Something popped out to me from the New Republic cover-article concerning “Hillary-land”, Hillary Clinton’s Political machine.

The newest senior staffer in Hillaryland, Rubiner came to Hillary by way of former Republican Senators John Chafee and Bob Dole and, most recently, the aggressively centrist New America Foundation, where she ran a program on universal health insurance. Her hiring says a lot about where Hillary is headed on the issues that may define a presidential campaign. Rubiner favors a universal plan, whereby the government mandates the purchase of health insurance, just as it does car insurance, from competing private providers, while subsidizing the neediest. Back in the ’90s, this was the centrist alternative to Hillarycare, and it was sponsored by Rubiner’s ex-bosses, Chafee and Dole.

“Truman’s dream of Universal Health Care”, indeed. Hillary Clinton’s new position on health care is her partisan opponents’ old position on health care. It is funny how that works. Ah well. The old Clinton Health Care Bill looks to me like a bureaucracy – shifter anyways — what’s the line about it being basically written by the 5 largest Insurance companies and thus being vehementally opposed by all the other Insurance companies? Or the more commonly heard in the country, as we moved onto the “Gingrich Revolution” — “The Government is going to take control of one sixth of the US Economy!” I remember Conan O’Brien, when he had Bob Dole on his show at the time, did a funny bit where he “zeroed in” on Dole’s chart of how complicated the bill was to show it was “padded” with the “National Basketball Association”.

I have seen the new abu Gharib photographs. I was not looking to see them, but enough blogs and websites have posted them that I came upon them through osmosis. I don’t need to tell you that they are gruesome and horrible.

If the Muslim World wants to riot against Western intrasigience, this is what they may justifiably rally against, as it is the shame of our nation — with the further shame being that there is a politically potent part of the nation that are torture apologists and it’s “nothing different that what happens in Skull and Bones!” — and a not insignificant part of our intelligentsia that indulges in mind games of when torture is necessary who are taking their cues from Jack Baer in the tv show “24”. You may not rally against the goddamned images of Mohammad, which I will never apologize for on behalf of whomever I’m supposed to be representing here. I tried to think of the “Cartoon Violence” as a proxy for more meaingful sins on our part, but in the end I’m stuck by the thought that a transgression is being accused of that is not a transgression

One last note:

Also, isn’t it curious that the same handful of looped footage of the riots seem to be used for all the reports, and most of the reports are coming from Syria and Iran, the two countries the Bush administration is warming up to open the third and fourth fronts [!] in the War on Terra.

I think it is safe to “go there”.

As predictable as ever, the battle that brought together a handful of libertarian-minded Republicans and a blinking “hey. We have something here” party whipping for the Democratic caucus to unite behind Feingold — falls apart completely and it all dwindles to a handful of “nay” votes.

The Three:

Russ Feingold. Robert Byrd. Jim Jeffords.

Well I guess when Larry Craig’s principles come from ignoring the current presidential malfeasance and looking to the day a Democrat will be in power to commit malfeasances, I guess you can expect nothing less. As soon as the fig-leaf is put in place to claim something happened with the bill that didn’t, naturally. Do I need to tell you where the Senate is taking its probe into Bush’s wire-tapping? Nay.

The new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue is out. As the trend of its covers seems to be, it features a model or two on the cover having trouble keeping her top on. (I have not seen the cover as of yet, but this is what I am told.)

I could now get onto some sort of high horse and mention that academic study that showed that this is basically the only time you see women on the cover of Sports Illustrated… save that one time Anna Kournikorva appeared on the cover, which proves the same thing. I would then lament the rigidity of women’s roles in society — as proved by the lack of interest in Women’s athletics. I go to the Sports Illustrated online cover gallery, trying to think of moments where Women’s sports were the sports story of the week, and I find myself with the question: Wasn’t the huge point of her taking her shirt off that her sports bra had a Nike logo on it? (A stunt pulled that, I guess, goes back into the point made with the “Swimsuit issue and Anna Kournikorva” statement.)

It was a Sociology professor getting ready to mention that study who did this little game where s/he offerered anyone in the class extra credit points if they write down the Final Four participants in last year’s college Basketball tournament. When everyone who knew gave the answer turned in the final four participants of the Men’s Basketball tournament, s/he went on to mention in the next class that s/he meant the Women’s Final, and asked “Why’d you assume I meant the Men’s tournament?” and nobody got the extra credit.

