The Cocktailian. Okay, so we can't have The Professor making one of my original cocktails every week, now, can we? (Well, I'd quickly run out of them, and would have to get mighty busy!) This fortnight The Professor offers someone else's new concoction, invented at Arterra Restaurant near the Del Mar race track outside San Diego, a orangey delight fit for a thoroghbred.
The fine art of the dinner party. David shaw offers a terrific article about the perils and joys of throwing a dinner party and how to deal with the inevitable surprises and left turns.
When we call to invite guests, we always ask, "Is there anything you don't eat or drink, anything you are allergic to or have aesthetic, political, religious or any other kinds of objections to?"We do that too -- glad we're on track with the Food Section pros. His adventures include inviting a famous restauranteur over and having him ask if he can bring his friend Wolfgang Puck along, as well as dealing with some increidbly boorish would-be guests:
No-shows or last-minute cancellations are even worse, of course, than late arrivals. And late announcements of dietary restrictions can be especially difficult. One time, a couple called the morning of the day we were expecting them and said they were vegetarians . something they hadn't disclosed when we invited them and asked about dietary preferences and prohibitions. Lucy immediately changed her menu and sent me shopping for the necessary ingredients. Most everything was done when the couple called about 6 p.m. and said they couldn't make it.Y'know, I try to be as flexible and accommodating as possible, but if someone pulled the above scenario, barring an excuse like serious illness or death in the family, it'd likely be a long, long time before they'd be extended another dinner invitation. Yeesh.
The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership's intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.This is shameful.
[ Link to today's entries ]
The rise of the "bar chefs". The cocktailian revolution continues. The New York Times explores local bartenders who demand only the finest ingredients in both old and new cocktails, taking a culinary approach to drinkmaking (as well they should).
"I take a more culinary approach," said Julie Reiner, who owns the lounge, which is on 19th Street just west of Fifth Avenue, with partners. "Ever since I started bartending, I wanted to take making drinks to a different level. I prefer to make a cocktail with muddled fresh raspberries than to use Stoli raspberry vodka. I think of myself like a chef."Hey, without Stoli raspberry vodka, we woudln't have the Footloose! (We tried it with a homemade vodka infused with fresh raspberries. It was still really good.) As we've been seeing in bars from Los Angeles to Dublin, these drinks often come with a big price tag -- up to $15 or more. But since regular crappy drinks are reaching the $10 mark (including at The Abbey in West Hollywood, where for $10 I received The Worst Manhattan I've Ever Had In My Entir Life, Inexpertly And Indifferently Made And Served), I've developed an attitude of "I'd rather pay $15 for a great cocktail than $10 for a crappy one."
President Eisenhower's son dumps Bush. John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a lifelong Republican, declares that he is switching to Independent and voting for John Kerry in November.
As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.Republicans, to the lifeboats. Save yourselves (and all of us) while you can.
And this is even richer. The Lone Star Iconoclast, the weekly newspaper in George W. Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford, Texas, has endorsed John Kerry for president. The paper endorsed Bush in 2000, and this time in the course of endorsing Kerry rip Bush a new one (or two or three):
Kerry Will Restore American DignityThis gave me my second-biggest smile of the day.
And what was the biggest smile of the day? Seeing the first big shiny press release (caution, 3.2MB PDF) for Doctors, Professors, Kings and Queens: The Big Ol' Box of New Orleans! And there's a blurb on it, too!
"A hip-shaking, party-making collection of great music -- and more -- from the Big Easy."Okay, so nobody really calls it the "Big Easy". But Blues Revue! It's a start! And you can already pre-order it from Amazon! Release date October 27, less than a month. Woo! Sorry I'm so excitable, but after a year of working on this, I think I get to be excited. So there!
I believe the Mystery Men have an opening. As we plunge boldly forward in the era of the costumed superhero ... move over, Superman! Step aside, Spider-Man! (Although Tom and Tobey can come over to our house for cocktails anytime.) Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you ... Terrifica! Actually, Terrifica performs a valid public service, but her superpowers put her squarely at the level of The Shoveler, Mr. Furious and The Spleen ("Wanna shee my shecret power? Pull my finger." "NO, NO, DON'T!")
[ Link to today's entries ]
Have no you sense of decency, sirs, at long last? Have you no sense of decency? That question is addressed to the president of the United States and his senior adviser, speaking of despicable politics ... This morning Josh highlighted an article in the forthcoming issue of The Atlantic Monthly specifically focusing on Karl Rove -- George W. Bush's senior political adviser -- and how he conducted several past campaigns. The sources for the article included several former Rove staffers who helped organize what was described. One of the most infamous was a race in Alabama, where Rove "launched a whispering campaign against one Democratic opponent suggesting that the candidate -- a sitting Alabama state Supreme Court Justice, who had long worked on child welfare issues -- was in fact a pedophile ...
When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children. In the early 1980s he had helped to start the Children's Trust Fund of Alabama, and he later established the Corporate Foundation for Children, a private, nonprofit organization. At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.Do you think this is right, Bush voters? This is okay with you? You support this means to the end of getting a candidate elected? You approve of this? Go back and look at nearly every campaign Rove has been involved with, from his 19-year-old college Republican days, when he stole letterhead from the local Democratic headquarters and printed false fliers to make the Democrats look bad, to the 2000 presidential election, where his finely orchestrated whisper campaigns during the primaries destroyed John McCain. Josh finishes, "This is just one snippet from the piece. But when you read the whole thing, what happened in South Carolina in 2000 and what's happening now with Kerry and the Swift Boat business will all seem a lot more clear." If Bush had any sense of decency amidst his sense of smirking entitlement, he wouldn't let Karl Rove into the same building with him; instead, he's practically made him co-president, approving of all the techniques Rove used to get him into office, many of which -- like the above -- are simply inhuman.
Republicans eliminate tax relief for the working poor. "Fuck 'em" seems to be the attitude. They're not the rich (we want their money) or the middle-class (we want their votes), so fuck 'em.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sided with Democratic leaders in pushing for changes in the child tax credit to ensure that millions of poor families would not see their credits shrink or disappear next year.Read this series of articles to see the true impact of the Bush tax cuts. We're plunging into record deficits, and he and his ilk want to make their tax cuts (especially those for the rich) permanent. They must be insane.
A vote for Bush is a vote for his deficit. Have a look at this graph. Does this represent someone who's doing a good job for our economy?
It's happening already. If they're allowed to continue, you can see how much worse it's going to get. (Via Brad DeLong)
Flip-flopper? Via TBogg, who said, "Looks like we're going to have to play some more Follow The Money":
President Bush, under election-year pressure from Democrats and some fellow Republicans over Iraq, promised on Saturday to step up the pace of spending on reconstruction contracts in that country despite the violence."So even administration officials are saying the Bush is lying," sayid TBogg.
Bush on Saturday also touted efforts to train Iraqi security forces. He said nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel were already working and that the Iraqi government was on track to build a force of over 200,000 security personnel by the end of 2005.TBogg: "Whoops! Lied again! Thank Jeebus he's not a flip-flopper. At least with a liar you know what to expect..."
[ Link to today's entries ]
N.Y. Times: "This is despicable politics." Yesterday:
President Bush and his surrogates are taking their re-election campaign into dangerous territory. Mr. Bush is running as the man best equipped to keep America safe from terrorists -- that was to be expected. We did not, however, anticipate that those on the Bush team would dare to argue that a vote for John Kerry would be a vote for Al Qaeda. Yet that is the message they are delivering -- with a repetition that makes it clear this is an organized effort to paint the Democratic candidate as a friend to terrorists.What does it say about someone who willingly votes for a person whose politics are so blatantly despicable?
Bush's "flip-flopping" charge unsupported by facts. Typical, isn't it? Via Josh: Marc Sandalow, Washington bureau chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, decided to investigate Bush's charges "that John Kerry has waffled on Iraq policy by actually going back and reviewing his record as expressed in policy statements, speeches and votes. Not surprisingly, he found Kerry has had pretty much the same position since the whole Iraq debate started ..."
NEWS ANALYSISU.S. killing more Iraqi civilians than insurgents are. Via Kos:
Coalition fatalities in Iraq: 1183Things are going really well, though.
Pakistan's Musharraf: Iraq war has made world "more dangerous ... not safer." Via AmericaBlog, where John says, "Somebody get on the bat-phone to the Kerry people RIGHT NOW. THIS is their next TV commercial."
