Meta/Personal - On the Rail Again Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I started new contract work this week at a large law firm in Washington. I may not name the client; I may name the firm, but won't here. It involves intensive review of German language documents for multi-district litigation. The work is, at least for me, tough - the kind of tough that makes a brown bag frozen food entree lunch look like a gourmet meal, most challenging litigation support work I have ever done. Probably it will get easier.



The environment is a little formal but congenial, with many native speakers and a number of warm acquaintances from prior assignments. The hours are substantial, and the timing of the work hours with my commuter rail timetable is sub-ideal but workable.



During my daily evening layover in Union Station, I will be answering most email and posting to Crablaw. Limited Wi-fi is available there. The building where I work is cell-phone hostile, both by policy and practically due to engineering, which means that my BlackBerry does not pick up email well during most of the day either. Cell phone use means signing out for a break, which on other assignments has not been a rule for brief calls.







I read today about the boy who died from a brain infection that started in his tooth. Other commentators have used it as a basis to discuss the need for national health care. I just feel horrible about it, too sick in my heart about it as a father to draw a policy conclusion or make a policy argument from it. So there will be no post about it here, because I just don't have the heart for it, even though it's a Maryland issue and definitely a valid story.

Ann Friedman of Feministing,com: "Oh baby, it's so sexy when you chain me to the radiator" Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Ann Friedman of Feministing.com on the upcoming Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci movie "Black Snake Moan", February 27, 2007:

The creepiest thing about the movie, or at least its marketing, is that it's not only about selling Ricci's body. It's about selling the idea of sex with a girl who's been abused and who's clearly got a lot of problems. There's even an interactive feature (if you click on "experience" in the upper left corner -- click here for a screenshot) that allows you to drag two pills across the screen and then watch a video of Ricci collapsing. Now she's yours for the violating! Plus, the "page loading" graphics that appear every time you click feature her silhouette struggling against the chain. A recurring image in the film as well, I'd imagine.

I have been a severe critic of the excesses of some feminist thinkers such as Andrea Dworkin, who opined that heterosexual sex was by definition sexual violence against women. As a matter of fact, I got pretty shrill IIRC on that topic maybe six-eight weeks ago in a comment thread on Feministing.com.

Horror movies never held much appeal for me. Gangster movies? Sure, even bloody ones. But I have a hard time seeing the "art" in something like this. I just don't have any place in my entertainment taste to see a young woman chained to a radiator and sexually tortured. It will be a shame missing Samuel L. Jackson, whose portrayal of an Attica prisoner during the uprising in Against the Wall has gone underappreciated. But this one's not for me.

Carnival of Maryland #1 - 2/25/2007 Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Many thanks to all who submitted. I have included every submission I received; if you did submitted a post to this Carnival and it does not appear above, I apologize but I did not get it. Due to work pressures and time away from my own email, I did not say many "thank yous" along the way last week to those who emailed submissions for inclusion.

Without further ado...

You owe it to yourself to enjoy the beautiful photography of Western Maryland's Swallow Falls at Jeremy Bruno's science blog The Voltage Gate.

From his home on the Lower Eastern Shore, Michael Swartz provides a detailed critique of Governor O'Malley's State of the State Address in "So let's get to work." (Then we'll pick your pocket.). From Michael's post:

Well, Governor O’Malley, what I chose was to have a fiscally responsible governor who didn’t find every excuse in the book to balloon the size of government. Unfortunately, I was in the minority in the last election. However, I don’t plan on being in the minority in 2010, nor it is likely you’ll earn my vote by advocating the programs you advocate.

Unfortunately, the GOP’s response left me wanting as well. It did a brief job of comparing and contrasting the Ehrlich record with O’Malley’s proposals, but I wanted to see some alternatives given to the people of Maryland as well.

Soccer Dad provides a concrete, focused critique of the effectiveness of Baltimore City's poor response to a water main rupture in Believe the road is fixed.

Public policy graduate student Isaac Smith of The Old Line provides a brief but well-linked analysis of current state-level emissions control proposals in State Solutions for Global Warming?.

At Soundtrack Division of Old Silent Movies, Kevin Dayhoff summons the history of the Salem Witchcraft Trials in his critical review of the de facto termination of Public Service Commission chairman Kenneth Schisler in 20070218 The Opera of the Maryland Witchcraft Trial of Ken Schisler. From Kevin's post:

... Well hardly. Many of us who understand the 1999 electric deregulation legislation, economics and market forces are dumbstruck. There is very little either the governor or the Public Service Commission can do. And that goes for any chair, no matter whether they are a “professional regulator” or rabidly pro-business or anti-business.

