“Crashergate”?

OK, I’m ducking below the radar for a few days. I have a final exam in Introduction to Computer Programming tomorrow on Friday, a graduation ceremony Saturday, and grades are due Monday by noon–and I have a really tall stack of tests, assignments, and essays to grade by that Monday deadline. I may still appear to be active as I have 2 or three posts in the can and will probably drop them once a day or so, but otherwise I’m going dark until early next week. Then on Wednesday, I leave for the U.S.!

Okay, I have to blog on this. If the story is familiar with you, jump to just below the video.

Remember about a month and a half ago when Al Franken proposed an amendment concerning rape and government contractors? Some contractors have a clause hidden in the small print which forbids female employees raped by their colleagues overseas from suing the rapists in court. The rapists are never prosecuted because they commit the crime in Iraq (although hundreds of cases of rape have been reported, not a single one has been prosecuted, despite the DoD having the power to do so), so a civil suit back home is the victim’s only recourse. Their employers, however, forbid this with the contractual small print, forcing the women to submit to binding arbitration that will favor the rapists.

The case came to light when Dawn Leamon, a KBR (formerly Halliburton) employee attempted to get the courts to allow her to sue her rapists. Ms. Leamon was drugged and then brutally raped and sodomized by her co-workers in Iraq. KBR employees told her to keep quiet, warning her that she would be in danger if she pressed the case, and tried to get her to sign a non-disclosure form. Her laptop was confiscated and her movements were restricted, while her rapists walked about free without any repercussions. Eventually, KBR tried to enforce the clause forbidding a civil suit.

Hearing of this, Al Franken was incensed. Franken has, for a very long time, been an ardent supporter of U.S. troops, having done multiple tours for the USO. On his radio show, the one thing that would make him genuinely furious and would even move him to tears would be the mistreatment of the troops. This is not some flash publicity thing for Franken, it is instead a core value very close to his heart.

As a result, Franken proposed an amendment to a Defense Appropriations bill which would forbid such terms in contracts written by government contractors. Immediately, Republicans attacked the amendment. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions claimed that “Congress should not be involved in writing or rewriting private contracts,” something that Jon Stewart highlighted as rank hypocrisy considering the GOP’s mission to do exactly that where ACORN is concerned. Sessions further classed Franken’s amendment as “a political attack on Halliburton,” despite KBR no longer being a part of that organization. One KBR Iraq rape victim said that the amendment “means the world to me…It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.”

When the amendment came up for a vote, no fewer than 30 Republican senators callously voted against it. Stewart did a cutting piece on the matter:

OK, so that’s the story. 30 Republicans vote against victims of brutal rape, and vote for KBR to shield gang rapists from lawsuits. Naturally, this will, without any doubt, lead to criticism that these senators are pro-rape. That may be unfair–they may just be pro-military-contractor, and incidentally be pro-rape. But they had to know that the criticism would be forthcoming, or else they are unimaginable idiots.

So, when the criticism naturally came, what was their response? Blame Al Franken. Why? Because he’s not doing enough to suppress the criticism. Seriously. You can’t make up crap like this.

Despite the fact that Franken himself is not doing the criticizing, it is rather interesting how his GOP colleagues are dumping this directly on him:

The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.

“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape —and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.

And so what will they do about it? Cornyn continues:

“I think it’s going to make a lot of senators leery and start looking at things he’s doing earlier on, because I don’t think it got appropriate attention ahead of time.”

So. Franken proposes an amendment to help victims of brutal rape. Republicans politicize it, and vote with the contractors and the rapists, giving hypocritically flimsy justifications. Republicans are very rightly criticized as not protecting rape victims. Republicans then blame Franken and threaten him.

I am sorely tempted to say, “So, what else is new?”

Wow. If true, this article at Gizmodo makes it sounds pretty bleak in Spain. The author claims that not only is there an “artistic tax” (a tariff handed over to the music industry on a wide range of consumer products that assumes you steal their stuff), but now Spanish law gives the music labels the power to shut down any alleged P2P web site for any reason without due process or presumption of innocence.

The “if true” part is the key; such claims are often exaggerated, and this certainly sounds overblown. Spanish people must both pay extra taxes directly to the music industry for stealing music, and the music industry gets to shut down web sites without a warrant? Sounds a bit much. But then again, it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility.

Here are a few alternate sources.

Andrew Sullivan, a former conservative, gives 16 reasons why he can no longer identify himself by that term. He refuses to tag himself as a liberal, either (I would be interested to see his 16 reasons why not for that). But here’s an interesting challenge for people who still calls themselves conservatives, and still want to vote for the Republican Party: can you address these 16 reasons, without simply denying their truth, and give a justification and defense of each? And if not, how can you still support conservatism? I really would like to know.

