telescreen.org

Florida Today, a newspaper in Brevard County, FL, usually liveblogs each NASA launch at Kennedy Space Center, and they're pretty interesting and up-to-date.  Today's (well, hopefully today's) launch of the New Horizons Pluto probe is no different, and the liveblog is the next best thing to NASA TV coverage.

Mission accomplished:

"The US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq," Brigadier-General William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the work, said at a recent news conference. "This was just supposed to be a jump-start."

However, McCoy's assertion seems to be at odds with previous administration statements. For example, in a speech on August 8, 2003, Bush said: "In a lot of places, the infrastructure is as good as it was at prewar levels, which is satisfactory, but it's not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim is for the infrastructure to be the best in the region."

Relatively little ($3.3 billion) of the $21 billion allocated for reconstruction since the invasion remains to be spent, and IRMO is scheduled to disband in June 2007. Thus the decision not to renew the reconstruction program leaves Iraq with tens of billions of dollars in unfinished projects and an oil industry and electrical grid that have yet to return to prewar production levels.

Is this really what's meant by "making a joyful noise"?

Garrison Keillor, writing in Salon:

It's good to know how to lie, and lie effectively, so you can go backstage after the high school production of "The Crucible" in which your friend's daughter mumbled her lines and stood like a fencepost, trying to look horrified and looking drugged instead, and now here she is, fluttery, ashen-faced, perspiring, and you say, "It was fascinating to watch. You were so in the moment, Lindsey. So believable. It really resonated with that audience, there was so much intensity." The truth is that she has no more talent than the average cocker spaniel -- but so what? There's no need to face the truth all at once. . .

But who tells the truth to the man who is driving straight into the setting sun and thinks he's heading due east? His wife murmurs that, uh, maybe we should look at a map, and he accuses her of being a defeatist who tries to tear him down any way she can in order to conceal her own lack of ideas. The man is heading the wrong way and speeding and the idiot light is flashing -- low oil pressure -- and the idiot is trying to be manly and authoritative but everyone can see he's faking it, hoping for God to rearrange the landscape for his convenience. Someone ought to speak up, and yet he is fascinating. As the administration is these days, so resonant and believable. The Arctic icecap melts and the Chinese finance our tax cuts and someday we will have spent six years and trillions of dollars to bring democracy to Iraq, whatever that may mean, and the SUV of state turns toward the setting sun, driven by cocker spaniels. And there is so much intensity there, and they are so much in the moment.

I got a momentary frisson this morning when I walked past Charles Osgood on West 58th Street on my way to work. 

(I'm such a geek.)

Because I'm not really anything more than a bandwagon-jumper, I'm picking this meme up from Czeltic Girl:

Cities where I spent one or more nights in 2005:

• New York, NY
• Marietta, OH
• Laneview, VA (does this really count as a city?)
• Newport, RI
• Louisville, KY
• Atlanta, GA

Jeez.  I need to get out more.

Have you seen or heard Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech in its entirety?  If you have, consider yourself lucky.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on. . .

I really feel for those poor ninth-graders in civics class now -- things are so much less certain than they were when I was in high school.  For instance, I learned that there were three branches of government, and that the Constitution set up checks and balances among them.  The legislative branch made the laws, the executive branch put them into effect, and the judicial branch interpreted the laws according to precedent and the Constitution.

How does any civics teacher nowadays deal with the questions that surely must come from the class?  I mean, I read all those cheesy "How A Bill Becomes A Law" infographics.  I even remember seeing "I'm Just A Bill" on "Schoolhouse Rock."  But how can a civics teacher explain that when the President signs a law, he can also issue a statement saying that he can choose whether or not he abides by it?  That when Congress requires the executive branch to do something, the President can choose to regard those requirements as "advisory" only?  Something makes me think that this isn't quite what the Founders envisioned when they were writing the Constitution.

And what's the poor judiciary to do when interpreting a law?  Do they go by -- as has historically been the case -- Congressional debate in enacting the law?  Or should they go by what the President says when he announces that he's going to disregard the law?  (And, should they rule against the President, will he just issue a "judiciary statement" saying that he's declaring the Supreme Court as "advisory" only?)