The Public Service Commission cannot constitutionally require an electric utility to sell electricity at a rate lower than its cost. Electricity will not be cheaper than the 1993 rates in the foreseeable future.

Anne Arundel County Republican activist Brian Griffiths raises multiple issues regarding newly elected County Executive John Leopold, ranging from payments made to out-going County Executive Janet Owens' senior staffers to building permit procedural issues, in The John Leopold Show. Brian, welcome; I don't believe that you are a member of the Maryland Blogger Alliance and would encourage you to contact Attila to join the Alliance.

Maryland Conservatarian provides a measured and effective critique of the comments of the Washington Post and of Governor O'Malley regarding the death penalty in Situational Ethics.

Robert Carter of "Baltimore life, real estate and the universe" blog Carter's Adventure presents a small post on a very big issue for Baltimoreans - ground rents - in First Step Towards Banning New Ground Rents. Robert, welcome; please consider joining the Maryland Blogger Alliance by contacting Attila of Pillage Idiot.

From our neighbors in Virginia, I was pleased to receive a piece from a partner in the conservative political consulting firm Reasoned Audacity. Jack Yoest challenges recent claims of greater child safety in "blue" vs "red" states in Are Children at Risk in Red States?, using his household's insurance expenses in his Maryland home compared with those in his new Virginia residence. I was extremely impressed with the gracious style and professional quality and layout of the entire website; liberals like myself should be concerned or, better, motivated to match the quality. While I was not previously aware of Reasoned Audacity, the blogosphere has been much better informed of its existence and work, resulting in multiple nominations for Weblog Awards of late. While I don't know whether a "former Marylander" would qualify as a "Maryland blogger" for purposes of the Maryland Blogger Alliance, thank you very much, Jack, for your post.

Finally, to leave on a high note of culture and taste, our fearless leader and Hun Attila brings our Carnival home to a subject of his core competence: fake animal testicles swinging off of a trailer hitch, in Holy Flopping Fake Bull Genitals.

Thanks again to all who contributed; you have given me a much more satisfying Sunday night than would have been available from the chatter behind me from the Oscars. Attila his some ideas for the next Blog Carnival which I think are solid. He suggested a two-week interval for the Carnival, which I would tend to support.

Please be safe in the hazardous weather and road conditions.

Washington Post: Ancestry.com Reveals Al Sharpton's Ancestor Was Slave of Strom Thurmond Ancestor Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, February 26, 2007:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the prominent civil rights activist, is descended from a slave owned by relatives of the late senator and one-time segregationist Strom Thurmond, a genealogical study released Sunday reported.

"It was probably the most shocking thing of my life," Sharpton said of learning the findings, which were requested and published Sunday by the New York Daily News. He called a news conference to respond publicly to the report. "I couldn't describe to you the emotions I have had . . . everything from anger to outrage to reflection to some pride and glory."

...

Coleman Sharpton was given as a gift to Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was the late senator's great-great-grandfather, said Mike Ward, a spokesman for Ancestry.com. Coleman Sharpton was later freed.

The concept that one's ancestors were legally owned by the ancestors of one's neighbors is a difficult for a lot of white people to process experientially. While it may be true that educated white people know the basic history of slavery in this country, whites tend to learn it either from a fairly academic standpoint in many cases, comparable to the way that people study quarks or integral calculus [UPDATE: or from the standpoint of the slaveowner or his revanchist latter-day apologists.]

Early colonial history involved indentured servitude for a period of years; such indentured servants were identified as "slaves" in some Colonial legal codes including that of Virginia. But this servitude did not break down by "race" or ancestry, but by social class in the British Isles. It was not chattel slavery; the "owner" did not own the servant but only a right to his labor for a period (that labor right could be sold.) Children of indentured servants did not become servants themselves, but walked free with their parents when their parents did. No "badges or incidents of slavery" followed indentured servants. The servant was considered to have received consideration for his servitude: transatlantic transport by choice, food and shelter. The ancestors of many of these indentures servants became the hardscrabble lower social class of Southern society, the class most likely to resent black freemen both before and after Emancipation, the class that supplied to the Ku Klux Klan many of its members and to segregationist politicians like Strom Thurmond and segregationist religious ministers like Jerry Falwell their fiercest support.