I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government’s minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations.

Does this make me a “radical leftist” as Michelle Malkin would say? Emphatically not. But it sure disqualifies me from the current American right.

To paraphrase Reagan, I didn’t leave the conservative movement. It left me.

Terms: You must confront all 16, and not just pick and choose which ones you want to defend.

I would, in all seriousness, be just as interested in taking a whack at the opposite with a list of things wrong with liberalism, given a list of reasons similarly grounded in fact. For example, “I cannot support a movement so tepid in resolve that it would allow itself to be subverted or steamrolled so easily,” or “I cannot support a movement which would accept a womanizer and adulterer as a popular, successful president”–though I would hope there would be more cutting, vital reasons than just those.

Another, somewhat less eloquent list of reasons for leaving conservatism at Little Green Footballs.

I mentioned a few times before on this blog that the Tokyo government had gone all mercenary on scooter parking. Previously, driving a scooter in Tokyo was not only economical and far better pollution-wise than driving a car, but it was also very nice as one could park just about anywhere.

Trust Governor Ishihara & Co. to screw that up. A few years ago, they wanted to do something about sidewalk congestion. Frankly, that was never really a problem; where sidewalks were too narrow, people usually just didn’t park their bikes there. And if there was a problem, it was 90% caused by bicycles.

So, what did Tokyo do? Naturally, it made it illegal to park scooters on the sidewalk, and employed an army of green-suited ticketers to walk around in pairs and give parking tickets to everything in sight.

Did they target bicycles? Of course not. Primarily they go after scooters–which means that if you use a scooter in Tokyo, it’s now virtually impossible to park anywhere (very few businesses offer parking spaces). You’re told to use a for-pay parking lot, and those (1) are very expensive, (2) often are very far away from where you want to go, obviating the whole use of a bike, and (3) mostly don’t accommodate scooters or motorcycles, meaning that you have to scour the area and try a half dozen parking lots before you find one you can use–and hope that there are open spots there, which there often are not.

But did this accomplish the goal of freeing up sidewalks? Of course not, in part because that was never the goal. The goal was to raise revenues through citations, and I’m sure Tokyo is doing very well. But I for one no longer shop where I used to, as it’s just too much hassle–as I suspect many bikers similarly stopped visiting shops in popular areas for this reason.

But that’s not all: the sidewalks are exactly as crammed as they used to be, but now just with bicycles. No change, zero. Swell.

Worse, some areas are bafflingly anti-visitor. Note the sidewalk shown above: to keep bicycles from parking, they set up those orange barriers. That’s not a construction area, they just put those there to discourage parking. The result: the barriers eat up even more space than the bicycles ever used to. They’ve been up like that for about two years now. And on this one street, the owner of the pharmacy you see at the right side (the shop with balloons) uses the sidewalk as his personal parking lot for his van, blocking what little space is left. And the guy never gets a ticket. (I am fairly sure that the city gives businesses a break.) This is not just at a special time, this is pretty much the way it always is.

The result: Sidewalks are just as crammed as before, a whole class of economical and efficient vehicles is almost effectively banned, and businesses & shoppers are inconvenienced. But the Tokyo government gets to make some nice cash on the side.

So, job well done, Mr. Ishihara.

Kevin Drum explains why the whole climate scientists email scandal isn’t really a scandal…

As near as I can tell, ClimateGate is almost entirely a tempest in a teacup. Among the stash of emails recently hacked from computers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, one mentioned a “trick” for producing a nice looking graph, but the word “trick” was plainly used in the sense of “technique,” not chicanery. There’s nothing questionable there. Another bunch of emails shows that when scientists are communicating privately they can be as catty and nasty as anyone else. It’s good gossip fodder, but nothing more. …

The problem is, Drum doesn’t get it: the right wing doesn’t need facts which rely on reason and make sense. They don’t care if it’s easily explicable in an innocent sense. And it is not just a matter of coal industry distortion or “fever swamp crowds.” This is the kernel at the heart of the right wing generating a myth. They don’t need no stinkin’ rationality.

All they need is even the slightest hint which can be intentionally distorted and hostilely interpreted in the worst way, and they’re set. That’s enough for them; that constitutes proof as far as they’re concerned. For them, the game is over, they have what they need, and no matter how many explanations and denials may be laid before them, they will from this time forward decide not the listen or believe, instead insisting that they have proof that climate change is a hoax. They will now trumpet this new truth from every orifice, on every news channel; every right-winger interviewed, every conservative writing on this will reference the “scandal” as if it were an established fact that climate change is something that scientists “tricked up.” So long as they can attach that to something real–the emails–they can then claim legitimacy, call it fact, and then obstinately insist that it’s simply there.

