The head of the fish stinks first, part II

Interesting that the WaPo would come this close to calling attention to a scandal that doesn't involve sex: Internal Justice Dept. Report Cites Illegal Hiring Practices. (Props to writer Carrie Johnson for calling a spade a spade with the phrase "Christian lifestyle choices," btw. It's well past time that phrase came into cant use.)

From the limited testimony I saw, Monica Goodling came off like a twit in the congressional hearings. But the fact of the matter is, she couldn't have that much power without the tacit approval of someone important. Plausible deniability doesn't stretch to such endemic malfeasance by a single person. Nuh-uh. I've worked with too many conniving office hens to know that. When politics trumps experience even in counter-terrorism--the so-called strong suit of this sad-sack Administration--it's criminal behavior. Regardless of whether it was gross negligence or actually an evil hand guided by an evil mind.

If you want a good sample of the Bush Junta's legacy, this is an excellent choice. You have people who are willing to kill thousands upon thousands in an illegal war, torture, roll back the definition of American citizenship to the days of the Union Jack, etc., etc. All in the sacred name of the War! On!! Terror!!!. Yet, ask them to make the "sacrifice" of (horrors!) sharing office space with a liberal who happens to be competent in counter-terrorism? Too much for their hothouse flower sensibilities: Break out the smelling salts!

I'm not the gambling sort, so I won't wager with myself over whether Mukasey will have the cajones to investigate, much less with any alacrity. He's bench-warming for a lame-duck President, after all. So I will not be at all surprised if the next Administration will be handed yet another mess to sort out. For all that, it won't do to let the interest flag in such things. Not just for the obvious reasons of giving a d--n that our so-called "leaders" live up to all that stuff we had to memorize in the 8th Grade. No, I think that the behavior of these high-ranking flunkies in the next few months will serve as a reliable bellwether for the GOP insider view on John McCain's prospects in November.

Update, 29 July 2008, 15:58 GMT:
Seems that the NYT's coverage went further up the political food chain. Quelle surprise, the White House's commissars had their sticky little fingers in the pot.

According to the report, officials at the White House first developed a method of searching the Internet to glean the political leanings of a candidate and introduced it at a White House seminar called The Thorough Process of Investigation. Justice Department officials then began using the technique to search for key phrases or words in an applicant’s background, like “abortion,” “homosexual,” “Florida recount,” or “guns.”

That, folks, is the set of priorities these jack-booted thought-police worked with. Abortion. Homosexuality. Florida recount. Guns. All of which have sweet F.A. to do with law enforcement or counter-terrorism. Even the "guns" emphasis was meant to screen out people who believe that there should be fewer guns out there, instead of more.

Makes you feel sooooo much safer, dun'nit? Personally, all I can think of the Spanish Armada. As in the micro-managing King Philip tapping poor old Medina-Sidonia and loading down the ships with hundreds of priests. And we all know how well that worked out...

Because you're never too old for silliness

Or the Muppets. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A

Anecdotal good news

Dearest and I have returned from our last round of "babysitting bees" at the county fair for the year. This year's crowd of visitors to the local beekeeper's booth seemed head-and-shoulders more informed about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) than, say, that of two years ago. Naturally, a couple kids mentioned "The Bee Movie," which didn't surprise me. What did surprise me, however, was the young man who credit the movie with giving him the answers to three of our posted trivia questions.

So it seems as though word is getting out--huzzahs and handsprings. If there's any silver lining to the spike in food prices, it's probably the fact that people are paying more attention to their next meal.

Nature's Bijoux, Part I

The window at the kitchen sink overlooks the backyard, and Dearest's karma-reward for doing dishes tonight was noticing the fireflies in and around the garden. Such delicate fireworks in the thick summer dusk. The only way to bottle such an experience (for the colder, bleaker months ahead) is to banish all else from the moment and just be. And I rejoice that there is no other way to do so.

Theocracy showing a few cracks?

What the Bush Regime failed (albeit not for lack of trying) to do, drunk wankers with fireworks managed to accomplish. I now officially hate this holiday. Never mind that I'm supposedly a descendant of the guy who penned the document with this famous date. I have to think that his slumber is not easy of late.

But anyhoo...

Crooks and Liars had an entry about the Religious Right (finally) warming to McCain. My head says that many, many of the pew-warmers will swallow the sophistry and obediently vote Republican as prescribed. But my gut says that you're going to see a greater percentage than expected sit 2008 out.

Why? It's not so much a matter of holding their noses as it that their heads would just plain explode from sheer cognitive dissonance.

Could it be the divorce (after much philandering) from his first wife who was severely injured in an automobile accident?

Why, no.

Could it be that his second wife was a drug addict who committed prescription fraud, stole painkillers from her own medical charity, and got off with a mere fine and community service (confirmed by Snopes)?

Why, no.

Could it be the Keating Five baggage or the never-ending latter-day lobbyist associations?

Why, no.

Could it be the public financing shenanigans from the erstwhile co-champion of campaign finance reform?

Why, no.

Could it be the fact that his lifestyle is decidely un-Christ-like, with eight homes, bankrolled by his heiress second wife?