CNN: PAULA ZAHN NOW 8:00PMHey, he's a trusted ally, right? Trust him.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Wednesday night's dessert. Our friends Gregg and Mike were kind enough to bring us some nummy stuff back from their trip to San Francisco as their thanks for taking care of their house and bunny rabbit whilst they were away. I decided to use it for a dessert rather than a savory dish, and about 30 seconds of Googling helped me make it into a wonderful dessert the other night.
Oh my God, it was good.
Editorial cartoon of the day. by Jeff Danziger, via Atrios, who says, "Yep. This is the modern Republican Party."
 France, Germany: "They're crazy." Josh Marshall wrote yesterday:
In a startling development late in the presidential campaign cycle, editors of the satirical magazine The Onion have taken over the Bush-Cheney '04 Communications Office and seized at least operational control of Winger Central (WC), the office in downtown Washington near the corner of 17th and M, which sends out marching orders to conservative columnists.I sometimes wonder if I'm asleep, and the last almost-four years have been a long, drawn-out fever dream. Surely situations this surreal and bizarre can't really be happening.
Isn't it romaaaaaaantic ... Yet again, Britney Spears stands as a shining beacon of the sanctity of marriage.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Recipe of the day. I must try this immediately. (Via Galway blog Smoke Signals.)
Guinness Stout Ice CreamJaysus.
If the war were in the U.S. ... Professor Juan Cole, one of the most knowledgeable and astute observers of Middle Eastern affairs, wrote this article on his website last Wednesday, and today it was reproduced in his entirety in the Los Angeles Times. In the wake of "interim Prime Minister" Iyad Allawi's Bush-parroting speech to the Congress yesterday, I feel the need to reproduce it in its entirety:
President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country.Sure, Messrs. Allawi and Bush, we're really succeeding in Iraq.
Unconstitutional and un-American. What Jason said: "I see that now, our country has upped the ante, moving from shitting on people's basic rights to trying to prevent the Supreme Court from defending people's basic rights. Americans can complain all they want about the downward trajectory this place is on, but when push comes to shove, all these policymakers were either elected by us or appointed (and approved) by the people we elected. And if we continue to elect and approve asshats who'd rather pillage the Constitution than read it -- or worse, not vote, and let others choose our fate for us — then we're to blame." Couldn't have said it better myself. My feeling for those who would write and vote for a bill to unconstitutionally attempt to restrict the Supreme Court from hearing cases challenging the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is the same that I had for Ku Klux Klansman David Duke. During Duke's sole term in the Louisiana legislature he only authored one bill -- to reduce the penalty for assault to a $25 fine for anyone convicted of assaulting someone who was burning a flag.
The definition of irony? Via Brian (and thanks!), an article in the Washington Post containing a link to the full text of Bush's speech to the U.N. in which he says:
We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.Says Brian, "If I remember right from grade school english, that's the literary device known as irony, right?" Right.
Quote of the day. I'd love to hear Peter Jennings say something like this:
"As of yesterday, the Bush administration still hadn't found the source of the White House leak that outed a woman as a CIA operative. To recap, here are the things President Bush can't find: The source of the leak, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Osama bin Laden, the link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden, the guy who sent the anthrax through the mail, and his own butt with two hands and a flashlight."Bad, bad bunnies. When I was a kid, the ultimate punishment (short of a spanking) was the dreaded ... Tabasco On The Tongue! This was reserved for those rare occasions when I dared to use a "bad word" or, horror of horrors, mouth off at my parental units. It's the New Orleans equivalent of Washing Your Mouth Out With Soap. Eventually I began to feel really sorry for all those other kids all over the world; when they said "fuck" in front of their mommas they had to taste soap, but I got to taste Tabasco. From my perspective of hindsight I can say that Tabasco tastes far, far better than soap. I must have had a sassy little mouth, because I seem to have developed quite an affinity for Tabasco, and nowadays I go through it by the gallon (I mouth off a lot less, but I swear a lot more). Fortunately for Danish farmers, Danish bunnies seem to have not developed this affinity.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Bush lies about what Kerry said, and Peter Jennings calls him on it (QuickTime video clip). Here's the transcript:
JENNINGS: We were struck today by a very pointed attack by President Bush on John Kerry. First of all, this is what Mr. Bush said:Bush is a cold, calculated, practiced, pathetic liar. Good job, Peter. Keep it up.
Another New Orleans musician leaves us. Legendary jazz trombonist Waldren "Frog" Joseph, Sr. passed away in New Orleans on Sunday, aged 86. He played in Papa Celestin's and Paul Barbarin's bands, among others, and was the father of sousaphonist extraordinaire Kirk Joseph of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and trombonist Charles Joseph. If you're in New Orleans, you may wish to know that the public is invited to attend a viewing Friday from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. at Tharp Funeral Home at 600 Moss St. On Saturday, a jazz funeral Mass will be held at Corpus Christi Catholic Church at 2022 St. Bernard Ave. Viewing will be from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m., followed by the Mass. Burial will be in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 at 3421 Esplanade Ave. And the Dirty Dozen strikes up "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" ...
May the wind take your troubles away. Very good news ... Jay Farrar is reforming Son Volt after a five-year hiatus:
Midwest-based Son Volt, with songwriter Jay Farrar at the helm, will begin recording their fourth full length album at the end of September. Following a five-year hiatus, with the exception of the April 2004 recording of "Sometimes" for the Alejandro Escovedo tribute album, multi-instrumentalist Dave Boquist, bassist Jim Boquist and drummer Mike Heidorn will reconvene at Farrar.s St. Louis studio.At this point I was beginning to think it'd be Jay solo for good, as the last interview I read with Heidorn said he was done with the music biz (and especially with touring). I'm very, very happy to hear this. (That track on the Escovedo tribute is great, too.) The webcam thing is fascinating, although I expect I'd get bored with it pretty quickly without audio.
The L.A. Times discovers food blogging. Well, better late than never. The article's not too bad, catches a few great individual pages (such as The Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad, which is printed out and magneted to our refrigerator) and a couple of great weblogs, Sauté Wednesday and Chocolate and Zucchini, but misses or ignores tons of others. Her really good find, however, which I kinda forgot about, was The Julie/Julia Project, in which blogger and home cook Julie Powell chronicled her year of cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, making every single recipe during that year. I should go back and read that whole thing (although the article says Julie got a book contract, so maybe I can just get it then). The article makes its best point here:
The dullness of everyday life is an inescapable fact of the blogosphere. What set Powell apart from many food bloggers is that her story had an arc: a beginning, a middle and a satisfying, Cinderella-like ending. After she chronicled her cooking of 536 recipes in 365 days, she got a book contract and gave up her weblog. The majority of food bloggers, whether they are professional writers or talented amateurs or semi-insane ranters, offer no narrative apart from what they cooked and what they ate.Really good food writers place their chronicles of cooking and dining into the context of a life, which (for instance) is one of the reasons why I always enjoy reading the columns by my friend Meredith Brody, former food writer for the Los Angeles New Times and currently for the SF Weekly. (Read her stuff, then go up to the city and eat!) Also, I'll go through my library tonight and later this week I'll post a list of some food-related titles that I enjoyed, and that you might enjoy too.
Frosty beverage of the day. Today's L.A. Times Food Section also featured a recipe for a yummy looking drink, non-alcoholic no less, kinda of like a virgin Mojito, that's a signature cooler at Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken's restaurants Ciudad and Border Grill. It looks like just the thing to help take the edge off the beastly hot and dry Santa Ana winds, which are supposed to start blowing in the next day or so. (I hate da Sanna Anas ... too dry! I miss da humidity!)
These'll look great in our new Mignon Faget Fleur-de-Lis Tumblers, too. (Um, I'm sure a few lil' squoits o' rum wouldn't hoit, now, would it?)
Voter terrorism. From Salon: "For decades, Republicans have mounted highly organized operations to discourage minorities from voting. Experts say there's no reason to believe this year's presidential campaign will be any different."
[During the 2003 Philadelphia race between John Street, the African-American incumbent Democrat, and Sam Katz, the white Republican challenger,] in an attempt to intimidate African-Americans and deter them from showing up at the polls, the Katz campaign, or one of its associates, put together a team of men dressed in official-looking attire -- dark suits, lapel pins bearing insignia of federal or local law-enforcement agencies -- and sent them into areas of the city with large black populations. According to Sherry Swirsky, a local antitrust attorney who is active in Democratic politics and who worked as an election monitor that day, the men carried clipboards and drove around in unmarked black vans.If you're not a Salon Premium member, sit through the commercial and read this one.