If you think I am exaggerating, then just look at the “Al Gore Said He Invented the Internet” myth, which the entire right wing still believes today–and for that matter, a majority of people everywhere believe. Same thing as the climate emails. There was an initial statement which could be taken two ways; they decided to take it the way that served their interests, the unflattering interpretation which was pretty clearly untrue; then they exaggerated it, then they spread the exaggerated lie as if it were truth. They did the trumpeting, the made the countless references, they claimed legitimacy, they insisted it was true. And now almost everybody believes it, even though it is easily and demonstrably false.

This is truthiness we’re talking about, folks.

During a recent visit to Tokyu Hands, Sachi and I were tempted by the wigs:

We tried on about 5 or 6 before a clerk told us to cut that out (more I think because we were taking photos). Personally, I like the blond one: “Waaaayyynnee!!!!”

Sachi came out looking like one of my students:

Me, I just look cool.

Just when you though web ads couldn’t get more annoying. Already, it’s annoying enough for YouTube videos to have those ads that pop up at the bottom and have to be clicked away, but at least there you figure that they have to make revenue somehow. But now the same ads are appearing on regular web sites over photographs. Accidentally mouse over them and ads pop up. This easily clears the “unnecessarily annoying ad” hurdle.

The ads pop back down again only when you mouse over a new one. You can train yourself to avoid them, like you do when you see a double-underlined link–but you first have to discover them, and with photos, they are not apparent.

Google text ads I like fine, and I even follow them sometimes (a big thing for me, as I tend to hate ads–I only follow non-offensive ones). But any ad that moves, even a little, is enough to drive me away from a site. I figure I’m not alone in that.

For the first time in a very long time, the iPhone has fallen completely off the top 10 seller’s list in Japan for cell phones. For this week, the three available models rank #11, #17, and #20.

One of the other reasons why I’m less enthusiastic about reporting on politics:

In the 2010 Congressional elections will you definitely vote, probably vote, not likely vote, or definitely will not vote?
Party Affiliation	definitely/probably	not likely/not
Republican Voters	81	14
Independent Voters	65	23
Democratic Voters	56	40

This is what a looming national train wreck looks like, and seems to confirm that the Republican strategy of “screw the American people, we want to take control of this train so we can drive it off a cliff” is working beautifully. Obama and the Democrats are not helping by (a) beginning all negotiations with a compromise, (b) making it an imperative to look “bipartisan” when the Republicans both define what that means and make no effort to be bipartisan themselves, (c) not taking the Republican-style hardball stance of doing whatever it takes to get legislation through, and (d) generally wringing their hands and caving at the first sign of something going wrong. They are quite literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and even with a 60-vote supermajority (more or less), are having more trouble than any majority party I’ve ever heard of in getting anything passed. Democrats did not threaten the nuclear option when Republicans used the filibuster to obstruct, even though the Republicans did so–effectively–when the Democrats used it relatively sparingly; Democrats did not use reconciliation to get their major legislation past a potential filibuster, though Republicans did so–again, effectively–when they were in power.

On the media front, the conservative news media (let’s not play the game of “is the media librul?” when it is so blindingly obvious that it leans so notably right-wing) strategy is also working. Fox has dominated the national discourse and effectively created the neoconservative imperative: the self-serving narrative that everyone buys into.

I often wondered, “What could possibly happen which could blind the people to the egregiously vicious and idiotic insanity of the right wing and allow them to elect conservatives next year, when it is so clear that doing so will wreck any hope of recovery or future worth for the United States?”

And here we have the answer: a galvanized right wing whipped into a frenzy by the insane Becks, Bachmanns, Limbaughs, and Palins; a disheartened left wing driven to apathy by weak-kneed, ineffective Democrats; and independents robbed of a rational national discourse, pulled to the vitriol of the right or the lethargy of the left, or else left hanging in the middle with nowhere to go.

I keep hoping that Obama’s got a rabbit or two left in his hat, that the liberals and independents will rail against the vile madness of the conservatives, that the right will shrink into a tiny ball of fury unable to move elections, or that something will happen to restore sanity and allow the nation’s business to get back on track again.

Instead, we seem to be driven by the right wing’s incessant, obstructionist drive to destroy the nation in the name of regaining power, driven to charge off that cliff, waving flags and screaming “America’s Number ONE!!” at the top of our lungs as we go.

The most frightening thing is, when the right wing finds a strategy that works, it employs it even more strongly the next time. I thought we’d seen the worst the right wing could do under Reagan, when the neocons started taking over and saddled the economy with massive debt; then I thought I’d seen the worst with the relentless, eight-year smear campaign against the Clintons and the campaign to create a fictional narrative with the likes of Limbaugh and the birth of Fox News; then I thought I’d seen the worst with Bush & Cheney after 9/11, when the real national self-destruction got under full steam; but now we have a right-wing which is doing crap which frankly leaves me speechless. This is not a once-only thing, this is a trend. And it scares the living shit out of me to consider what’s next.