35 years ago, Jerry Falwell preached to some of the descendants of indentured servitude that racial segregation was God's explicit will. Today, Jerry Falwell is claiming that Satan is behind Al Gore's efforts to slow down global warming. And combative civil rights activist Al Sharpton's ancestors were owned and sold by a ancestors of a notorious segregationist (who, ironically, engaged in the very illegal "race-mixing" [sic] in his own personal life that he himself labored to prohibit at all costs.)

There's more than one inconvenient truth.

Historic and Scientific Revisionism Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Tonight, An Inconvenient Truth won an Oscar for Best Documentary. Despite rumors that a few million conservatives would blow a major artery in at least one vital organ upon hearing such news, that probably did not happen (or if it did happen, it would be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary proof.)

The movie and the general topic of climate change are specific examples of a general phenomenon: how does one distinguish agenda-driven propaganda from science? More specifically, how does a lay person - one not formally trained in climatology or even in any scientific discipline or field - evaluate scientific claims? By analogy, how does a non-historian smoke out agenda-driven revisionist pseudo-history from new historical perspectives? And to what extent, in science or history, does the boundary between agenda-driven models and objective research truly exist?

Alon Levy of Abstract Nonsense has a provocative post on the broader topic of scientific knowledge. I won't cut and paste from his piece (because he has wisely elected to prevent by technical means random-ripoffs of his content, which seems wise) but one of his core theses is that in 2007, a non-scientist is most reasonable in accepting the dominant view of scientific community in most fields such as evolutionary biology, chemistry, physics and climatology.

Two professional colleagues of mine have each advised me that they each believe that HIV does not cause AIDS, and cite minority scientific views in reference to that belief. My profession is attorney, not microbiologist, public health official or physician, and the two attorneys in question are both criminal defense attorneys, not attorneys for public health agencies or hospitals. At what point is it reasonable for me to accept this apparently extant but severely minority view, especially when my background is East Asian Studies?

For a number of years, I was active in the Libertarian Party, and in that experience met libertarians of a broad spectrum of views and emphasis. I met a few liberal-leaning ones like myself, who were primarily interested in issues such as strict separation of church and state, drug legalization and government non-interference in sexual matters. I was more or less "in for the program" on other issues but the issues that motivated me were the "lefty" issues, which is probably why I have adapted so comfortably to the liberal blogosphere, often to its sharpest left edge, since the Democratic Party is not very distinguishable on most such matters from the centrist GOP positions.

But in the LP, I got to meet people with some very unusual views about taxes, i.e. that I did not have to pay income tax on my U.S. wages. I won't go into their shtick here, but I considered their members fools and their leaders criminals. General rule: if you are a U.S. citizen OR make money in the United States from any source, do not believe anyone who tells you that you don't have to pay U.S. income taxes, unless that person has legal malpractice insurance and shows you his or her policy number, binder number and maximum amount of coverage per claim. Since I knew something about the U.S. income tax code from law school and the (then) 80 years of jurisprudence that had occurred since the passage of the 16th Amendment, I was able to debunk their garbage. For the record, the LP itself seeks to abolish U.S. individual taxes, rather than to deny their unpleasant current existence and applicability.

The jurisprudential theory that U.S. income taxes do not apply to U.S. citizen wage earners earning wages here has met with no precedent support in the last 90 years. No law review articles in any law review at any accredited law school have ever entertained the theory. No precedent on point exists. What does exist are jail cells for those who refuse to file and report all income. If your jurisprudential theory belongs to you and your pals alone, and no two members of Congress thinks it's true, and no Supreme Court Justice (all of whom get assigned many tax cases annually) thinks it's true, and no tax law firm thinks it's true, and no Presidential candidate of any party with more than 1% of the electorate behind it thinks it's true, your theory is false. Even if you swear it has to be true, it's false. You do not have a colorable claim to the truth.

But I don't know as a non-scientist where to draw the line. Science and law are different. If the entire legal community thinks "no establishment of religion" means separation of church and state, or even if only a large percentage does, that's what it means in both theory and practice. In science, microbiology and climate change and chemistry and evolutionary biology do not give a damn what you think; if you don't like it, go pouns sand. In history, it's a little grayer. History involves interpretation but certain core facts remain. You can claim that President Lincoln died of a crack overdose, but you have the problems of (a) all the witnesses at Ford's Theatre and in the room next door to the gunshot wound and (b) the reliably reported non-existence of the crack form of cocaine until the 1980s, and the attendant lack of an obvious dealer, crack pipe, etc. At the macro level, it becomes easier to play propaganda games. Did the Nazis use gas chambers at Auschwitz? While Auschwitz Kommandant Rudolf Hoess boasted that they did upon his arrest and interrogation shortly after the liberation of Auschwitz, and the physical and documentary evidence on site were incredibly massive and damning and the eyewitnesses legion, some revisionist historians will claim otherwise.

