didn't have lawyers, some of them were pretty mistreated in new york city. you know they were all released eventually.
napolitano:	correct.
nader:	is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?
napolitano:	well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. and the constitution itself, as the supreme court in the boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the constitution goes with it and wherever the constitution goes are the rights of the constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. it can only be suspended by the congress in times of rebellion which in read milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can't get into their court houses. that has not happened in american history. so what president bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of guantanamo bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.
nader:	what's the sanction for president bush and vice president cheney?
napolitano:	there's been no sanction except what history will say about them.
nader:	what should be the sanctions?
napolitano:	they should have been indicted. they absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. i'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. at least not an indictable crime. it's a moral crime.
nader:	so you think george w. bush and dick cheney should even though they've left office, they haven't escaped the criminal laws, they should be indicted and prosecuted?
napolitano:	the evidence in this book and in others, our colleague the great vincent bugliosi has amassed an incredible amount of evidence. the purpose of this book was not to amass that evidence but i do discuss it, is overwhelming when you compare it to the level of evidence required for a normal indictment that george w. bush as president and dick cheney as vice president participated in criminal conspiracies to violate the federal law and the guaranteed civil liberties of hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings.

(hat tip to crooks and liars)

found: the lost surfer scripts

caution: this area reserved for fans of marvel comics' silver surfer. those at least familiar with the character might nonetheless find this post amusing ...

if you thought after the fantastic four had narrowly averted doomsday by turning back the cosmic threat of galactus that the big winners were earth's eight billion inhabitants, you might have been wrong, because marvel comics publisher stan lee knew better. marvel had a hot new property on its hands: the tortured, soul-searching oscar award lookalike, the silver surfer, who was himself awarded his own title.

looks turned out to be deceiving, however, and much to marvel's chagrin, the title was sadly put out to pasture without fanfare after only 18 issues.

though exiled on earth by his globe-gobbling overlord, the surfer was not without powerful friends, who soon piled stan lee's desk high with scripts from what seemed the entire pantheon of '70s pop lit: tom wolfe, charles bukowski, larry mcmurtry, sylvester stallone, james michener, hanna and barbera, erica jong and jerzy kosinski were among those attempting to resurrect icarus, but for one reason after another, their efforts languished and remained untouched by the light of day — that is, until now:

(art by bill sienkiewicz)

... of all the "mean streets"-type submissions, the most noteworthy was galaxy primeval: high noon in space, penned by then-obscure elmore leonard (who is now america's fastest-rising chronicler of the demimonde). a passage: poke, in tan slacks and powder-blue shirt, sipping the salty dog, saying, "the fuck? bastard owes us ten grand. i earned that ten grand, man." think­ing, "this mother­fucker, shit, silver god­damn skin rid­ing a silver god­damn surf­board, shit, pick us out of a lineup in a minute." the surfer, pushing off the little cross­bolt safety above the trigger, sliding it back and forward again, the beretta nine-millimeter parabellum dark against his silver skin, saying, "but why have fear and hostility so possessed the hearts of men?" poke thinking, "this dude, fuck, man, dude's a fucking square. dude's ready for the psycho ward. the fuck i'm thinking, man, walk with this dude out on the streets? freakiest fucking dude in detroit. shit, man, freakier than deleon johnson and his .38 with the rubber god­damn bands wrapped around the handle." poke, earing back the hammer of his walther p-38, saying, "the fuck, ain't got no hostility, man. cock­sucker owe me ten grand, i'm gonna get it. don't care if the fucker eats planets, man." the surfer, hands outstretched, fin­gers spread out be­seech­ing­ly, say­ing, "but you canst not under­stand. hu­man, how can one such as you com­pre­hend the li­mit­less po­wer of him whom men call galactus?" "the fuck," poke saying. "don't give a shit what people call him. just stick this here gun in his fucking mouth, man, and ear back the hammer. fuckin' blow his brains all over outer space, man. like, no one will hear him scream." the surfer, glanc­ing into the mirror behind poke, cock­ing his head like gary cooper in that movie, high noon, liking the way he looked in the o­rig­i­nal crested beaut american cowboy hat with the fun­nel­ed brim, the way it curved down over his eyes, say­ing, "per­haps, then, hu­man, it is de­sol­a­tion you seek, and per­haps, in that de­sol­a­tion, you will find the peace your heart desires. but as for where the silver surfer soars ... know you that he soars alone." poke saying, "then fuck off, chickenfat." lee liked the script, but cautioned that if the surfer appeared wearing a crested beaut american cowboy hat he might be confused with a marvel reprint standby, the rawhide kid. buscema argued, "yeah, but this hat has a funneled brim. the rawhide kid's doesn't have a funneled brim." arguments raged on for weeks ...

(original 1968 story by stan lee, art by john buscema and joe sinnott)

to savor other surfer stories in the voices of james michener, charles bukowski, jerzy kosinski, larry mcmurtry, eldridge cleaver, tom wolfe and j.g. ballard, download the complete article "the surfer scripts" (pdf).

the hammer

when you have a hammer, people will bring you nails:

what’s the point of you saving this superb military for, colin, if we can't use it? — former un ambassador madeleine albright