When I first came to live in Japan, going back to the U.S. meant two things: visiting with family, and shopping. Shopping meant getting all the neat stuff that I couldn’t get in Japan–often including several pounds of See’s Candy (arguably the best chocolates to be found). Mostly, though, it involved a few trips to Costco, getting new shoes (shoe sizes in Japan traditionally have stopped at size 10 or so), English-language books, candy & other food goods, and so forth.

However, over the years, most of these goods have found their way to Japan, especially books, but also lots of food items. What isn’t sold in local stores is now available at Costco Japan, or via mail order from the Foreign Buyer’s Club. Amazon.co.jp handles a lot of the rest, and prices on many goods that used to be a lot more expensive are now a lot more cheap.

Nevertheless, there remains a lot which is still worth buying in the U.S., and in order to make things run more smoothly, I now make an online order from Amazon a week or two before traveling, so everything is there–allowing for return or exchanges should something be damaged or not work. I thought that the list of stuff I found best to buy in the U.S. included interesting perspective on what international buying is still like.

Blu-Rays. Now that Sachi and I have a Blu-Ray player, it’s about time we got some Blu-Ray movies. Unfortunately, the local rental shop, typical of Japan, has a depressingly paltry selection of Blu-Ray titles, and most new DVD releases don’t even have Blu-Ray versions. What’s up with that? Blu-Ray is a Japanese standard, made by Sony. I have a student who loves “Fast and the Furious,” and insists that the Blu-Ray is not available in Japan–but it is in the U.S.

Add to this the fact that Blu-Ray regions conveniently put America and Japan in the same region, and you got good reason to buy–especially from the U.S., where again, things are much cheaper.

The Ultimate Matrix ($52 U.S., $171 in Japan). This one makes extra sense, given that if put in a Japanese player, Japanese language options appear. And it just seems like a natural Blu-Ray movie, being primarily visual in its appeal.

Kung-Fu Panda ($24 U.S., $44 in Japan). The movie is good, but that’s not the reason I’m getting it. In 1080p Blu-Ray, it’s stunning. When Sachi and I rented it–the first Blu-Ray movie we saw–our jaws (well, my jaw) dropped to the floor. Subtle textures in fabrics, for example, stood out in a way which I am certain are invisible in lower resolutions. The detail is simply fantastic. And it’s a funny movie.

Contact ($17 U.S., $27 in Japan). This is one of my favorite movies–a great story, well-made. Despite having one of the lowest price differences between the U.S. and Japan, this one comes with Japanese subtitles in the U.S. version.

Wall•E ($18 U.S., $42 in Japan). A good movie, one that should be great in Blu-Ray, and doesn’t need subtitles nearly as much as almost any other mainstream contemporary movie out there.

I, Robot ($13 U.S., $34 in Japan). I like it, it’s cheap, and reports say that it’s another stunner in Blu-Ray. It’s also one of those movies that depends a lot on visuals.

Star Trek ($20 U.S. [3-disc w/ digital copy], $42 in Japan [2-disc]). This is one which probably won’t have Japanese subtitles, but it matters less–the technobabble is babble anyway. This is just a film I like–ironically, it probably won’t shine as much in Blu-Ray, as the film was shot in a less-than-sharp manner, with even the effects shots having fake dirt and dust on the lens.

And that brings me to an observation about Blu-Rays: you can’t count on the extra resolution making a difference sometimes. With some films, the extra definition simply isn’t there, and with others, the transfer to Blu-Ray was made with a lower-resolution copy. Sometimes I’ve watched a Blu-Ray and wondered if the DVD would really be any worse. But sometimes, the quality of the movie is pretty incredible.

Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter Cable ($8).

Macs have always been less than universal about video ports. For a while some models had S-video and/or DVI, but for a while now they have more custom ports for which you have to buy adapters. The latest is a non-Apple standard, the DisplayPort cable. While Apple does have a hand in its development, it’s not a proprietary Apple technology. Alas, it is also not used by anyone else at present, at least not that I can see, and so cables are not in abundance.

In particular, I have wanted a Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter so I can hook up to my HDTV more easily–but I cannot find any such cables in Japan, period. So I’m getting one when I go back home.

Motorola S305 Stereo Bluetooth Headphones ($40).

This comes under the category of “too expensive in Japan.” Amazon Japan sells these puppies for $76. And outside of places like Amazon, finding anything Bluetooth is hard to do. Bluetooth mice are rare here, much less stereo headphones like these.