What tool does the amateur, the layman, use to separate cranks from valid provocative alternative theories? Particularly in an age of information overload? What are the hallmarks of crankitude or worse, versus provocative but legitimate alternative theories? Is their a grand theory of crankitude which allows for grand vaccine or treatment, or is it all purely a fact- and detail-driven and labor-intensive effort to country crank with fact?

UPDATE: there is another form of historical revisionism: moron revisionism, the kind that says that Hitler defeated Stalin in World War II.

Annapolis Capital: "The Struggle Continues" for Civil Rights Activist Carl Snowden Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Annapolis Capital, Fenruary 25, 2007:

Once sporting an Afro and under FBI surveillance, 53-year-old Carl O. Snowden now has closely-cropped, graying hair and wears a suit as the top civil-rights investigator for Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler.

It's the latest stop in a career spanning three decades that saw the Annapolis native expelled from high school, elected to City Hall and holding appointed posts in county and state government.

...

As director of the newly created Office of Civil Rights, Mr. Snowden investigates alleged civil rights violations across Maryland. He then decides with colleagues if the matter requires a lawsuit, mediation or a change in the law. He started the $94,500-a-year job last month.

...

As an alderman, he led fights to deny liquor licenses to private clubs that discriminate, make sexual harassment a crime and bar the city from investing in South Africa, then the bastion of apartheid.

A relative of mine is a former president of one of the more prominent all-white clubs in Annapolis that Carl Snowden exerted repeated efforts to integrate. The club moved out of the City of Annapolis in part to avoid integration. Whether my relative is happy or sad about Carl Snowden's new job in Baltimore, I could not say. Be damned if I will ask.

Meta: Blogrolls Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am less diligent about my blogroll than some. If you have linked to me on your site, please feel free to email me and I will be happy to update my blogroll to include you. If you are a Maryland blogger, the best way to handle mutual links is for you to consider joining the growing Maryland Blogger Alliance by contacting Attila of Pillage Idiot.

Thanks.

Getting Organized: the Fundamental Theorem? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

For this blog, with this owner, to talk about getting organized is akin to a driver with 3 points on his record giving safe driving tips. I am not "naturally organized." Some people, I think, are, or find getting and staying organized as easy as I find learning languages or geography. In my life, I have achieved more through hard-headedness and willingness to apply broad skills and knowledge to various situations than through any organizational talent.

There is a fundamental theorem of algebra. I cannot pull it out of my head but at least one regular reader of Crablaw Maryland Weekly, I am certain, can do so. There is a fundamental theorem of poker identified by one poker expert, which theorem holds that optimal play in poker is the play that one would choose to make if one had what I will call "deck omniscience" - knowledge of all of the cards in all hands, the discard pile and the deck. I will supplement these

I think the closest thing to the "fundamental theorem of office organization" is the system propounded by organization author David Allen in his book Getting Things Done and subsequent materials. Out of respect for applicable copyright, I will not publish or "deep-link" a copy of the fairly simple "map" on how materials can get most efficiently processed for rapid recall and zero loss, but I have placed a copy (claimed under fair use) of his freely distributed "map" as a background image on my laptop, in case I forget. You may view two slightly different formulations of those "maps" here and here.

I have often thought of organization as a method of storage, and have gotten into trouble doing so. Organization is a manner of efficient flow management, reliable recall and routines to avoid disaster. While I have never had a disaster, I have definitely run into trouble due to organizational issues at times and, perhaps worse, have spent untold time worrying about details almost forgotten or lost.

The strongest factor in being organized, I suspect, is a strong, burning desire to manage successfully a project or endeavor - same as in almost anything else, driven semi-fanatics will outperform the marginally committed. But once you have the burning desire, this system will allow you to run the largest "volume" of material with the minimum amount of cerebral involvement.

An excellent source of information regarding the Getting Things Done approach and how to implement into a variety of media is Lifehacker.com. A search on Lifehacker for "GTD" or "Getting Things Done" will yield a trove of articles and links on different ways to implement this approach, whether in Microsoft Outlook, notebook-style paper systems or even something as basic as a portable deck of multi-colored index cards bound by a rubber band.