The Rise of Pseudo Fascism, Part 1. Last Sunday journalist David Neiwert began what's shaping up to be an excellent six-part series. Here's his first article, "The Morphing of the Conservative Movement". An excerpt:
When trying to make sense of the seemingly inextricable political morass into which we.ve descended, one of the real keys to understanding our situation is realizing that conservatism and the "conservative movement" are in fact two entirely different things.[ Link to today's entries ]
Everything tastes better when wrapped in bacon. Tom Fitzmorris posted a recipe for Chicken Livers with Bacon and Pepper Jelly in the New Orleans Menu Daily the other day, and although I'm not the world's biggest liver fan, this looks so good that I can't resist trying it, and will soon. The idea of tossing the chicken livers in pepper jelly, purloined from The Praline Connection, sounds great. Wrapping them in bacon instantly makes them good, right? Then he said, "This is absolutely spectacular served over a plate of red beans and rice", as an alternative to sausage." Intriguing!
Taking the Footloose to another level? We tried a fabulous infused vodka last night. I've been meaning to try the three vodkas produced by St. George Spirits under the Hangar One label -- "Buddha's Hand" Citron, Kaffir Lime and Mandarin Blossom. There's one out now that I hadn't seen before: Fraser River Raspberry, which will be an annual release in limited editions. They only infuse the vodka with the berries in the spring when they're at the height of their season, distill and then add more fresh juice to the finished product. The resulting vodka is beautifully reddish, unlike the clear Stolichnaya Razberi, with an intense, very fresh aroma and flavor. It's quite different from the Stoli product, and we couldn't wait to see how it worked in a Footloose Cocktail. It works beautifully, with the nose being very similar to a classic Footloose (if a little more fresh berrylike), a deeper color and a clean, powerful flavor. It's still recognizably a Footloose, yet it's different -- perhaps a Top Shelf Footloose. We'll definitely be trying it again, but as this stuff is nearly $40 as compared to about $16 for the Stoli product (which makes a perfectly fine Footloose), we probably won't use it all the time.
Tom Tomorrow's "This Modern World". What if there'd been a Democrat in the White House on 9/11?
What is Bush hiding? E. J. Dionne, in The Washington Post:
It is to be welcomed that President Bush wants to clear up questions about his National Guard service. He wants more details out there, and good for him. This story should be laid to rest, and the one person who can do it is named George W. Bush.There are a lot of authenticated documents that beg these questions as well.
Politics first, Americans last. With yet another execution of an American in Iraq by al-Zarqawi, one must look back at this story from last March and wonder why it didn't get more attention in the press and from the public -- it seems The Regime seems to be more interested in their own political agenda than in protecting Americans and fighting terrorism.
With Tuesday's attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.Read on ... more plans made, more plans spiked by the White House. Do you feel safer?
A nation of victims. Clinical psychologist Renana Brooks writes in The Nation about something Kerry's going to have to watch out for in the debates: "Bush is not regarded as a great speaker. But he is a master at using negatively charged emotional language as a political tool."
George W. Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language -- especially negatively charged emotional language -- as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others.Look for it, and see through it.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Kerry-oke a smash! Without advertising support from MoveOn.org this time, and with a fraction of the bakers at the previous "Bake Back the Country" fundraising bake sale, the folks at Silverbake.org pulled in a whopping $4,282.21 at Saturday's event, with $755 coming from The Fat Pack's table! (Unfortunately Wes and I couldn't make it ... waaah.) The "Kerry-oke" singing went well too, with Rick, Steve and Dave belting out new versions of classic songs, a few of which I'll reproduce here. Feel free to sing it to the world for fun and/or fundraising purposes.
"We Will Survive"More songs from Kerry-oke coming later.
"Remove Bush" swag now available in our shop. The other day I had an idea, and put up the first two new products in The Gumbo Pages Swag Shop in about three years ... and the first not to feature the web site logo (thank Gawd). Even though my own UNIX skills are minimal, I had a progressive UNIX geekboy moment and came up with the following, available on t-shirts and stickers:
 
 All profits from the sale of this t-shirt or sticker will go to the Democratic National Committee. Buy buy buy, you geeks!
The media, then and now. Excellent cartoon by Ted Rall. Oh, and a new XQUZYPHYR & Overboard, too -- "Exactly what does Bush do?"
Shrub grows a testicle. It's beginning to look like there will be three debates after all. I suspect the real reason is that he's not as far ahead as he'd like everyone to believe.
"The Bush campaign didn't want to do the town hall because they really didn't trust the process for identifying uncommitted voters," said a Republican source familiar with the talks. "But things are going so well for them and so poorly for Kerry that they didn't want to give Kerry an opportunity to change the subject and say that Bush is afraid of debates. Bush not doing debates or dragging out the debate on debates could have been played by the Kerry campaign as arrogance."Uh, could it be because it is arrogance, and in fact Kerry is not doing poorly, and is in fact tied with Bush in a dead heat when you use pollsters who do not weight the sample with a preponderance of Republicans, and because Bush actually didn't want a town hall format because he wouldn't be able to get everyone to sign loyalty oaths this time? As Digby put it, "if the president were really 13 points ahead, he would not have agreed to three debates. This is, after all, a president who has faced the press in formal news conferences fewer times than any president in history. He would not subject himself to three sessions of unscripted questions if he were confident he had it in the bag."
Today's spam poetry. Good thing I was fixing my spam filter (which was erroneously catching some legitimate mail), or I would have missed this.
warriors tangent honored Anabaptist parseWes and I were wondering ... what the hell is the point of all that blather? Is it really supposed to foil spam filters? If so, it doesn't work terribly well.
[ Link to today's entries ]
What I think happened. It has by no means been proven that CBS' documents are forgeries. If they are, however ... I'm beginning to see it like this: White House communications director Dan Bartlett declined to challenge the authenticity of CBS' documents. (When asked if they were fake, he said, "I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that the fact that documents like this are being raised when, in fact, all they do is reaffirm what we've said all along, is questionable." CBS was foolish to take that as an authentication; it was a classics non-denial denial.) Documents are released without seeing the originals (another bad move on CBS' part). Content of the documents is widely acknowledged to be true, but this is brushed aside because thee documents are almost immediately attacked (first by a freeper and Republican activist who seemed awfully quickly well-prepared to challenge them) as being forgeries. If it turns out the documents are forgeries (and it's looking like that's the case), then whatever the documents are about -- the widely acknowledged charge, confirmed by multiple sources, that Bush did get special treatment getting into the Guard and that he didn't fulfill his obligations -- gets completely obliterated by the forged documents. The way it's beginning to look to me is that the White House didn't actually say the documents were forgeries because they knew they were forgeries. The ensuing brouhaha gets rid of all the allegations against Bush with regards to his lack of Guard service. The issue goes away and makes their opponents look bad. All beautifully done, all orchestrated from the West Wing by Karl Rove ... who has, of course, completely wiped his fingerprints from all this, as he's done with every political dirty trick he's pulled since he was in college (Another link, apologies for Godwin violation). Ever since this began and there were allegations of forgery, this has stunk of his involvement, because it would make absolutely no sense for someone who's anti-Bush to forge these documents. I'm apparently not the only one who think so, either. I feel the need to quote Teresa again: "I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist."
Bush on Iraq: It's as if he's saying, "Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lyin' eyes?" (The first of two posts today lifted from Josh.)
In denial.
Related to the above, the
second of Josh's posts
from yesterday, which needs to be read in its entirety:
Pessimists can say what they want. But that's what they said about the
occupation of Germany and Japan.
We're safer with Saddam in prison; America is safer. The critics are
pessimists.
These aren't quotations. But phrases like these are the stock phrases of
the president and the rest of his campaign. They filled the recent
Republican convention in New York. Actually, on Thursday President Bush
was speaking
in exactly this vein: "Freedom is on the march."
But as yesterday's piece
in the Times made clear, that's exactly the opposite of what the
government -- or rather the people in the government paid to analyze these
things -- actually believes. A new and still highly classified National
Intelligence Estimate on Iraq says that the best case scenario for the
country over the next eighteen months is drift, along more or less the
lines that it's at right now. The worst case scenario is all-out civil
war. The middle ground is spiralling extremism and fragmentation --
basically a continuation of the evolution, or rather devolution, we've
seen over the last year.