Why, no.

Forget actual questions of character and values. (And Heaven forfend that we actually expect anyone to walk the talk if it means that--gasp!--a black guy could actually park his @$ in an office formerly occupied by slave-owners.) Nope. It all boils down to asking pew-warmers to part with a wee bit of self-identity.

Y'see, these are people who loooooove their tin foil hats. They never outgrew the persecution complex (with all the narcissism it entails) that we maladjusted adolescents shed at about--what?--sixteen or seventeen years of age. They're not happy unless they're forwarding emails or writing Letters to the Editor warning that the world is about to be taken over by A.) Muslims, B.) Homosexuals (who are always, ALWAYS pedophiles, donchaknow), C.) The United Nations, D.) Atheists (who are indistinguishable from Communists and Nazis, donchaknow), E.) Non-white people, period.

Seriously, these folk were born fifty years too late. If it weren't for the fact that they know they'd be laughed out of town for lining their basement with tar paper and tinfoil, eating Dinty Moore from the can, and counting their shotgun slugs, they'd be doing it right now. (Never mind they'd do well to keep an eye on Russia at the moment, but, apparently, one bogeyman at a time is all that can fit on the radar screen...)

So you take a mentality like that, this paranoia that's been carefully--yea, even lovingly--cultivated from inside and out, and you ask it to vote for McCain? Senator "Agents of Intolerance"? Wellllll...that could be just a little...problematic.

This is most emphatically not a question of forgiveness, you understand. McCain's (pre-courtship) sound byte was no dime-store trinket to the self-anointed "real Christians." It was nothing less than a validation of their "persecuted" status. (Doubtless, any number could even hear the lions roaring in the Roman arena.) And thus they will not part lightly with it. But, at the same time, McCain won't part with enough of his dignity for a revival-meeting "conversion." (For tasters, his beer-baroness (second) wife would have to divest her holdings to appease the Baptist mullahs. And we all know that ain't gonna happen.)

So, even knowing that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will vote according to their pastors' orders, I will not be surprised at a low turnout among the soi-dissant "values voters" who rubber-stamped the Bush Gang's Great Giveaway of Iraqi oil and American birthrights.

Of course, if McCain's fool enough to tap Huckabee as Veep, then my head will be more correct than my gut. Then again, that scenario raises the question of whether the (long-overdue) exodus (i.e. stampede) of moderate Republicans will more than cancel out the "born again" McCain voters. Part of me wants to see that scenario, just for the relief of coup-de-grace. I suppose that I daren't hope for a viable third party in this decade. Sigh...

On second thought, seeing the legal thuggery to which Prime Minister Harper is willing to resort, a third party isn't all the panacea it's cracked up to be. Gaaagh. The sooner the Canadian voters come to their senses and put that catamite of the Bush Junta out on the curb, the better off that country will be.

An unflattering contrast

A pair of ominous anecdotes are ammo. for my boss' conviction that America has lost its position as the "thought leader" of the world.

In Waterloo, Ontario, a seventeen year old boy wins a science competition by finding a way to compost plastic bags in a matter of months (rather than decades). Catch that, folks? Seventeen years old.

Meanwhile, here in America, the findings of twenty years of evolutionary research are cavalierly dismissed by that intellectual vanguard (not), Conservapedia. Without Andy Schlafly bothering to read the precis, mind you. I think that we can officially consider the phrase "conservative values" an oxymoron, thank you very much.

I truly marvel at the H1-B "shortage". For the life of me, I cannot understand why someone who could make it through college--intellectually and financially--in another country would want to come to America to be a white-collar coolie in a nation of xenophobic, anti-intellectual nutbags. As long as politicians on both sides of the aisle--I'm glaring at you, Senator Obama--give these flat-earthers the time of day, they'll immolate still more resources than we can afford in their auto-da-fes.

But, bringing the discussion back around to the clever Mr. Burd, it's good to see the brighter minds turned to working with the resources we've already ripped from this planet, rather than continuing to exploit them as if their supply were limitless. Now, if only someone could find a way to convert human stupidity into electricity, we'd be set... You could plug a fleet of electric cars into Conservapedia every night. Then, at least, these morons would stop being a drain on society.

Update, 07.03.2008, 16:14 GMT:

From CNet's U.N. report: Clean energy booming globally:

Public investment in wind topped $11 billion globally last year, but none of that came from the United States, the report said. [emphasis added]

Considering how the Plains States are leaking --sometimes hemorrhaging--people as rural communities go under, there's no excuse for not replacing the ag. farms with wind farms. And that without the NIMBY namby-pambiness that so often accompanies their installation. (e.g., the landscape can bristle with cellphone towers and billboards, but for crissakes, spare us the wind towers!)

Keeping things in perspective, there's no lack of stupidity or cupidity everywhere you go. But the example that's being set by our soi-dissant leaders, in both the public and private sectors, is considerably less than edifying. Civilizations can decay in any number of ways, not all of them calamitously. There's a difference between a compost pile and a cesspool, and the stench of the latter is becoming more palpable each year.