Why Blogger Lindsay Beyerstein Turned Down the Edwards Campaign Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A noteworthy article on political blogging by liberal blogger Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise in Salon. From the article:

We settled into the back of a small, brightly lit shawarma joint and ordered baklava. After this heartfelt pitch, Bob asked me if I was interested in blogging for the Edwards campaign.

I was dazzled by Edwards' speech, Bob's vision and the sense that I might be on the verge of the big time. I wanted to jump on the bus, but I knew I couldn't.

"I'm probably not ... the person you want," I said, finally. "I mean, I'm on the record saying that abortion is good and that all drugs should be legalized, including heroin. Don't you think that might be a little embarrassing for the campaign?"

Bob assured me that my controversial posts weren't a problem as far as the campaign was concerned. They were familiar with my work. And Bob did seem to know my writing. I didn't get the impression he was a daily reader, but it was obvious he had been reading the blog for a while.

I suspect strongly that Beyerstein is more radical in her views than Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, but less radical and abrasive in her tone and style. I think that the mau-mauing would have occurred anyway.

Meta: Carnival of Maryland Update Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am most pleased at the submissions already received thus far for the Carnival of Maryland Blog Carnival, though I have read none of them in detail. Thank you to all.

Submissions will be open until 8PM this evening (2/25). I will post the Carnival this evening.

Since I am starting a new job tomorrow, I will be a little scarce this week. Posts will probably be fewer in number and a lot thinner in content. I am very excited about the new opportunity and the flexibility it will give my family, so I want to throw my shoulder into it hard the first week.

I don't want to let the cat of the bag, but there are likely to be some new developments for the liberal blogosphere in Maryland in the near future. Hint: it's not my cat and not my bag. When things get known, concrete and public, I will post the news here.

Baltimore Sun: Sen. Alex Mooney At Crossroads on Death Penalty Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, February 24, 2007:

State Sen. Alex X. Mooney, the Republican lawmaker from Frederick who makes no bones about his anti-gay, pro-gun, anti-abortion views, is usually among the most certain of politicians. Even an ideologue, however, can find himself at a crossroads.

With his Catholic faith and conservatism at odds, Mooney is grappling with how to vote on a proposal to repeal the death penalty. As the other 10 lawmakers on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee appear to be deadlocked, it is looking likely that Mooney's vote could determine the outcome.

...

Although representatives for the Catholic Church are lobbying for the repeal, Mooney argued yesterday that his faith does not forbid the death penalty in all circumstances. The killing of police and correctional officers should merit the toughest punishment, he said, as should acts of terrorism. Mooney said yesterday that he is weighing whether to introduce amendments to the repeal bill that would include those exceptions.

Alex Mooney is reported to be a committed conservative Republican and a committed Roman Catholic.

The position of the Catholic Church on the death penalty is very different from its position on abortion. From the Office of the Catechism, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, paragraph 2267:

Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm—without definitively taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself—the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

Compare the foregoing to the same document's discussion of abortion, paragraphs 2271-72:

Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.

Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A person who procures a completed abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae," "by the very commission of the offense," and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law. The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.

Some have called characterized Catholic opposition to all forms of killing as a "seamless garment" or, in the words of the late Cardinal Bernardin, a consistent ethic of life.

I don't claim to know Alex Mooney's soul or personality; I have met him twice and found him to be a pleasant, straight-forward person both times, but that's it. His politics stand to my right, particularly on issues such as same-sex marriage. But I am prepared to believe that Senator Mooney might, just might, actually be thinking about the morality of the matter at hand, rather than how to angle the politics of the situation to extract a cynical benefit.

Then again, I have been a naive, trusting sucker one too many time in my life. If I say I trust an elected official, including those whom I support, the 22 year-old me and the 25 year-old me and the 30 year-old me should rise up and smack the nearly 38 year-old me hard across the mouth, closed fist.

The death penalty is less of an issue for me than it is for some, for or against. I know that some of my fellow liberal bloggers are passionate advocates for its total repeal. I don't claim to know the psychology of the most severe killers, though I can understand how someone might decide that another member of the human race simply needed to get killed. To me, the threat of life imprisonment would scare me more than the mercy of the death penalty after 15 years of appeals. Part of me wants it for sexual predators who kill, for the killers of correctional employees, for mass murderers. I cannot explain logically why I want it in those cases, which is clear evidence that I should rethink the entire matter more carefully.