There have been a raft of new findings over the last week or so which
dramatize or confirm this finding. But the truth is we don't really need
anyone to tell us this.
It's always possible to posit 'optimism' up until the point when the whole
place actually erupts spontaneously into hellfire. But to any thinking
individual it's clear and it's been clear for some time that our whole
enterprise in Iraq is going extremely poorly, by pretty much every
concievable measure.
And yet the president just says none of this is true. Things are going
well. Yes, things are difficult, he says. But we're on the right track
and things keep getting better. Dan Bartlett today said
that Democrats are just showing their pessimism: "President Bush gets his
briefings from commanders on the ground. He has reason for his optimism
because of the enormous amount of progress we have made."
The president is simply in denial. Or he's willing to keep burning
through the US Army and the Marine Corps to avoid admitting the failure of
his policies or even the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq is
deteriorating terribly.
Today another suicide bomber just exploded himself
in Baghdad, killing at least a dozen people. The country is
continuing the slide into chaos and violence. President Bush says we're
on the the right track. Freedom is on the march.
Words and excuses meet incompetence, chaos and death. That's what this
election is about.
The Cocktailian (and shameless ego-boo). In yesterday's edition of Gary Regan's fortnightly column on cocktails, our hero and cocktailian bartender The 
Professor receives a visit from John and Fiona Hoskins of Cambridge,
England (hey, I have two friends in Cambridge called John and Fiona
Hoskins ... what a coincidence). They bring him the recipe for
a new drink named after themselves, called the Hoskins Cocktail
(hey, I made up a drink called the Hoskins for my friends too!), created
by their friend Chuck Taggart (hey, that's me!).A few months back Gary asked for submissions of new cocktails, and I promptly sent him the Hoskins; he'd been kind enough to publish Wes' Footloose and my Lillet Tomlin in the past (the former in his book The Joy of Mixology, the latter in a December issue of Nation's Restaurant News last year). Guess he liked it. (We neglected to tell him that we moved from Pasadena to Eagle Rock, though.) Thanks, Gary. What an absolute delight!
Editorial cartoon of the day. "The Sad Truth", by Stuart Carlson of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
Why forge? Via Xymphora, via News Dissector:
Assuming for the moment that the CBS documents are forgeries, but, as the former secretary of Lieutenant Colonel Killian says, accurately reflect his thoughts and are likely based on the contents of his original notes (and watch for reports of this in the disgusting American media to simply say the documents are forgeries, without reference to the vital fact that the contents are substantially true), why would the forger go to all the trouble of making a forgery? If he had access to the original notes, and he must have had such access in order to make substantively accurate forgeries, why not send them to CBS?Read the whole digest at the News Dissector link.
Supporting our troops. Respecting them, too. Is this how a nation expresses its gratitude toward those serving in its armed forces? (Also via News Dissector)
SOLDIERS PRESSURED; RE-ENLIST OR GO TO IRAQWhoo, they really know how to nab the veterans' vote, don't they?
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Close, close call. Holy crap.
 Click to enlarge (775K). Photo: NOAA.
Cocktail of the day. What else? This is a stealthy drink. It sneaks up on you. Cocktailwise, it's at least a Category 3, heading into Category 4 territory if you have more than one.
Hurricane Cocktail Did Kerry really vote for Bush's war? From the Al Franken radio show weblog, via Kos:
Here's what Bush said in 2002:Kos adds, "This whole 'flip flop' mess seems vastly misguided when Kerry's 'war vote' is seen in the proper light, doesn't it?"
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Oh shit. Mayor Ray Nagin has asked for a voluntary evacuation of New Orleans. My family's heading west, to the Lafayette area. I hate to wish this thing on anybody else, but I really, really hope it doesn't hit New Orleans. The Gulf Coast isn't a big bowl, like New Orleans is. Follow hurricane news here. Be safe, y'all. UPDATE: -- It's looking like a hit between Gulfport and Mobile, but New Orleans is not out of the woods by any means. Hurricane force winds extend for 100 miles from the eye, and we're going to get slammed pretty good. One of my sisters, who's a nurse, has to work, so she'll be riding it out. Everyone else is already in Lafayette and environs. From Rick, here are some quotes from tourists, from an AP story on the evacuation of New Orleans. "That city really has an effect on people," he says.
"They said get out, but I can't change my flight, so I figure I might as well enjoy myself," said George Senton, of Newark, N.J., who listened to the music (at Cafe du Monde). "At least I'll have had some good coffee and some good music before it gets me." On a single day. Here's the text of a recitation from Christy Moore, a brilliant recording of which is included in his release of earlier this year, The Box Set: 1964-2004, recalling one day during the Irish famine, one hundred fifty-seven years ago today.
On A Single DayGo mbeidh síocháin libh.
The web page is up! Shout! Factory have put up a "coming soon" page for my New Orleans box set project, "Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens: The Big Ol' Box of New Orleans". Due out on October 26th! Mark your calendars! You might think this sounds weird (Wes took one look and then thought, "Wait a minute, this smells like tuna fish"), but it's really, really good. It's even better if you use whole wheat spaghetti, in my humble opinion (and better for you, too). If you don't want to use butter, just use all olive oil instead, but it tastes much better with the butter (and you're only getting 1/2 tablespoon per serving, which is only 1.5 Weight Watchers points; a small price to pay for the pleasure of that flavor).
Spaghetti con TonnoI served this with some lovely green beans -- take 1 pound of fresh green beans, snap off the ends and snap them in half. Wash, then place in a bamboo steamer and set aside. Slice 1 red or yellow onion and cook over low heat in 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil until soft and caramelized, about 20-30 minutes. Thinly slice 6 cloves of garlic and add to the onions for the last 5 minutes or so, drizzling in a little more oil if necessary. When you're preparing the pasta, place the steamer on top of the pot for the last three minutes, then add the beans to the onions and garlic. Raise the heat to medium-high, add the juice of one large lemon; stir and cook until the lemon juice is somewhat reduced, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, drizzle a little more olive oil over if desired, and serve with the pasta.
Is science fiction about the future anymore? The question is asked over at /.; I ask, was it ever, necessarily? That age-old question we've visited here and many other places: What is sf? The article referenced in the /. post tries to paint a bleak picture (although it is true that sales are slumping), but it's overwrought. Despite what Vernor Vinge describes as "The Singularity" -- i.e., a time occurring in around 15 years when "the rate of technological change has become so rapid that it will be impossible to predict what might come next" -- I think there will always be speculative fiction, or rather, fantastic fiction. The stuff in 20 years might not be what we'd expect to read nowadays, but it'll be there. On a related note, there was an excellent article in Locus entitled "Global to Local: The Social Future as seen by six SF writers". John Shirley moderates a discussion between Cory Doctorow, Pat Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Norman Spinrad, Bruce Stirling and Ken Wharton regarding, as Shirley asks, "What will life be like on a daily basis for my son and grandson?"
What's a few trillion between friends? The Washington Post reports: "The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade."
A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.Oops. We forgot to mention that part, didn't we? Of course, we wouldn't dream of trying to deceive the American public, would we?
Heh ... le oops. Little Mattie Drudgie tried to help out his pal Dubya by posting a 1968 document from his military file, which apparently didn't exactly have the desired effect.
Attempting to bolster President Bush as he continues to stonewall questions about his Texas Air National Guard service, Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a 1968 document from Bush's military personnel file Monday afternoon that purports to buttress a long-ago claim by Bush that he served not only in the Texas Air National Guard but in the Air Force as well. Although this "exclusive" Drudge posting is a trivial sidebar to the larger story of Bush's absence from two years of military service, the document itself -- presumably provided to Drudge by a Republican operative -- turns out to be an incriminating piece of evidence against Bush's case.Kerry volunteered to go to Vietnam. Bush weaseled his way out of the National Guard commitment his daddy's friends got him so that he could weasel his way out of serving in Vietnam. Now, which one seems to be a more trustworthy commander in chief? Which one seems to be a more trustworthy person?
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It's worse than you think. And it's getting worse every day. Don't miss the narrated photo gallery entitled "Portraits of Mourning", and the gallery entitled "Death Near Baghdad". Meanwhile, American attack helicopters fired into a crowd on live television yesterday, killing 12 -- including an Al-Arabiya reporter. Here's the video from the BBC.