Actually, we're getting there.  Because guess who proposed using signing statements (heretofore typically benign announcements trumpeting the achievement of whatever goal the legislation attempted to accomplish) to circumvent the content of the law just signed?  That would be none other than Samuel Alito, who's currently about to be elevated to the highest court -- or is that rubber-stamp body? -- in the land.  In 1986, as a Reagan Administration stooge lawyer, to be precise.

I honestly don't understand why more Congresscritters aren't up in arms about this.  Because this president is declaring himself to be above the law...which is not how our government is meant to operate.  (I'd love to hear an opinion from a Republican setting out for me just how this is legal and hunky-dory.)  If the President can dictate what is and isn't the law, regardless of Congress, using unwritten powers extraneous to the veto, then why do we have a Congress?  Why do we have a judiciary?  Why do we have anything other than Dear Leader?  Why do we, for that matter, even have a Constitution?

Andrew Sullivan, writing in Time:

A President, Democrat or Republican, has every right to act unilaterally at times to defend the country. But a democracy cannot work if the person who is deputed to execute the laws exempts himself from them when he feels like it. Forget the imperial presidency. This is more like a monarchical one. America began by rejecting the claims of one King George. It's disturbing to think we may now be quietly installing a second one.

How disconcerting it must be for those civics students to read that they live in a country governed by the rule of law.  One whose just powers derive from the consent of the governed.  One whose constituent branches of government can check each others' power.  Because that's not the reality at all.

From WRAL.com's Martin Luther King Day page (click the picture to see it bigger):

Poor ad placement, n'est-ce pas?

(via Chuck U. Farley.)

Gloria Trembicky is a bad landlord.

Wow, if you're short, heavy, and/or geeky, New York magazine won't shut up about it:

• "nebbish"
• "schlumpy"
• "short and balding"
• "round cheeks"
• "weighing in at 210 in briefs"
• "Oedipal issues"
• "short, round body"
• "pink-cheeked"
• "gnomish"
• "one of the most socially-impaired people to be found this side of a high-school reunion"
• "a great social disability"
• "his extreme deficit"
• "he lacks interpersonal skills"
• "he doesn't connect"
• "fully a foot taller than Newmark"
• "soft and fuzzy"
• "bite-size"
• "an emotional ziplock around Newmark"
• "the inability to take any kind of love and grow from it"
• "a lot of guilt"

Jeez, from reading the article you might get the feeling that a local print magazine feels a bit threatened somehow...

(For the record, I'm not a heavy Craiglist user at all, but I am a fan.  I was mostly impressed that when I e-mailed Craigslist customer service to complain about a posting deeplinking an image of mine (without the Creative-Commons-required attribution), I heard back twenty minutes later from Craig himself.  We had a brief, cordial e-mail exchange.)

Any competent editor would have shredded this article to bits.  A reporter spends a few days with Craig Newmark, and decides that his "hokey sense of humor is forged by Oedipal issues"?  With nothing whatsoever in the actual article to back up this assertion? 

And, doesn't the passage:

There was an emotional ziplock around Newmark, the inability to take any kind of love as his own and grow from it. Maybe that’s why he started the list.

assume a hell of a lot?  Unless Craig Newmark himself explicitly tells you things along these lines -- and there's not really anything in the article that gives this impression -- that's a really presumptuous reach on the part of the author.

(Also:  Philip Weiss desperately needs a refresher course on how commas and semicolons are actually used.)

Bodega Marquee, originally uploaded by Vidiot.

In Jersey City, last Saturday.

Yup, a completely bipartisan scandal.

I would be remiss indeed if I didn't thank Chuck for the link.

Criminal/Very Talented Writer/lying hack James Frey, fresh off his softball interview with Larry King (and a late endorsement by Oprah "The Actual Truth Doesn't Matter, As Long As It Makes You Feel Warm And Fuzzy" Winfrey), suffers the ultimate indignity:  being mocked by Neal Pollack.