Robert Randolph: Ain't Nothing Wrong With That Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

"Tom and Jerry" and Antisemitic Conspiracies Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Facts.

1. "Tom and Jerry" was and is the property of MGM and Hanna-Barbera, which were intense rivals for awards and money with the Walt Disney Company.

2. Walt Disney was not, in fact, Jewish. His ancestors came from County Kilkenny in Ireland, and he was named after his family's midwestern Congregational pastor Walt Parr. Walt Disney on Walt Disney's religion:

Thus, whatever success I have had in bringing clean, informative entertainment to people of all ages, I attribute in great part to my Congregational upbringing and my lifelong habit of prayer...

3. While European antisemitism was replete of slurs for Jews in multiple language families, "dirty mice" or "dirty mouse" were not among such routine slurs.

4. The creation of "Tom and Jerry" in late 1939 and first screenings in 1940 predated most American and European knowledge of the Nazi atrocities, in part because some of those atrocities had not yet occurred (but were being planned and implemented.) Kristallnacht was barely a year before the creation of this cartoon. WWII had just begun in Europe but the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (and the U.S. entry into the War on the European and Pacific fronts) was not to occur at least a year.

5. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a Russian Czarist, not Nazi, forgery (though certainly approved by the Nazis decades later.) The Protocols were generally considered to have been forged in the late 1800s or early 1900s. In 1910, Hitler was homeless in Vienna after dropping out of high school and working as a semi-employed painter. Hitler did not forge the Protocols or cooperate with their forgers; he was perhaps idling his time in the 7th grade when they were forged and promulgated.

6. "Tom and Jerry" is well-known in Iran and in many other countries of the world, with occasional censorings and country-specific voiceovers reflecting local cultural and political realities.

62 Years Ago Today Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun: National Lacrosse Center Seeking State Grants Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, February 23, 2007:

U.S. Lacrosse wants to leave its cramped North Baltimore home for a new $25 million headquarters and sports complex at the Inner Harbor - a prominent site that the organization hopes would give the growing sport more stature.

The organization's leaders want to build the National Lacrosse Center on the waterfront near Fells Point rather than move it out of Maryland. But officials said yesterday that it cannot happen without nearly $8 million in aid from the state and subsidies from the city.

...

U.S. Lacrosse estimates that a move to Harbor Point would cost at least $25 million. It is asking the state for two $3.75 million grants - one in the next fiscal year, the other in 2009. The organization would raise the rest privately.

It is tempting to support this spending. Except that it involves other people's money.

If U.S. Lacrosse wants to move to Syracuse instead if they don't get a $7.5 million dollar bribe, let them go. Rents and wages are lower there. Let other businesses move into the Harbor Point facility. If U.S. Lacrosse wants to stay, they will scale down their $25 million investment, borrow some money, get some corporate donations from equipment manufacturers, advertising sponsors of the growing professional lacrosse leagues, donations from the alumni associations of major local lacrosse factories high schools and colleges, etc.

Lacrosse on Long Island and Syracuse is a middle-class to blue-collar sport, but in Baltimore it is decidedly white and wealthy. They play it in Dundalk too but the fanatic fans and schools are almost all north of Cold Spring Lane and east of Loch Raven Boulevard. Loyola Blakefield, Gilman, Bryn Mawr, McDonough, Boys' Latin, Calvert Hall, St. Pauls, St. Pauls for Girls, Maryvale, Dulaney, Towson Catholic, Towson High. Lacrosse is whiter and wealthier in Baltimore than crew rowing is at Princeton and Harvard. It is not an impoverished sport that will wither without state aid, and even if it were, it can move to Syracuse and cut the expenses that have driven this poor organization to apply for jockfare.

Let them walk up and down University Parkway and bang on the door of every lacrosse-obsessed Gilman household in Roland Park and Guilford. Let them solicit donations from the public at sporting events, talk the Modells and Peter Angelos into donating the money in exchange for naming wings after them. But leave Maryland taxpayers out of it. That $7.5 million should go towards public school maintenance and repair, or public health, or fire fighters, or public transit improvements or fuel assistance for families with children who will suffer hardship when BGE rates skyrocket.

Buffy and Skip can pay retail this time; they have paid retail before, they know how it works.