A friend bought a pair of S9’s, which are essentially the same but have ear buds instead of the muff-style pads. I really prefer the pads. And the S305 reportedly works quite well with iPhone OS 3. I only hope that they don’t break too easily–but at $40, I don’t feel it’s so great a risk.

Kool-Aid Sugar Free On the Go, Tropical Punch ($20, 6-pack).

I got hooked on these when I stumbled across them a few years ago. Pour one into a bottled water, and you got instant no-calorie juice. Japanese people seem to be averse to powdered drinks, the exception being sports drinks. But something like “Kool-Aid” is unknown here. When I use one of these in class, my students frown and act like I’m making haggis or something.

So far, no one offers this in Japan–not Costco, not FBC, no local stores, no import shops. I guess it’s one of those things that Japanese people won’t go for. (Same goes for the flavor–you just don’t see Tropical Punch here.) If so, it’s probably just because they don’t know what it is. Like Pimenton, it’s a great product that’s just unknown. For me, these help as I am trying to avoid sugar drinks.

That’s all for today–more soon. (I ordered a lot of stuff!)

I just bought a book on Objective C from Amazon Japan. The book, Programming in Objective C, by Stephen G. Kochan, is supposed to be very good, and came recommended by a friend. It teaches Objective C from scratch, focusing on the Mac, and ends by teaching you how to write a program for the iPhone–exactly what I wanted. The C++ class I’ve been taking is good, but from what I’ve seen online, I’ve been getting the impression that it’s not exactly the direction I wanted to go in. This book looks like it’s exactly what I need right now, especially as I plan not to take an online course next semester (too busy at school).

There is one down point to all of this: a promise made in the back of the book, where the publisher advertises a “Free Online Edition.” I should have guessed that they were lying and it was a scam. In the details listed in the book, they just say to enter a coupon code and to “complete the brief registration form.” Then you’ll have access to your book online “for 45 days.”

I was hoping to be able to take the book with me to the U.S. over Christmas vacation in electronic form instead of lugging the rather large tome around with the limited baggage allowances. The promised online edition sounded great for that purpose.

What they, of course, don’t tell you is that the “brief registration form” requires you to enter your credit card number, without which you get zip, nada. Once they have that, you have to remember to cancel before they start charging you. And even if you do all of that, you’re limited to 10 days or 100 page views, and then you have to start paying at least $23 a month. You can download chapters, but only 5 of the 25 in the book.

“Free.” Yeah, right. If you pay $23 on top of what you paid for the book, then you get “free” partial access to flash-limited web version–getting all the chapters as downloads would cost about $100 or so. The author may have done an excellent job, but the publishers–as always–try to trick you into spending money on something you’ve already paid to own outright.

Answer: CRC 5-56. Not that it’s a native Japanese product–I wasn’t able to figure out exactly where it originates from–but that’s the product name which Japanese recognize as much as Americans recognize WD-40 (which, by the way, stands for “Water Displacement – 40th Attempt”).

I found out about the product while looking for something else in the storage area at work, and stumbled across a can of this stuff. I thought it might be a WD-40 analog because of the little straw attached to the side, something recognizably unique to this kind of product. I asked a Japanese staff member, and sure enough, they confirmed that it’s a mechanical lubricant and cleaner, and yes, everyone recognizes the name.

It interested me because I really needed some. Various reasons, but the main one is the bedroom closets. The way our bedroom is set up, to get to the other side of the room, you have to squeeze past the foot of the bed, which is about a foot from our closet doors. Since I (gallantly) sleep on the far side of the bed, that’s my deal. Also, since I go to bed a few hours after Sachi quite often, I have to walk that in the dark while Sachi is trying to sleep.

And that’s the problem: walking by those closet doors causes loud squeaking; in the dark silence of 3:00 am, it’s pretty damned loud, enough to wake Sachi up half the time. So tonight, I sprayed the hinge-rail-thingies (technical term) with CRC 5-56, and now they’re nicely silent.

Next up is my bicycle, when I get the chance.

Sorry I have not blogged much as of late. There are a few reasons. First, I was hit by what I am not pretty confident was Swine Flu. The “cold” I had lasted just over a week, which was strange enough–but it also brought painful headaches, loss of appetite, and low energy levels–which I do not normally associate with colds. When I visited a GP on a related matter, the doc said that it was almost certainly H1N1.

After the flu, I simply had so much work backed up that I got swamped. I had a Writing class this semester, and those are always heavy-workload courses–primarily because of correcting all the drafts and assignments in between. Right at the time I got over the flu, two successive drafts of two successive essays–four in all–were due within just a few weeks, and I tend to be meticulous in how I mark the papers, using MS Word’s comment feature to write rather detailed notes, along with an analysis and instructions at the end of the essay.