(P.S.:  Didn't he make a big deal about how he wasn't going to talk about it anymore?  Guess that prior statement is inoperative, too.)

Donald Rumsfeld's memories of a geisha.

TVNewser is right; MSNBC.com's The Daily Nightly is doing a terrific job liveblogging the Alito hearings...

(Just one example.)

Best. Blonde Joke. Evar!

Hearts and minds:

American troops in Baghdad [Sunday] blasted their way into the home of an Iraqi journalist working for the Guardian and Channel 4, firing bullets into the bedroom where he was sleeping with his wife and children.

Ali Fadhil, who two months ago won the Foreign Press Association young journalist of the year award, was hooded and taken for questioning. He was released hours later. . .

Dr Fadhil was asleep with his wife, their three-year-old daughter, Sarah, and seven-month-old son, Adam, when the troops forced their way in.

"They fired into the bedroom where we were sleeping, then three soldiers came in. They rolled me on to the floor and tied my hands. When I tried to ask them what they were looking for they just told me to shut up," he said.

I'm glad we're making Iraq safe for democracy.

One of the many good things about living in New York City is the easy availability of -- well, whatever you want.  Including the finer things in life, such as access to not one, but at least two bars that I know of that could be classified as "temples of the cocktailian arts."

See, my cocktail repertoire is fairly limited -- at home, I tend to stick to gin and tonics (Sapphire, please), Manhattans (and their cousin Rob Roy), Old Fashioneds...and, truth be told, the occasional Caucasian.  When I want to try something else, something exotic, I'll run down the menus at one of these places, and order something I've read about or otherwise strikes my fancy.  It's how I first tasted the Aviation, the Bronx, the Negroni.  Cuts down on having to keep ingredients around the house, and this way I know it's being made by someone who actually knows how.

(One digression:  I'd never had a proper Sidecar until I'd gone to one of these bars -- frankly, I'd been afraid to order them in most bars I've been to.  Because, most bars will screw it up.  Same goes for the Old Fashioned -- 99.5% of bartenders will leave out the bitters or add water (or worse yet, soda) or muddle everything into a thick goo, or otherwise ruin perfectly good whiskey.  I didn't have a good Old Fashioned until I learned how to make them at home.)

Incidentally, the other day I ran across the recipe for the James Joyce cocktail on Chuck Taggart's website, and realized that a.) it sounded really good, and b.) I happened to have all the necessaries already.  I rushed home, headed for the kitchen, and produced a fantastically smooth, tangy drink.  This one'll definitely make it into the repertoire.

But, I'm committing the grievous journalistic sin known as "burying the lede" here.  Yesterday was Chico's birthday, and we decided to celebrate in true cocktailian fashion.  We (B., me, Chico, and our friend Janet) headed out to a truly wonderful cocktail place which shall remain nameless for reasons that will soon become obvious.  I'd been there only once before, and it was very, very good.  This time it was to be downright magical.  I have never had drinks like these.

I started off the first round with a drink that I'd read about and heard about, but never tasted.  The Corpse Reviver No. 2 is an alchemical blend of gin, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, lemon juice, and a pastis such as Pernod or Herbsaint.  It was a wonderful cocktail, with an amazing amount of complexity -- so many layers, so much going on in my mouth.  What a way to start off the evening.  (And, If I'd bothered to look over to the bar, I would have seen the bartender sizing me up before he constructed the drink--more on that later.)

This graf from Hendrik Hertzberg's "Talk of the Town" piece in the current New Yorker is too good to go unquoted:

The reigning conservative ideologues in the White House and on Capitol Hill believe, with apparent sincerity, that the path to economic and social progress for all is to reward—“incentivize”—the rich and to liberate private business from the wealth-destroying fetters of regulation. When these become the highest purposes of public policy, and when the ameliorative functions of government are held in contempt, then a single thread ties together upper-income tax cuts, the dismantling of environmental and safety protections, the shredding of the social safety net, the peopling of regulatory agencies with cronies hostile to their purposes, and, finally, outright corruption. If government is seen as a whore, why not treat her like one? All that remains is to fleece the johns and divide the take.

(My emphasis.)