A television journalist was shot dead as he made a live broadcast from Baghdad yesterday when United States helicopters fired on a crowd that had gathered round the burning wreckage of an American armoured vehicle.From Le Monde:
The most serious incident yesterday took place in Haifa street, on the right bank of the Tigris. One of several US patrols is trying to locate the artillerymen who have been firing since dawn on the Green Zone. A boobytrapped car approaches a Bradley armored vehicle and explodes. The six US soliders inside, all of whom are wounded, manage to escape the burning vehicle but come under Kalachnikov fire. They withdraw. In the muzzle of the tank cannon, insurgents plant the black and yellow flag of Tawhid wal Jihad, the group led by Abu Mussab Al-Zarkaoui, a presumed Al Qaeda leader in Iraq.I have one friend and one family member in Iraq. This is not going to make them -- or us -- any safer. As Alexander said over on Daily Kos, "Tell me again why they hate us? Oh, I remember: it's because we love freedom."
Welcome to Bush's America. (Or, at least, Bush's Alabama, because an un-American, unconstitutional outrage like this would be highly illegal in California.) Phil Gaddis, a factory owner in Moulton, Alabama, fired a factory worker for refusing to remove a Kerry bumpersticker from her car after he insisted she do so.
No place for politics. Lyn says, "Read this. Now imagine it was your wife, your sister, your friend. It could happen to any woman. And realize why what the radical right wing is doing is wrong for this country, wrong for freedom, wrong for health, and most emphatically wrong for women." Amen, sister.
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Get your stories straight, eh boys? This Knight-Ridder story examines how the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans" are now a huge political machine with a $7 million budget. It also describes how they all rehearsed their statements:
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was registered with the IRS on April 23. Its early expenditures included money for a Dallas-area private investigator, Tom Rupprath. [SBV co-founder Roy] Hoffmann said Rupprath's job was to find vets and collect their stories so that a single account could be presented to the public.In other words, we needed to make sure all our bullshit stories matched.
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Jazzfest update. Looks like Quint is safe, for this year at least. We can hope that this scares him into shaping things up, though.
After flirting with hiring a new company to produce the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the board of the foundation that owns the annual springtime event voted Thursday night to negotiate a new contract with Festival Productions Inc., the company that has produced the festival since its inception 35 years ago.The one thing I fervently hope is that they do not water down the music of the festival with mainstream pop acts just to get bodies inside the Fairgrounds. Quint ... Sting has nothing to do with either "Jazz" or "Heritage".
Uglesich's cookbook, coming soon! It's a hole in the wall, the very definition of a dive, in a crappy neighborhood in New Orleans and only open for lunch on weekdays. It's also the home of some of the best food in the city, and deserves every bit of its legend. It is, of course, Uglesich's, still going strong after 80 years, and with its future in doubt, interest in the restaurant has gotten rather intense. Thousands of people have been asking for a cookbook for the unique dishes served there. In October, when the restaurant reopens after summer vacation, it'll be here.
John Uglesich, son of the couple who runs Uglesich's, doesn't work in the restaurant or cook, but now he is an integral part of the Uglesich story. John has written [the cookbook], which is as quirky as the restaurant itself. This could be the only New Orleans cookbook ever written without a single dessert recipe, since Uglesich's has never served them.Don't look for the remoulade sauce or the blue cheese dressing used on the fried oysters, though; those sauces might end up bottled. (Yay!) Ehh, I'm partial to my own remoulade sauce, anyway. Man, October's gonna be a big month -- Uggie's cookbook, Doc's Vintage Spirits book ... oh, and my box set!
Cocktails of the day, and a rating system. My friend Michael has been near-obsessively charting and following the path of Hurricane Ivan. I think his worry that it might actually become a Category 5 storm and hit New Orleans was beginning to get the best of him, so he began to quaff cocktails as we went along, to help assuage his nerves. He had a rather interesting choice of drinks, too -- ones with names that reflected the path of the hurricane:
Camp GrenadaAt first I thought I'd substitute club soda for the 7-Up, as I find almost all soft drinks to be way too sweet. Michael said he substituted Diet 7-Up, since that was all he had on hand, which worked well because it would definitely have been too sweet otherwise. "It was really, really good," he said. I'd recommend a diet lemon-lime soda that's sweetened with Splenda rather than the vile aspartame that Diet 7-Up uses, such as Hansen's. When the storm moved just north of ABC -- Aruba, Bonaire and the Curaçao Islands), we got this one: "To celebrate the island of Curaçao, and address my own consternation over this huge fucking storm ..."
The Fretful MartiniI'm curious to try this. Michael didn't like it, because he came to the realization that he really doesn't like Angostura Bitters (poor sod). Given the relatively poor quality of most blue Curaçaos these days, I'd be tempted to use Cointreau and a drop of blue food coloring instead. Moving along: "Spooky, spooky hurricane. The Dominican Republic and Haiti look to be above the brunt of the winds, but the outer rain bands are beginning to give them a good soaking. In their honor, I'm going to go with my motto of 'it's always noon somehwere' and try this:"
HispaniolaI worry this might be a bit sweet as well. It sounds good, but I'd try cutting down on the Curaçao and/or leaving out the simple syrup. (The original recipe called for 2 splashes of "Sweet and Sour Mix", but we don't recognize the existence of that bottled crapola in our world, and would in fact have made our own from fresh lemon/lime juice and simple syrup.) Presumably we'll have something Jamaican in the next day or so. I hope everyone on that island stays safe and gets through it all right. In the midst of all this, our friend Steve, in his continuing explorations through the world of cocktails, asked if there was a potency scale for cocktails that is similar to the one for hurricanes, measuring not sophistication of flavor but destructive potential. Here's the one I came up with:
Category 1 cocktail:Michael liked my scale, but disagreed on a few things. "Mine is maybe more of a 'wussy scale' than a straight intensity scale." Here it is [my comments in brackets]:
Category 1: Drinks That Will Get You CardedWe could be on to something here. First the Richter Scale, then the Scoville Scale, now the Taggart-Pemberton Scale? UPDATE: Now that the hurricane has continued to move: "I feel awful for the people in Jamaica, having a Category 4 storm hit an island in the middle of the night is truly a nightmare. "To mark the approach of the one-eyed monster, I'm going to try a Jamaican Cyclops."
3 ounces gin.Caveat imbibor.
Bush smears Jesus. Well, not yet, but he would if he were running for president. Via Atrios ... and who knew MAD magazine was doin' stuff this political, and this funny?
 Debunking wingnut claims. Hunter, at Daily Kos, just about completely takes apart claims that the Texas ANG documents are forgeries.
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"This is not America. This is not my home." Bob Harris talks about his flight back to the U.S. from Istanbul, where he was pulled from line before boarding, body-searched and detained, for no apparent reason.
White House lied, covered up documents; Bush AWOL. Surprise. "For the past several months, the White House has claimed it had released all relevant documents pertaining to Bush's military records in response to the Associated Press' Freedom of Information Act request for the materials. "Well, at one point they claimed a fire had destroyed a good many of the records, but dogged persistance by the AP's lawyers turned up most of the disputed docs. But not all. Amongst the documents the White House swore up and down didn't exist -- two documents released hours after tonight's 60 Minutes report.
The White House released memos Wednesday night saying that George W. Bush was suspended from flying fighter jets for failing to meet standards of the Texas Air National Guard."Oops. Busted. "So what goods did 60 Minutes have on Bush?
"For example, the Bush campaign has argued that Bush didn't need to report for the physical, since he was no longer on flight status. The document ordering him to report for the physical directly contradicts their excuses. "Meanwhile, the flight suspension was ordered for more than just missing the physical, but for 'failure to perform to (USAF/TexANG) standards.'
Larry Korb, an assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan has reviewed the Mr. Bush's record and believes he did not fulfill his contract."It's time for Bush's backers to admit reality -- their Golden Boy shirked his duty to his nation. These slime dare question Kerry's Vietnam heroism, while their own boy was playing pool volleyball with 'ambitious secretaries'. "And let's not forget that Bush was supposed to finish out his Guard duty when he took off for Harvard business school. He claimed he 'worked things out with the military'. But the Boston Globe exposed that lie Wednesday morning:
On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months... " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit."The Ben Barnes thing is subject to debate, and partisans will line up on the obvious sides (like they have with the Swift Boat Liars). But the official documents uncovered by 60 Minutes (despite the White House's attempt to cover them up)? There's no way to spin those away. The facts are there in black and white." [Back to Chuck] ... I just heard a Bush official speaking on NPR, calling all this "dirty politics" on behalf of the Kerry campaign. "Dirty politics?" This coming from BushCo? Whoever said that must have a pair of brass balls the size of basketballs; it's the encyclopaaedic definition of pot, kettle, black.