Add to that a kind of political overload or burnout that I have not experienced since the 9/11 commission–more so this time, in fact. What do you do when the outrageous in the opposition party becomes the norm? How often can you express disbelief that Sarah Palin says something so obviously untrue that one has to be blind, deaf, and stupid not to notice? When the GOP’s SOP is to make up completely ludicrous bullcrap about Obama, how many times can you call them out on it before it becomes irrelevant? When Fox News fakes crowd images three times in two weeks, how can you point it out without becoming repetitive? When people like Glenn Beck make you actually miss relatively rational people like Ann Coulter, how can you apply any sense of scale to the insane garbage they spew? When right-wing common folk become thickly populated with tea-bagger, birthers, secessionists, and armed jerks spouting death threats against the president, it becomes near-impossible to place it within a rational context. When Palin, Bachmann, and Wilson become political icons of the right wing, how can you spend much time writing how deranged they are when it feels like you’ve done this dozens of times before–and then you check and discover you actually did? When virtually everything the right wing does is so over-the-top, farcically, mind-blowingly, incomprehensibly psychotic, fleeing from reason and rationality at speeds approaching that of light itself, they all red-shift into some amorphous blob of crazy which becomes painful to witness, let alone attempt to analyze and comment on in a venue such as this paltry little blog. It just begins to seem pointless.

As a result, I have had one of my driest blogging spells since I started this blog, missing eight of the last ten days.

Coming out of this, I have decided to make an effort to steer away from politics, which, I have to admit, has been dominating this blog as of late–and I’m probably losing people’s interest as a result. I’ll still do some commentary when I just can’t stop myself–hopefully not too often–but I will be making a conscious effort to focus elsewhere. Maybe the end of my semester, my new focus on computer programming, and my trip back home for Christmas will help in that regard. I’ll have to see.

In the meantime, please forgive both my recent obsession and my more recent absence; I hope to rectify both.

It is amazing how blasé conservatives can be about making death threats against the president of the United States. Ever since the campaign, when McCain and Palin whipped up their crowds so much about Obama being some mysterious, faceless Muslim terrorist cypher that you started hearing “Kill him!” from the crowd, there have been overt death threats against Obama from the right–and this doesn’t seem to spark much attention in the “liberal” media.

Remember when Obama did town halls just three months ago and an armed protester outside held up a sign which advocated the killing of tyrants–and the guy was saying that Obama was a tyrant. I contrasted that with the Bush days, when all you had to do was wear a T-shirt critical of Bush along a parade route and you’d get arrested.

Well, now they’ve gone even further: they are now selling presidential death threats on t-shirts, mugs, teddy bears, and all other kinds of gear. The threat: Psalm 109:8, as pictured on the t-shirt above right. The psalm reads:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Now, that doesn’t sound too bad–just a desire to see Obama lose in the 2012 elections, right? Except that the psalm immediately following, Psalm 109:9 reads:

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

One can assume the praying “for” Obama is a sick, ironic joke. And that’s where the problem comes in. While there may be some who only know about or intend just the “let another take his office” bit, there can be no doubt that the majority who use this, and certainly the people who created and sold the merchandise, knew full well what the full reading implies.

I know, I know–it’s all commonplace now. But I don’t feel like treating it as commonplace. It is illegal:

§ 871: Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance … any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, … or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

A 35-year old student was sentenced to 35 years in prison for 11 counts of threatening the lives of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. A man already in prison was sentenced to an additional 6 years and 5 months for threatening Bush and a federal judge–even though it was determined that he was highly unlikely to carry out such a threat. There were many more. And while it has happened under Obama, one sees open threats against him which are commonly ignored–and more importantly, treated as inconsequential by the media.

This kind of threat should taken seriously, and be investigated as such. It was wrong under Bush, and it’s wrong now (a t-shirt parodying “Kill Bill” but with the name “Bush” instead was similarly banned–and was exactly as wrong). Most likely the reason it’s not being prosecuted as much now is because if it were, and the threat was made by someone other than an overt criminal, then the ones prosecuted would almost certainly become famous martyrs spurring even bolder threats and even acts of violence. We’ve already seen paranoia about Obama imprisoning political opponents–were one of those critics to violate § 871 and be prosecuted for it, we’d get a storm of right-winger saying, “See! I told you so!!”

So let’s simply be satisfied with identifying the political movement for what it is.

Why? Because 52%, according to a recent poll, think that ACORN stole the election for Obama. ACORN, of course, is the right wing’s favorite new smear target.

The thing is, even if you do believe that ACORN is so corrupt that its goal is to steal elections, and so effective that it is successful at it, believing that it stole the election for Obama is so ludicrously insane as to be beyond imagination–which I will mathematically prove below.