When I heard this story, my thought was basically, “Oh, Go to Hell.” If you don’t specify, shouldn’t that mean either one would fall under the criteria of the rules?

I note a “Sports Illustrated for Women’s Magazine”, circulation probably at best one twentieth that of Sports Illustrated. I also note that I once noted they had a swimsuit issue, which featured… Shaquille O’Neal and his wife and… other athletes and their wives. A different beast than the men’s magazine, granted, and I don’t really know what their angle is.

My middle school library subscribed to some ramshackle “Sports Magazine” or other, which apparently does a “swimsuit issue” every year. In sixth or seventh grade, the school librarian took the issue and, in a bizarre manner, cut out the photographs of the semi-clad women replacing them with duct tape. In some cases, she cut out the whole person (save the face), in other cases only the busts and rears. I didn’t then and don’t now understand her game. Would it not make more sense to simply not shelve the danged magazine? And looking through the manner she cut the women up was indeed hilarious. What was her mind-set in cutting this women up like that and cutting that women in that other way? But then again, she was a weird person, indeed.

A Brazilian was the first to officially enter an Iranian newspaper’s contest for cartoons about the Holocaust, said Masoud Shojai, head of the contest secretariat, on Monday.

The Brazilian artist listed as the author of the cartoon could not be reached to confirm the entry was by him.

Soliciting anti-Semitic cartoons in the Arab World strikes me as redundancy squared. The Arab Press publishes anti-Jew cartoon after anti-Jew cartoon. For a blog that regularly publishes some of them, to shame his part of the world, consult The Religious Policeman is a good place.

“We don’t intend retaliation over the drawings of the prophet. We just want to show that freedom is restricted in the West,” said Davood Kazemi, executive manager of the contest and cartoon editor at the paper since 1992.

Urm. I won’t speak for anybody but my own nation, but… I don’t believe there is any governmental prohibition against publishing your asinine Holocaust cartoons. They may just not elect to do so. Please consult over here for a common, though not completely overpowering, attitude toward such offenses, for an Aaryan rally in front of the Lenin statue in Seattle’s Fremont district.

Overall, the demonstration failed to arouse the usual volley of epithets. Boyer says that his group was approached by hippies, lesbians, and a few Jews. “Most of them didn’t care,” says Boyer. “They said we have the right to free speech.” But it wasn’t a total loss. Boyer got the finger from a number of passing motorists, to which he responded (predictably) with the “Sieg Heil!” salute.

A countering attitude toward offense-givers is found with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In the main, I don’t understand the Holocaust Denial. You have two competing strands of thought. One: How great it was that Hitler killed Jews. Two: The Jews are lying that Hitler killed Jews. In the main, most Holocaust Deniers are semi-deniars, which is that The Holocaust is exaggerated, so I suppose at that point the two strands of thought are not strictly mutually exclusive. I find myself consulting Part Two of this collection of diatribes by a horrible person, and not understanding the whole “the Jews deserved what they got” / “You call it an extermination camp, but you know better” dichotomey.

But back in Israel, Now, a group of Israelis announce their own anti-Semitic cartoons contest. Amitai Sandy, the publisher of Tel-Aviv, Israel-based Dimona Comix, and founder of the contest jokes, “We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published! No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!

Clever, that. Clever that.

There is a triviality of the Dick Cheney Hunting Accident that largely just makes my eyes glaze over. It was the chief focus of the Press Gala Charade held with Scott McCleallan every day, it was the punchline of many water cooler conversations and late night talk show monolouge jokes, and it surfaces all over the blogosphere. Yes… Aaron Burr… Alexandar Hamilton. Laugh it up!

A perfect metaphor? A banal topic that you dissect to show how the White House operates for less banal topics? I don’t know.

I note that it pushed aside a more serious revelation regarding the Vice President. Please note that on the Sunday Morning Chattering Class shows, the following things were said about Dick Cheney:

George Allen, Republican co-front-runner for President: I don’t think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

Howard Dean: If it turns out that Scooter Libby, who said this week that his superiors ordered him to leak the information for political reasons, then this Vice President may not be Vice President very much longer.

Ah. Impeachment. Screw the President. Go to the Vice President.