False vs. true. Via Josh, "a sage piece of commentary from Kevin Drum that shouldn't get lost in the mix":
This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true."That really is the heart of the matter," says Josh. "But in telling fashion it's a distinction many miss." Josh has had excellent coverage on all these developing issues, so head on over to his site and read it all ... including these comments from one of his readers, who acknowledges that even though the Bush service allegations now appear to be true, they're a losing issue for the Dems, and that Kerry needs to hammer home these points:
1. Bush is A TERRIBLE LEADER IN THE "WAR ON TERROR". He has failed in the hunt for Osama, misdeployed resources, and put off allies who are key to our long-term success against terrorism. Look beyond the macho swagger of Bush and see that he is completely screwing up this incredibly important long-term battle."Kerry must not only make these points," he says, "he must be pissed off about them."
Chicken George. Heh. Via Atrios:
So, Bush is scared to face questions by regular folks because some of them may come from "partisan" people. What does this tell us?This is the man who's supposedly tough enough to win "the war on terra", to protect us from terrorists? Apparently he doesn't believe he can even protect himself from hardball questions.
George Bush by the numbers. From the UK Independent, four years of double standards:
$50 million Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.We'll revisit some of these other numbers periodically.
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Well, are you? Let's look at the charts:
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Coward. Bush is apparently afraid to debate John Kerry three times, and weasels out of the second scheduled debate, which was to take place with a town meeting format in the battleground state of Missouri. His handlers are well aware that the empty suit will collapse if people get to ask him real questions.
Jazzfest at the crossroads. More on this week's decision by the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation regarding who will produce Jazzfest next year. It's potentially a huge deal, as this is the city's biggest (and signature) festival. My big hope is that it doesn't end up as a pissing contest between the foundation and the new producers, and that whatever changes are made aren't too jarring to those of us who've lived and breathed Jazzfest for many years. Certainly Quint Davis and Festival Productions could have done lots of things better, but it's an inherent quality in many New Orleanians to be instantly suspicious of change.
As the producer of Jazzfest for more than three decades, Davis has emerged as the festival's public face. Often seen clad in eye-popping shirts bearing images of Bob Marley or some other music icon, he is omnipresent during Jazzfest week -- appearing on television, hustling around the Fair Grounds in a golf cart, announcing artists on the main Acura Stage. His vast network of contacts and friendships, forged over nearly four decades of producing festivals and tours around the globe, has informed every Jazzfest.We find out tomorrow.
Room at the tomb. This is an extremely cool story -- jazz musician Paul Barbarin, whose family have been a longtime musical dynasty in New Orleans, has granted access to their family tomb to local musicians -- rich or poor -- who want to be buried there.
"People just want to do something for musicians who have done so much for the city," said Rob Florence, president of the preservation group Friends of New Orleans Cemeteries ...Vocalist Lloyd Washington will be the first to be interred in the musicians' tomb after it's dedicated next month. "He was an early supporter of the idea, performing at a benefit last year where revelers tossed cash into a velvet and sequined coffin that half a dozen 'pallbearers' paraded across the dance floor." Only in New Orleans ...
Another way to help New Orleans' musicians. The first way, obviously, is to go out and see and hear lots and lots of live music in New Orleans -- this puts money in the musicians' pockets and food on their tables. Another way is to keep in mind that almost none of these people, our city's most precious living cultural resource, have health insurance. The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic is a non-profit occupational medicine and wellness partnership offering comprehensive health care to our musicians. It's the first of its kind in the U.S., providing care for over 800 musicians and their families. Visit the web site for more information and, especially, to make a donation.
The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick, by R. Crumb (via Brendan)
"Philip K. Dick was a writer of science fiction. In 1982 he died suddenly of a stroke. His books often dealt with the illusory quality of reality as we know it. In March 1974 Dick saw what he later described as 'a vision of the apocalypse,' and spent the rest of his life trying to understand what he had experienced. Was it the onset of acute schizophrenia, or was it a genuine mystic revelation, and then again, is there any difference??"Not your average comic.
The Curse of Dick Cheney. A Rolling Stone article, via BoingBoing, who say, "This profile of Cheney is frightening. The only hope it offers is that every President to have Cheney involved in its adminitration has failed to be re-elected. I knew the guy was bad, but if all the allegations in this article are true, he's singlehandedly hamstrung all the offices of the military and intelligence in the US:"
Over at Defense, competent intelligence professionals were purged in order to ease the way to war. Douglas Feith, brought in under Rumsfeld to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy, applied an ideological test to his staff: He didn't want competence; he wanted fervor. Col. Pat Lang, a Middle East expert who served under five presidents, Republican and Democratic, in key posts in military intelligence, recalls being considered for a job at the Pentagon. During the job interview, Feith scanned Lang's impressive resume. "I see you speak Arabic," Feith said. When Lang nodded, Feith said, "Too bad," and dismissed him.Mini-quote of the day -- Gen. Tommy Franks, referring to Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, quoted by Bob Woodward in his book Plan of Attack:
I have to deal with the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.Mmm-hmm.
Quote of the day. What would it be like to have an articulate president, I wonder?
I wasn't surprised by Bush's economic policies, but I was surprised by the foreign policy, and I think he was, too. The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He's been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it. [ Link to today's entries ]
Quote of the day: Vote for us or die. Cheney actually says it:
It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.Uh, excuse me, you son of a bitch -- as I recall, 9/11 happened on your and your boss' watch. TBogg sums it up thusly: "Nice country you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it." How does one describe this kind of behavior? Let's check Messrs. Merriam and Webster, shall we?
ter-ror-ismHe's not hurling bombs (other than verbal ones) but his behavior certainly seems intended to create a state of fear as a means of coercion, doesn't it? As one of Atrios' commenters put it: "It's time for the electorate to let Mr. Cheney know that the United States does not negotiate with terrorists." Kos says, "Candidates that expect to win don't resort to such fear mongering. They're still running scared." They're scaring me too, not by making me afraid of terrorists with this bullshit, but afraid of them. They will say anything and do anything to stay in power. I shudder to think what they'll try next. Keep 'em scared, just like Goering said. For these men I have naught but a great and terrible loathing ...
Zoinks. Grenada's getting slammed.
Hope or rage? In his column today, Andrew Tobias points out the differences between the keynote addresses at the two political conventions this summer:
It's very "last week" -- and the Bush bounce is already pretty well gone (that was fast) -- but did you actually see Zell Miller's speech at the Convention? It was noteworthy because it was billed as the KEYNOTE address, just as Barack Obama's was in Boston five weeks before. But where Barack's was filled with hope and inspiration for the future, Zell's was so angry it wasn't just angry or even angry, it was scare-the-children, purple with RAGE.Speaking of "The Daily Show", Jon Stewart thoroughly and hilariously shredded Miller the other day. I'm sorry I missed it live, but we can all (and must all) watch it now.
Atrios slaps some sense into us. I was surprised as anyone to find myself reposting quotes from Andrew Sullivan twice in the last week. However, Atrios reminds us what Sullivan's really made of:
Look, there are moderates and open minded Republicans whose opinions we can respect and whose opposition to the Bush administration is more than welcome, but Andrew Sullivan is not one of those people. Andrew Sullivan is one of those people who, as Charles Pierce has suggested, should simply be shunned by all decent people. Quote of the day, second string. This was the QOTD, until Dick's knocked it over. Still, what the f- ?!
But let me tell you what else we need to do. We need to do something about these frivolous lawsuits that are running up the cost of your health care and running good docs out of business. We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country. See, I don't think you can be pro-doctor and pro-patient and pro-hospital and pro-trial lawyer at the same time. (Applause.) I think you've got to make a choice. My opponent made his choice, and he put him on the ticket. I made my choice. I'm for medical liability reform now. In all we do to improve health care, we will make sure that health decisions are made by doctors and patients, not by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.Oooo-kayyy ... obstetricians and gynecologists are unable to practice their love on the ladies because of trial lawyers like John Edwards? Via MeFi, here's the only appropriate response. However, as Kos points out, Mel Martinez, Bush's hand-picked Senate candidate in Florida, is a trial lawyer. Remember, it's okay if you're a Republican!
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Denying our troops a secret ballot. Just what the fuck is going on in this country?