In 2000, all it took to steal the election for Bush was a few hundred votes–and there is documented proof that Katherine Harris alone did that, by generating that intentionally fake “felon’s list” which wound up disenfranchising thousands of legitimate Democrats. Add the thousands more Republicans from Seminole and other counties who should have been disqualified but were allowed to vote by illegal means, and you’re way over the top.

But in 2008? Obama won by nine and a half million votes, and by 192 electoral votes, 365 to 173. That means ACORN would have to have stolen at least 87 electoral votes for Obama to win, assuming that in a fair vote, McCain would have won by the slimmest of margins while losing the popular vote by a few million.

If you take the states where Obama won by the fewest number of votes and assume that only the barest number necessary to put Obama over the top were stolen, that would still require ACORN to have stolen at least 935,000 votes in 14 states–and that’s assuming that the people at ACORN were criminal masterminds of unbelievable precision, knowing exactly where to steal just the right number of votes to tip the scales. (Additionally, since ACORN only operated in 21 states, it is unlikely that they were active in the 14 necessary to achieve theft by the smallest number of stolen votes.) Assuming less miraculous precision, one would have to assume that ACORN stole anywhere on the order of four or five million votes.

In the 2008 election season, however, ACORN collected a total of 1.3 million registration forms–and rejected 400,000 as incomplete or fraudulent. Which means that only 900,000 people were registered by ACORN for the election, only half of those being new voters (the other half were address changes).

Which means that even if you assume that every single last registration that ACORN filed represented a stolen vote, then you’re still 35,000 votes short of stealing the election, even with the criminal-mastermind precision.

Which is where we get the “unbelievable morons” part. But you don’t have to crunch the numbers like I did to figure that out–fact is, the idea that ACORN stole the 2008 elections is ludicrous on its very face. More than that, it is literally mathematically impossible.

What’s even more amazing to me than the fact that 52% of Republicans believing that ACORN stole the elections is that 9% of Democrats also believe that, which makes them even more unbelievable morons, albeit in a non-partisan fashion. In addition to 52% of Republicans believing that ACORN stole the election, 21% of Republicans weren’t sure–meaning that 73% of Republicans thought that it might have been possible, and only 23% reject the idea outright.

ACORN has simply become the scapegoat mechanism which is now being blamed for any loss by Republicans; unsurprisingly, Conservative candidate from NY-23, Doug Hoffman, is claiming that the only reason he lost is because ACORN “schem[ed] behind closed doors, twist[ed] arms and st[ole the] election.” He also blamed unions, but ACORN was the alleged mastermind.

Expect more of this: if a right-winger loses, that must mean that ACORN stole the vote. No matter that there is zero documented evidence, no matter that it is mathematically impossible. If a Republican lost, it simply couldn’t have happened that way honestly, so the only possible explanation is that liberals stole it, and ACORN is the scapegoat of the hour.

And their party faithful are just the unbelievable morons to buy it.

Something just struck me. Conservatives, especially the wingnuts, have a long-established trend of projection: they vociferously accuse the Democrats of doing stuff that Republicans do, despite the fact that the Democrats are not doing it. I have documented a slew of examples of this on this blog. I have noted before that if the wingnuts accuse the Dems of something, it’s usually more of a confession of their own crimes and intentions than anything else.

This is nothing new. But then it hit me: the wingnuts are now accusing Democrats of trying to destroy America, turning the country into a fascist state based on their political and philosophical leanings, making enemies lists, and building concentration camps to fill with their political opponents, while they bankrupt the nation and use health care legislation to kill off old people.

Jesus.

It’s amazing that those on the right, who claim to have a deep love for America and its Constitution, so readily and even eagerly abandon both at the drop of a hat. A Democrat elected president? Let’s throw a four- to eight-year shit-fit and threaten to secede. Terrorism threatens? Shred the Bill of Rights and welcome a police state.

Now that the Obama administration has brought the 9/11 suspects to trial, right-wingers are gnashing their teeth, overwrought that the Constitutional criminal justice system won’t work. They are frantic about the possibility that the bad guys might all get set free on a technicality, and are fully opposed to open trials in the court system. I suppose it stems from their self-fulfilling sense of government fallibility, or their long-held belief that a pansy liberal justice system is incapable of actually punishing criminals (bitterly ironic in a country with a sky-high incarceration rate).

It’s hard to figure out if conservatives are either just simply fundamentally unpatriotic, or are sniveling cowards with an infantile mentality, or both.

The truth is, the defendants will all be found guilty, and punished to the greatest extent of the law. I don’t know if the conservatives have noticed or not, but in high-profile cases like this, defendants rarely, if ever, get off on technicalities. (And no, O.J. wasn’t at this level, despite the media attention.)

Though I can see why the right-wingers might think this–look at Oliver North and Scooter Libby. Conservative criminals have been getting off scot-free on technicalities and government corruption for years. That might be why they have so little faith that the system will convict people.