I hate to bring this up, but … um… one guy who’s constantly urged the Impeachment of Cheney over Bush is…

Oh, never mind! There’s this hilarious pamphlet cover that I saw his peddlers push a few months ago on the “Post Cheney Age” entitled “Earth’s Next 50 Years” that featured this panoply of wonderous possibilities.

As for “Impeachment”: since the most powerful vice-presidents in American history are the last several, excluding Quayle, and they are now linked in total with the Presidential Administration, the rules of Impeachment have to be changed to be a double-whammy.

Never mind. Bush’s approval rating is back to 38%, bringing me back to my under 40 rule: Give me President Hagel, PLEASE.

Sweep the Rock! Sweep the Rock! Sweep the Rock!

Congratulations to the 1924 British Olympic Curling Team!!

The International Olympic Committee announced today that Britain’s victorious 1924 team will receive official recognition as Olympic champions – rather than their previous classification as winners of a demonstration sport.

They defeated Sweden 38-7 and France 46-4 in outdoor matches lasting 18 ends – but never got the chance to defend their title as curling disappeared from the Olympic programme until 1998.

I didn’t understand how the Olympic Committee can, years after the fact, upgrade an Olympic Competition like that, but I found the answer:

“Curling was part of the official programme at the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924, and the IOC is pleased to have been able to confirm that.”

So there you go. The Olympic Curling Teams of the 1980s and 1990s, up to the 1998 re-emergence as an official Olympic Sport, will just have to know that they will never be medal award winners, but will also be proud in the knowledge that they were instrumental in keeping the Curling Flame going.

I: At least nine senators were among 200 people herded into a Capitol parking garage Wednesday night after a security sensor indicated the presence of a nerve agent in their office building. Later tests proved negative.

Say. Whatever happened to that investigation into who sent Anthrax to then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, to Patrick Leahy, and to “American Media” cohorts at the National Enquirer… and to Tom Brokaw?

If only George Bush had the same electronic survelliance ability George Washington had during the Revolutionary War, those Anthrax attackers would be caught by now, as well as the folks behind the phantom nerve agent, as well as the entire War On Terror.

IIa: Q Can I ask you a question about the timing of the speech today? Why now, given the ongoing discussion that is taking place about tactics in fighting the war on terror, why did the President seek to disclose the details today, specifically?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, for the reasons I just stated. This is a speech that we have been working on for the last few weeks. The President has been having an ongoing discussion with the American people about the war on terrorism. This is the nation’s highest priority. It’s the President’s top priority. It’s about protecting the American people. And we’re always looking for ways to inform the American people about our efforts and provide them additional information.

As you know, it takes time to declassify information. And as time goes by, you might be in position to share more information about plots that were disrupted. Remember, back in October, the President talked about, I think it was, 10 or so plots that were disrupted or broken up. And we provided some general information at that time. One of these was the plot that the President talked about today.

But I think it’s — what he was highlighting — the purpose of the speech was to highlight the strong international cooperation that is going on.

Q But is it just a coincidence? You had February 6th circled on the calendar for the hearings, the NSA hearings. Is it just a pure coincidence that this comes out today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you’re talking about the — let me mention, the terrorist surveillance program is a vital program, and it’s been a very valuable tool. I’m not going to get into discussing any of the tools that may have been used when it comes to disrupting this plot. We provided you some additional information about this plot. But the purpose of this speech is the way I stated it. And I would discourage you from suggesting otherwise.

IIb: Friday, 7 October 2005

The White House has given details of 10 major terror plots that President Bush says have been foiled by the US and its allies since the 11 September attacks. […]

West Coast airliner
In mid-2002 the US disrupted a plot to attack targets on the West Coast of the United States using hijacked aeroplanes. The plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in planning the events of 11 September 2001.

IIc: Bush said that in early 2002 the United States and its allies thwarted a plot to use bombs hidden in shoes to breach the cockpit door of an aeroplane and fly it into the the tallest building in Los Angeles.

LIBRARY TOWER THE TARGET

But he named the wrong building. “We believe the intended target was Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, California,” Bush said. White House aides later said he meant Library Tower.

9 more speeches to cover the other items on the list, I guess.