Members of the military will be allowed to vote this year by faxing or e-mailing their ballots -- after waiving their right to a secret ballot. Beyond this fundamentally undemocratic requirement, the Electronic Transmission Service, as it's known, has far too many problems to make it reliable, starting with the political partisanship of the contractor running it. The Defense Department is making matters worse by withholding basic information about the service, and should suspend it immediately.I cannot believe that any conscience-bearing Bush voter or undecided voter could possibly think this is acceptable or right.
Setting (bad) records. Molly Ivins, points out some records:
We have already lost more American soldiers (488) in Iraq in 239 days of this year than we did in 287 days last year (482), when there was a war on and before our mission was accomplished.Then ...
Unnumbered weirdness by John Ashcroft (it's too hard to keep count): The Department of Justice has asked the Government Printing Office "to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the department has deemed 'not appropriate for external use.'" Of the five publications, two are texts of federal laws. They are to be removed from libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library, according to the American Library Association. All the documents concern either federal civil or criminal forfeiture procedure, including to how to reclaim items that have been confiscated by the government during an investigation.I don't find it surprising, coming from these people. What I find it is un-American. Fire them. Make it a landslide.
Pay attention, veterans (especially wounded and disabled ones). Here are what the Republicans apparently think of your Purple Heart -- click image to enlarge (via Atrios):
My father earned a bronze star in WWII for his service in the Philippines. When he finally returned home after two years in combat, a desk jockey in New Jersey denied him and his men a pass to return home for Christmas. Dad scooped up a bunch of passes and sent his men home for the weekend; they all reported back for service. AWOL charges against Dad were dismissed, especially due to his exemplary combat record. I have never forgotten that someone who put his life on the line for this country had to deal with an officious person who spent the war in the comfort of home, a person who valued protocol over people.Mary adds, "This is from a guy who ordinarily would support a Bush platform -- ex-military, fiercly Catholic. The Rethug tactic will backfire." Listen, veterans and servicemembers -- these people don't give a shit about you, your service, your wounds, your needs, your life. They'll use you as necessary to remain in power, and that's all. Still undecided? UPDATE, 9/5: Atrios posts: "1,100 wounded in Iraq in August. One doesn't know what wounded means, exactly, but we know that it's frequently quite bad. Amputations. Blinding. Brain Damage." And the Republicans pictured above mock such injuries and maiming with Purple Heart Band-Aids.
"Ownership" society. In email this morning Steve said, "I think I've figured out what the Republicans mean when they talk about creating an "ownership" society. They say they want people to own their own health care, own their own Social Security. But what they're really saying is, if you need help of any kind in any way, hey, you're on your own!" Editorial from the Los Angeles Times:
After 27 years of work, Dave Parker lost his job at a small electronics sales firm in Orange in October 2001. A 1986 federal law called COBRA, requiring insurers to continue offering employer-based coverage to employees who have lost their jobs, kept Parker's insurer from dropping him. But that didn't stop the insurer from "customizing" his policy to address his heart condition -- a personal touch that boosted his premiums by 39%. Later, his premiums soared further, and this year his insurer doubled his co-payments and raised his premiums by an additional 16%.Another Steven replied, "There's another more political aspect to Bush's "ownership." By shifting people off the Social Security and Medicare rolls (I guess you could call it "outsourcing" them) it turns from them from universal entitlements -- very hard to dismantle, because just about everyone feels a connection to them -- to "special interest" programs. Given all the times the GOP compared W to FDR, it's perhaps ironic that his big domestic initiative could change the New Deal to No Deal. But then, what do you expect from a man who called Zell Miller a "discerning" Democrat?"
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Cocktail of the day. Christ, I need a drink.
Chuck's Basic Old FashionedThen make another one.
Complex facts, shmomplex facts. Steve opined in email as to how Shrub plans to stimulate the economy -- by causing a boost in TV sales after millions of people like our friend Rick put their foot through the screen after watching his convention speech. (Wes recommends the latest Panasonic flat-screen plasma models.) Calvin Woodward of the Associated Press offers an excellent critique of said speech.
President Bush's boast of a 30-member-strong coalition in Iraq masked the reality that the United States is bearing the overwhelming share of costs, in lives and troop commitments. And in claiming to have routed most al-Qaida leaders, he did not mention that the big one got away.Nothing but the same old story. Get rid of him.
Weasel. (Via Kevin) The Bush campaign seems well-aware that their candidate runs on zero substance -- they appear to be weaseling out of a third debate with John Kerry, and so far are agreeing to only two. Kerry says he's willing to debate every week.
More speech analysis. Plenty to do today. For starters, here's a reality check from the Post:
[Bush] offered an idea that had been proposed by Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards: targeted tax breaks for geographical areas hit hard by difficult economic times.In other words ... uh, I don't think so, no. Here I go, quoting Sullivan again, about whom Kos says "his transformation into a Democrat fascinates me"):
I look forward to someone adding it all up, but it's easily in the trillions. And Bush's astonishing achievement is to make the case for all this new spending, at a time of chronic debt (created in large part by his profligate party), while pegging his opponent as the "tax-and-spend" candidate. The chutzpah is amazing. At this point, however, it isn't just chutzpah. It's deception. To propose all this knowing full well that we cannot even begin to afford it is irresponsible in the deepest degree. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the only difference between Republicans and Democrats now is that the Bush Republicans believe in Big Insolvent Government and the Kerry Democrats believe in Big Solvent Government. By any measure, that makes Kerry -- especially as he has endorsed the critical pay-as-you-go rule on domestic spending -- easily the choice for fiscal conservatives.And Saletan at Slate:
For $2.4 trillion, guess what word -- other than "a," "and," and "the" -- occurs most frequently in the acceptance speech George W. Bush delivered tonight.Who's still undecided?
Debunking Republican bullshit. Courtesy of Hesiod:
1. John Kerry's Defense Defense: Setting his voting record straight -- Fred Kaplan.More from Howard Kurtz at the Post:
What should the press do when a convention speaker stands up and hurls charges that are somewhere between exaggerated and false? ... [I]sn't it part of the journalistic mission to provide a reality check?Saletan, in Slate:
If the convention speeches are any guide, Republicans have run out of excuses for blowing the economy, blowing the surplus, and blowing our military resources and moral capital in the wrong country. So they're going after the patriotism of their opponents. Here's what the convention keynoter, Miller, said about Democrats and those who criticize the way President Bush has launched and conducted the Iraq war:Jonathan Cohn, in The New Republic:
A critic could credibly describe Senator Zell Miller's speech to the Republican Convention as angry, misleading, or both. But to dwell on either the tone or veracity of Miller's text somehow misses the point given the scene that unfolded at Madison Square Garden last night. In an address originally billed as a critique of John Kerry's national security credentials, Miller essentially branded the Democrats as traitors because they haven't fallen in line with President Bush on all matters of national security. It was one of the most vile political speeches in recent American history, every bit as offensive as Pat Buchanan's infamous call in 1992 for "religious war" and, perhaps, a little more disturbing. Buchanan's speech, after all, was an assault on decency. Last night Miller declared war on democracy.Hesiod offers yet more, from The Daily Howler, catching Zell-nut in another "flight of hypocritical fancy."
How completely did Miller deceive them? Laughably, he scolded Kerry for "trying to shut down" the Apache helicopter -- which Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, tried to shut down in 1989! Here's a bit of Senate testimony from August 13 of that year:As Hesiod said, "Priceless. Truly priceless." Pay attention, undecideds.
Shrub's missing year. Via Salon: The widow of a Bush family confidant says her husband gave the future president an Alabama Senate campaign job as a favor to his worried father. Did they see him do any National Guard service? "Good lord, no."
Untrue lies. Like a good Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger is making shit up too. In the aftermath of a ridiculous convention speech full of stupid lines from his movies instead of real issues, he's being taken to task by his fellow Austrians for telling Republican delegates that "he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child, and left a 'Socialist' country when he moved away in 1968, all of which is historically untrue.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Batshit crazy. Oh man. As Atrios put it, "We couldn't have hoped for a bigger convention fuckup from the Republicans than we had [last night]." Zell Miller was a complete wingnut, then compounded his nuttiness and completed his meltdown by going on MSNBC after his screed, expressing his desire to challenge Chris Matthews to a duel and telling him to shut up. (Hey, who said there's no such thing as bad publicity?) Good Lord. One has to wonder, though, in these tinfoil hat days -- did Rove want him to sound like a loon, so as to make Cheney and Shrub sound better? I wouldn't put anything past him. Following that, Dick Cheney -- who while he represents truly astonishing progress in robotics technology also has all the charisma of a diseased tree stump -- stoked the fires with scaremongering and a speech full of distortions (amidst a days-long parade of playing very loose with facts).