Go read the whole thing.

The Smoking Gun does a bit of digging, and finds that James Frey's memoirs have been shockingly misshelved in the "nonfiction" sections:  A Million Little Lies: James Frey's Fiction Addiction.

Would that Frey's much-vaunted "policy of openness and transparency" extended to, y'know, not lying.  This desperate, strung-out criminal, wanted in three states, turns out to be a drunken frat boy who's gotten an open-container citation.  And the three months in jail (could "The Prison Poems of James Frey" be far behind?) turns out to have been five hours in a paneled room waiting to be bailed out.

Dude can write, that's for sure.  But so could Janet Cooke and Jayson Blair.

UPDATE:  That's interesting.  Guess whose Web site is down?

ANOTHER UPDATE:  Back up now.  I guess the outage was due more to traffic than perfidy.

So my favorite Internet cult site had a meme going around the other week, one where people would post a picture of their Favorite Movie Moment.  I was trying to think of what mine would be -- there are so many, how could you choose just one?

And then I opened a late-arriving holiday package this weekend, and found the Criterion DVD of Jean-Luc "Cinema" Godard's "Band of Outsiders."

Of course.  The scene in "Band of Outsiders" where Arthur, Odile, and Franz stand and wordlessly dance the Madison in a half-empty, smoky dive of a Parisian cafe is one of the most enthralling, affecting, and evocative scenes in the cinema.  The movie is uneven in spots, but the knowing tone of the narration and the self-concious, not-afraid-to-be-goofy performances tie the film together amid a fusillade of pop-culture references.

But this scene is the standout, and there's a reason why it's mentioned in every single review of this movie.  Arthur and Franz are vying for Odile.  Ostensibly meeting at the cafe to plan a heist, they're searching for ways to win the girl, but they're not sure how.  Arthur puts on the record, and Franz suggests that they dance.  And what a dance:  they are moving in sync with each other, but these alone-in-a-crowd "outsiders" never touch during this one unbroken shot.  Each of them dances well, of course, but the way in which each of the actors dance reveals things about each of the characters they portray.  And to underline this point and make sure we don't miss it, Godard cuts the music in a bravura gesture, leaving the soundtrack solely to the stamp-stamp-snap-clap of the dance, and provides a dry voiceover:

Now is the time for a digression in which to describe our heroes' feelings.

Arthur keeps watching his feet, but his mind's on Odile's mouth and her erotic kisses.

Odile is wondering if the boys notice her breasts moving under her sweater.

Franz thinks of everything and nothing.  He wonders if the world is becoming a dream or if the dream is becoming the world.

And you truly see it in the actors' performances, both in the entire movie and distilled down in this one dance.  This scene, the linchpin of the film, shows us everything we need to know about the characters:  the slightly sinister, handsome Franz, feeling his way toward Odile and along the plot.   The dandyish Arthur, raised on a steady diet of American westerns.  He thinks he's tough, and he's almost smart enough to figure out exactly how tough he is, but not quite.  He's feeling his way, too, but he's not quite as blithe as Franz.

And then there's Odile, luminously played by Anna Karina.  Karina was 23 when this was shot, but she looks like she's sixteen or seventeen, that age where girls come to their terms with womanhood.  She's wearing schoolgirl clothes -- the plaid skirt of a Catholic-school uniform -- but she's conscious of "her breasts moving under her sweater."  She's bored and is caught up in the fantasies of these two roguish wannabes who have trouble seeing beyond the latest imports.  And she's never looked better or more alluring, moving in concert with people whose casual, offhanded actions will irrevocably shake her life...but that's for tomorrow.  She's wearing Franz's hat...and just why is it that a woman wearing a man's hat is so sexy?  (She knows this, but I don't think she knows why either.)

The joy and gusto of this scene are palpable, and I'll never forget seeing it for the first time projected on film after seeing it on video a hundred times.  I swear everyone in the theater must have been holding their breath, not wanting the moment to end.  Is the film becoming the world, or is the world becoming the film?

Did you know that when you prosecute Republicans for breaking the law, you're violating their rights?

'Tis true.