But the 9/11 criminals don’t have a deal with Congress for immunity, or a sympathetic president in their corner to grant them clemency. And there is no possibility that a judge will be weak on this one, or that a jury will nullify anything.

If there is anything that could get them off, it’s the fact that the Bush administration, and conservatives in general, while in control, did their damnedest to break every law, betray every principle, and violate every ethic they could find when it came to national security. And that, I think, is at the heart of it all: they expect that their crimes will come back to haunt them, that what they know they did wrong will work against the interests of the American people, and they want to make sure that if that happens, the liberals are blamed for it.

But frankly, I don’t think that even that will get the criminals off this time. No judge will dare let them free, no jury will dare find them innocent. When it comes to something like this, justice has a firm thumb on the scales.

Remember when faking a news story meant that a journalist was forever shamed, stripped of any credibility, and banned from the business? Photographers who staged or otherwise faked images were fired. And such fakers still are held accountable, in some media establishments.

But not Fox.

I blogged on part of this story earlier, but there’s much more now.

Last week, Sean Hannity aired a segment on a rally held by Michelle Bachmann, one which drew only a few thousand people. Right-wingers have been trying to exaggerate those figures for a while so they can claim a larger following. Their lowball estimates start at 20,000, going up to 45,000. The fact is, however, photos taken of the event (see right) show no more than a few thousand people–4,000, at most.

Hannity showed footage of the actual event, but then spliced in footage from a different, much bigger rally held earlier this year–the “9/12” rally, which had maybe one or two hundred thousand people in attendance. This gave the impression of a much larger rally. Fake journalism, intended to create a false impression that a political cause was much more popular than it actually was.

It took Jon Stewart and The Daily Show to find it, and three days ago, he aired this:

A big question is, why did it take Jon Stewart to find it? Does the media at large blithely accepts Fox’s standard of faking or generating stories? Or are they simply scared into not reporting on Fox, knowing that Fox will label them as “liberal media” and accuse them of trying to “silence journalists”? Or, perhaps, they’re just lazy and believe what they see and hear.

Having been caught so blatantly distorting the news, Hannity “apologized”:

As you can see, Hannity didn’t take it seriously. One could kindly term that delivery as “tongue in cheek,” but certainly not “sincere,” “apologetic,” or “grave.” For Hannity, it was nothing more than a “gotcha.”

A couple of points, however. First of all, this was not a “gotcha.” Well, it was for Stewart, from a comedic standpoint. But this is not something that an actual news channel would let by with a smarmy, self-serving apology like that. It’s not a “whoopsie!” and just forget-about-it kind of event. This is faking news. Actual news channels would mete out severe punishments for something like this.

Second, Hannity was clearly lying when he said it was an “inadvertent mistake.” “Inadvertent” means “unknowing,” or “unintentional,” and that’s obviously not what happened. Now, if Hannity was also airing a piece on the 9/12 march, with that footage lined up, and when it came to Bachmann’s rally, a technician accidentally aired that footage instead of the Bachmann footage, well, that would be “inadvertent.”

However, that’s not what happened. The 9/12 footage was interspliced with the new footage–meaning that it was not a slip-up. You cannot “accidentally” send someone to the video archives, “unknowingly” take specific footage and “unintentionally” splice it into footage of another story which just “by chance” happens to segue so smoothly that most people will take it to be the same story.

It was no accident, and Hannity lied outright when he made that claim. [Update: a letter from a television professional to Andrew Sullivan explains in much better detail.]

And finally, as Stewart himself later noted, Hannity should not be apologizing to Stewart. A real news network would take this all very seriously, and apologize to its viewers for having let them down.

But, of course, that would be in the context of an actual news organization. And Fox has different standards–which is why Hannity’s statement was so snarky in nature. Fox never intends to air straight news, their intent is to color it, to create an altered reality to be sold to its willing viewers as a preconceived narrative (see Stewart’s truth-in-advertising motto at right). The people who watch Fox and believe what they see want to be lied to. Which is why Hannity did not apologize to his watchers–because there was no standard of journalistic integrity to be violated, no trust that was betrayed. Instead, it was all a joke–“Okay, ya’ got me! Ha ha!” And then on to the next lie.

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But there is one more irony to note. In order to inflate the crowd number estimates for the Bachmann rally, Hannity slipped in clips from the much larger 9/12 rally.

But when the 9/12 rally was being exaggerated by right-wingers, a photo from an older rally still (a Promise Keepers’ rally from 1997) was slipped in to make that rally seem bigger.

So to make Bachmann’s rally seem larger than it was, Hannity showed fake footage from an older rally which itself depended upon fake images from another rally to inflate its size. A fake piled on top of a fake.

That’s what passes for “news” in right-wing America these days.