Christian Post: Jesus Banned, Devil Welcomed, At Public School Halloween Party Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Christian Post, February 22, 2007:

A Christian legal group has sued a school district on behalf of a 10-year-old boy who claims his rights to religion and free speech were violated when he was not allowed to wear a Jesus costume during Halloween activities.

The complaint, filed in federal court Tuesday by the Alliance Defense Fund, says officials at Willow Hill Elementary School in suburban Glenside told the boy Oct. 31 that he could not wear his faux crown of thorns or tell others he was dressed as Jesus.

The principal, Patricia Whitmire, told the boy's mother that the costume violated a policy prohibiting the promotion of religion, according to the lawsuit. Whitmire suggested that the fourth-grader, whose costume included a robe, identify himself as a Roman emperor, the suit states.

Based on the information I have, I support the student and its Christian civil rights legal team's position totally.

Schools have no business prohibiting or promoting student religious expression. The kids pick their costumes; the school doesn't assign them, so there would have been no establishment clause issue. Not letting the student wear his costume, identify himself as portraying Jesus (not the Roman persecutor of some of his followers) or talk about Jesus were each a violation of the free exercise clause and free speech clauses of the 1st Amendment.

It is not that hard a concept to grasp - students are free to be religious or non-religious, and the school is not free to choose religion over non-religion or vice versa in the decisions that it implements. If a student can wear a necklace, it can have a cross. If a student can wear any costume, that costume can be religious or non-religious (or anti-religious.) If a student can talk about his love of baseball, he can talk about his love of Jesus. I cannot see how this student's proposed attire, character and conversation topic - chosen by him, not by the vice-principal - violates the free exercise right of anyone or establishes any religion as the religion of the school, school district or other governmental unit.

This school district is dead in the water, unless I have completely misread this case. The school district is saying that it was "blindsided" by this suit; a policy forbidding religious expression and attire when other expression and other attire of student choice is permitted is prima facie unconstitutional in the absence of a compelling state interest.

I think it would be great if every separation of church and state hardliner like me would get behind students like this as allies. The Alliance Defense Fund and Crablaw do not sing often out of the same hymnal, but it would appear that we do this time.

I reserve final judgment until such time as I may review the pleadings in this case, which I do not now promise to do.

Markos Moulitsas: Why I say "ugh" to Kucinich Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Fri Feb 23, 2007 at 11:32:36 AM EST

When talking about Kucinich, I usually leave it at "ugh". I've found that much kinder than actually getting into Kucinich's record. But his supporters are OUTRAGED(!) that I would be so dismissive, and they DEMAND(!) I explain myself.

Honestly, it would be better for your guy if I didn't. But since you all insist...

1. Kucinich has never proven broad electoral viability. How many presidents have been elected straight from the House of Representatives? Kucinich could gain respect by running and winning in something a little more competitive than an urban 58 percent Kerry district.


2. Did you know that Kucinich was once ardently anti-choice and anti-stem cell research? From a 2002 Nation article:
   

   
   

   One thing you won't find on Kucinich's website, though, is any mention of his opposition to abortion rights. In his two terms in Congress, he has quietly amassed an anti-choice voting record of Henry Hyde-like proportions. He supported Bush's reinstatement of the gag rule for recipients of US family planning funds abroad. He supported the Child Custody Protection Act, which prohibits anyone but a parent from taking a teenage girl across state lines for an abortion. He voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which makes it a crime, distinct from assault on a pregnant woman, to cause the injury or death of a fetus. He voted against funding research on RU-486. He voted for a ban on dilation and extraction (so-called partial-birth) abortions without a maternal health exception. He even voted against contraception coverage in health insurance plans for federal workers--a huge work force of some 2.6 million people (and yes, for many of them, Viagra is covered). Where reasonable constitutional objections could be raised--the lack of a health exception in partial-birth bans clearly violates Roe v. Wade, as the Supreme Court ruled in Stenberg v. Carhart--Kucinich did not raise them; where competing principles could be invoked--freedom of speech for foreign health organizations--he did not bring them up. He was a co-sponsor of the House bill outlawing all forms of human cloning, even for research purposes, and he opposes embryonic stem cell research. His anti-choice dedication has earned him a 95 percent position rating from the National Right to Life Committee, versus 10 percent from Planned Parenthood and 0 percent from NARAL.
   

   
   

   
   

   His transformation to being pro-choice happened literally overnight -- a week after he announced his 2004 presidential bid. One moment he was virulently anti choice, the next he was a staunch defender.




3. "Department of Peace"?
   