IIc. Q Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts? Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you used shoe bombs, wouldn’t you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something missing from this story?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t know what you’re referring to about missing. I mean, I think we provided you a detailed briefing earlier today about the plot. And Fran Townsend, our Homeland Security Advisor, talked about it. So I’m not sure what you’re suggesting it.

Q Think about it, if you’re wearing shoe bombs, you either blow off your feet or you blow off the front of the airplane.

MR. McCLELLAN: There was a briefing for you earlier today. I think that’s one way to look at it. There are a lot of ways to look at it, and she explained it earlier today, Alexis, so I would refer you very much back to what she said, what she said earlier today.

Perhaps the shoe bomb is the radical fundamentalist Muslim equivalent to the old fad of stuffing as many people into phone-booths as possible? Just a thought.

Virginia ended up being the closest thing the Democratic Party had to a “blue state” in the South in the 2004 election. It was a trend I had noted in glancing over the polls. I have no clue how good a governor he was, and I have no clue how good a Democrat he was, but former governor Mark Warner is now sort of in second place behind Hillary Clinton in the unofficial Democratic Primary race. I get a funny feeling Warner may end up being Hillary Clinton’s running mate, and as a political matter, it probably is a winner. (Note I’m not saying it’d be good for the country, but it is what it is.)

The front-runners for the Republican Party would be John McCain and … Virginia Senator George Allen. George Allen looks basically like the reincarnation of the current occupant of the White House. Recently, he sounded a very serious gaffe that shows he’s not altogether up on the details of Washington.

Ben S. Bernanke, nominated for the chairman of the Federal Reserve to succeed Greenspan…
Here is what Senator George Allen of Virginia, who is considering a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, said when asked his opinion of the Bernanke nomination.

Told that Mr. Bernanke was up for the Fed chairman’s job, Mr. Allen hedged a little, said he had not been focused on it, and wondered aloud when the hearings would be. Told that the Senate Banking Committee hearings had concluded in November, the senator responded: “You mean I missed them all? I paid no attention to them.”

At any rate, George Allen now has a challenger. It is what it is — the biography alone shows that James Webb would be on the right end of the Democratic Senate Caucus:

James Webb, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s Navy secretary, said Tuesday that he will seek the Democratic nomination to run against U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) this year, hoping to challenge the one-term incumbent on foreign policy and the conduct of the war in Iraq.

But if you want to know why he will be good for the Senate, and why beyond just wanting to get rid of George Allen’s political fortunes he’s a good guy:

In 1994, Webb endorsed Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) for reelection over
retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, calling North a chronic liar.

Ba da bing Ba da boom! On the other hand:

Six years later, Webb switched sides, endorsing Allen, the man he now hopes to beat. At the time, Webb said Allen was “better on issues of national
security” than Robb was.

Take it for what it means.

Upon conquering the Falkland Islands, Margaret Thatcher declared that “Great Britain is Great Again!”, a glimpse into why that squirmish had to be done… for the sake of British Might.

American government has been shaking off “Vietnam Syndrome” ever since Vietnam ended ingloriously for the US. Today, we’re on the verge of creating a new syndrome “Iraq Syndrome”. The problem is that sooner or later, we’re going to have to conquer Iran or Syria. But before we can do that, we need to shake off our Iraq fatigue… somehow or other. How, or how are we to do that?

Out of the blue, a solution has come up!

ONE of the world’s last Stone Age tribes has murdered two fishermen whose boat drifted on to a desert island in the Indian Ocean.

Environmental groups urged the authorities to leave the bodies and respect the five-kilometre exclusion zone thrown around the island. In the 1980s and early 1990s many Sentinelese were killed in skirmishes with armed salvage operators who visited the island after a shipwreck. Since then the tribesmen have remained virtually undisturbed.

These Sentinelese have killed two of our (and I’ll go ahead and claim Australia for a hyper Huntington thesis of a new clash of civilizations) fisherman! We must avenge the death of these fishermen. They want to play tough with their bow and arrows — let’s throw some Patriot Missiles at them and then…

WE’LL ACTUALLY HAVE WON A WAR! We can follow through with victory parades down the streets of every downtown in America! American Military Might is Second to None — and certainly not to some Stone Age Islanders.

Bush needs to know that we need a psychological boost before we can “do Iran”, as the Weekly Standard is currently insisting we do. The Sentinelese are there for the taking. LET’S GO!!! DO IT!!!