"President Bush delivered the greatest tax reduction in a generation, and the results are clear to see."Well, when there ain't nothin' to say ... Economy? What economy? It's all terror, terror, terror! Ooga booga!
The theme of the Republican convention on Wednesday night, as on the previous two nights, was unmistakable: Be afraid of terrorists, and be very afraid of John F. Kerry's ability to fight the terrorists.Boo! Osama! Duct tape!
Like other speakers before him, Cheney compared the threat we face today to the threat we faced from "the Nazis during World War II and the Soviets during the Cold War."However, as many have noted, he did well in that he actually declined to eat a baby on camera, although he looked like he wanted to ...
Scary.
The Cocktailian. This week The Professor chases a chill with an inspired quaff -- The Algonquin cocktail, an early favorite of Wes' and mine, 'cause as we say, what the world needs now is more rye cocktails.
Fruit of the vine. The Los Angeles Times' Jerry Hirsch got one of those "be careful what you wish for" dream jobs -- being a wine taster and judge at the L.A. County Fair.
My teeth are stained an inky black. My tongue is hot and dry. My head is foggy. No matter how much I spit out, it's impossible not to get a buzz going when sampling 50 wines. It's 10 a.m. on the final day of the Los Angeles County Fair's Wines of the World Competition. I have already ruled on dozens of white vintages this May morning, and now there are at least 20 glasses of red wine before me. Syrah, Merlot -- they all start to taste the same.I should have such problems. However, it can get nasty:
Most judges don't talk when tasting, to avoid prejudicing the views of other panel members. In our group, there was an exception to the rule . it was fair to give a warning about a DNPIM wine. For the uninitiated like myself, that means "do not put in mouth." It is a wine that is so bad it can be ruled out by smell alone. I missed just such a warning in the middle of a large flight of 34 Cabernets. The experience was not unlike aspirating Coca-Cola through the nose.Mmm, redolent of swine, reminiscent of the 1989 Château de Outhouse.
Corn Syrup Nazi: Everybody knows one. Via Sauté Wednesday ... "Did you know that there are over 10 teaspoons of sugar in that can of soda?!" And you just have four of them, and you're complaining that you can't lose weight. Honey, nix the soda ... and just about everything else containing high fructose corn syrup, cheap and completely empty calories that, frighteningly, supply up to 20% of the caloric intake of most of America's children. (Comments in brackets by Bruce Cole of SW.)
Paul Newman's Pasta Sauce Ingredients: Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Diced Tomatoes, Corn Syrup, Salt, Soybean Oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Spices, Onion, Garlic, Citric AcidNothing will happen until we all start reading labels, declining to buy foods that are filled with cheap high fructose corn syrup and telling the food conglomerates that we're doing so.
Raful Neal: 1936-2004. Another Louisiana musician gone ...
Famed Bayou bluesman, singer/harmonica player Raful Neal, died Wednesday, September 1, after a long bout with cancer. He was 68. With his relaxed vocal style and behind-the-beat harmonica playing, he was considered one of the best bluesmen to emerge from the south Louisiana area, bringing the sounds of the region to a worldwide audience. Neal was the patriarch of the famed Neal clan: nearly all of his children are blues musicians, including recording artist Kenny Neal.So long, Mr. Raful.
Quotes of the day. All this begs the question: Is he just nuts, or did they meet his price? At this point, one can only ask him how dare he accuse John Kerry of "flip-flopping", the big feckin' hypocrite.
My job tonight is an easy one: to present to you one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.(Oh, I'll bet he's not a "good friend" anymore. I'll bet he has no good friends left other than the ones who paid him his thirty pieces of silver, and they're only using him.)
For 12 dark years the Republicans have dealt in cynicism and skepticism. They've mastered the art of division and diversion, and they have robbed us of our hope. Let's face facts: George Bush just doesn't get it.(Psst. Zell. They still do, and he still doesn't.) Normally I am not in the habit of posting quotes from Andrew Sullivan; however, today I think last night's delicious debacle is best summed up by one of their own:
Zell Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude.Thank you, Zell, for showing the people what the party you're shilling for is all about. It's apparently the only thing you're still good for. It'll be all the more joyful when a progressive, African-American woman takes your Senate seat in November, too.
[ Link to today's entries ]
Photo of the day. Kendrick, Magazine Street, New Orleans, August 2004.
(Oh, while we're on the subject of photos, I've finally submitted a photo to The Mirror Project, taken at the koi pond in Wes' sister's back yard.)
We love you, Scotty. 
The long-time "Star Trek" fan in me (since
age 6) really wished he could have played hooky from work yesterday and
gone to this -- James Doohan, "Star Trek"'s Chief Engineer Montgomery
"Scotty" Scott, who's 84 and suffers from Alzheimer's and a number of
other ailments, made his final public appearance as his star on Hollywood
Boulevard's Walk of Fame was unveiled. In attendance were three other
members of the Enterprise's bridge crew (although not its captain and
first officer); Jason DeFillippo on blogging.la has some
terrific photos of
the event. (I think I would even have enjoyed going to the farewell convention,
although as a rule I generally find Star Trek conventions entirely too
geeky for my taste.)
George Takei ("Lt. Hikaru Sulu"): "This is a galactic day in this town full of stars. We've gathered from throughout this planet to say congratulations to you, Jimmy. We love you and we thank you for your luminous talent. We thank you for the gift you have given us of that unforgettable character, that ingenious and beloved engineer that was able to fix anything."Not only was he a very endearing actor who created a wonderful character, he was inspirational to a a great many people who became engineers because they were inspired by his performances; according the the convention web site, a recent poll at the Milwaukee School of Engineering showed that half of the students said they were inspired to study engineering because of Scotty. (I didn't become an engineer -- no aptitude -- but 25 years ago we named our dog after him ...) Take care, Scotty, you miracle worker.
New Beausoleil album in two weeks! Beausoleil (avec Michael Doucet) have been one of my all-around favorite bands for over 20 years, not just 
my favorite Cajun band. They have a new album coming out in a couple of
weeks, their 27th overall and their first in five years, and it's
terrific. Gitane Cajun (or, "Gypsy Cajun") is due out on
Vanguard Records on the
14th, although I've had a DJ promo copy for a while now. Nine originals
and a bunch of covers from the Cajun and Creole greats (Lawrence Walker,
Canray Fontenot, et al.) There's even a song entirely in English, which I
think is a first for this band (they've had some English lyrics before,
but as I recall they were all in bilingual songs).More so than just about anyone else, these guys have brought Cajun music to the American masses. Dewey Balfa may have been one of the first to play it outside Louisiana, but Beausoleil was pretty much the first to get it outside folk festivals. Their music is firmly rooted in the Cajun tradition, yet is not strictly traditional music -- their sound is influenced by Creole music, New Orleans styles, jazz, Caribbean rhythms, Tex-Mex, rock 'n roll and the blues, while still remaining very, very Cajun. Via Josh, here's an interview with Michael Doucet about the new album, his views of Cajun music and why so many of the songs are about death, hard times and lost love:
"I'm sick of these songs about 'Let's be a Cajun' and 'Let's eat gumbo and let's zydeco' or some nursery rhyme," said Doucet. "I wasn't into stuff like that.It's not just Cajun songs, either. Look through the depth and breadth of traditional music -- especially ballads -- and you'll see that most of them are about hard times, lost love and death (especially murder; there's a whole subgenre of traditional murder ballads). Most people had no mass entertainment; they entertained themselves, and they sang about what they knew. Frankly, I'd rather hear about that than the vast majority of what passes for pop music these days.
Quotes of the day. Well, which is it? (Via Lyn, Josh, et al.)
"We have a clear vision on how to win the war on terror and bring peace to the world."In one month. And they accuse Kerry of flip-flopping? Jesus Christ. These people have their heads so far up their asses they'll never see daylight again. Once again I hear Chief from Apocalypse Now ... "You don't know what the hell you doin', do ya? DO YA?!!" Josh adds, "We're told that later today the president will be commenting on whether the war between Oceania and East Asia is winnable."
August Looka! entries have been permanently archived.
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