   
   

   We can conceive of peace as not simply the absence of violence but the presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness, of respect, trust, and integrity. We can conceive of peace as a tool to tap the infinite capabilities of humanity to transform consciousness and conditions that impel or compel violence at a personal, group, or national level toward creating understanding, compassion, and love. We can bring forth new understandings where peace, not war, becomes inevitable. We can move from wars to end all wars to peace to end all wars.

   Citizens across the United States are now uniting in a great cause to establish a Department of Peace, seeking nothing less than the transformation of our society, to make nonviolence an organizing principle, to make war archaic through creating a paradigm shift in our culture for human development for economic and political justice and for violence control.
   

   
   

   "Higher evolution of human awareness"? "Transform consciousness"? "Paradign shift"? What the hell is this crap? I expect this kind of crap out of Deepak Chopra (or Tom Cruise), not a serious presidential candidate.

   And by the way, the "Department of Peace" already exists. It's called the "U.S. Department of State".




4. The stuff above isn't even the worst -- check out this stuff from Kucinich's keynote address to something called the "Dubrovnik Conference on the Alchemy of Peacebuilding":
   

   
   

   Spirit merges with matter to sanctify the universe. Matter transcends to return to spirit. The interchangeability of matter and spirit means the starlit magic of the outermost life of our universe becomes the soul-light magic of the innermost life of our self. The energy of the stars becomes us. We become the energy of the stars. Stardust and spirit unite and we begin: One with the universe. Whole and holy. From one source, endless creative energy, bursting forth, kinetic, elemental. We, the earth, air, water and fire-source of nearly fifteen billion years of cosmic spiraling.
   

   
   

   Clearly, Kucinich resides in a higher plane of existence than I do. But my plane is on the planet earth. I want my president to reside here as well.



5. The 1999 book The American Mayor by Melvin G. Holli, ranked Kucinich the 7th worst mayor in the nation:
   

   
   

   Only thirty-one years old when elected, Cleveland's "boy mayor" had failings that were not the sins of venality or graft for personal gain, but rather matters of style, temperament, and bad judgment in office. Kucinich earned seventh place the hard way: by his abrasive, intemperate, and chaotic administration. He barely survived a recall vote just ten months in office, then disappeared for five weeks, reportedly recuperating from an ulcer. When he got back into the political fray, his demagogic rhetoric and slash-and-burn political style got him into serious trouble when he stubbornly refused to compromise and led Cleveland into financial default in late 1978 - the first major city to default since the Great Depression. That led also to Kucinich's defeat and exit from executive office. Out of office, he dabbled in a Hollywoodesque spirit world and once believed that he had met Shirley MacLaine in a previous life, seemingly confirming his critics' charges that he was a "nutcake." After that, he experienced downward mobility, losing races for several other offices and finally ending up with a council seat; but more recently, he climbed back up to a seat in Congress. Bad judgment, demagoguery, and default also spelled political failure in the eyes of twenty-five of our experts, who ranked Dennis, whom the press called "Dennis the Menace", as seventh-worst.
   

   
   

   
   

   This survey spanned mayors in the United States between 1820 and 1993. Notching the "7th Worst" slot was a serious accomplishment.

6. He used his 2004 run for president to score dates. Luckily, he's married this time around so we'll be spared that pathetic display of desperation.

Kucinich fans -- I had no intention of writing any of this.

You should've let me leave it at "ugh".

Update: One good point people have made is summarized in this comment:

I'm not a Kucinich fan either, particularly, but some of this is IMO a little unfair. I tend to think he's just utterly unelectable on a national scale in this country, but he should be as free to talk about his "faith" as everybody else is, in theory, right? I mean, you can mock new-agey stuff -- it's pretty mockable in some ways -- but if you back off, is it really any sillier than any other set of faiths?

Here's the difference -- Kucinich is using his "faith" as the basis of his "Department of Peace". In other words, he's trying to inject his faith into the public sphere.

And that's not something I'm willing to tolerate, whether it comes from the Religious Right or from our side.

People are free to talk about the source of their values. But I believe strongly in the wall between church and state.

As for me, what Kos said. I think that the work of a Department of Peace is actually a good idea, but it should be renamed and refocused to promote economic development, free markets and the rule of law in countries underperforming in those areas. Putting these activities under the Department of State would be fine with me, though. But no feel-good new-age religion-based politics; if Pat Robertson can't, Dennis Kucinich and Shirley MacLaine can't either.