Rain On The Scarecrow

So, how many people thought that the new Congress would be more friendly to the idea of making our farm subsidy program less expensive and/or insane? Anyone who had their hand raised, bring it down now:

The House yesterday passed a far-reaching new farm bill that preserves the existing system of subsidies for commercial farmers and adds billions of dollars for conservation, nutrition and new agricultural sectors.

For fuck's sake, Pelosi, you couldn't find the will to unite the libertarian Republicans with the reformist Democrats and kick the corporate welfare that is our farm subsidy program in the nuts? For a taste of how insidious this subsidy program is, try this on for size:

The House bill includes a new concession for cane and beet sugar producers, ensuring that they will not have to cut back on their planting when unrestricted Mexican sugar imports start next year under NAFTA. The Department of Agriculture will be required to buy up volumes of sugar comparable to the imports and sell it to ethanol plants for a reduced price, at a 10-year cost to taxpayers of $1.4 billion.

Sure, $140 million a year is chump change for Congress, but did the big corporations in the sugar industry really need the extra help? You know most of this isn't going to the struggling family farmer... and in the end, it seems to me that propping up unprofitable big-box farms is just going to flood the market with sugar no one wants to buy, driving down prices and screwing over the little farmer even harder (not to mention the other farmers in the NAFTA zone that will go under).

I could go on about the direct payments to corn, soybean, wheat, cotton, and rice growers at the expense of all the other crops we could be growing, decreasing crop diversity and fucking up the pricing system. Or how the bill apparently fails to close the loophole whereby farm subsidies go to people who don't even farm. Or how 90-odd percent of these subsidies go to massive agriculture conglomerates like ConAgra and not to the small independent farmer who might actually have some sort of legitimate claim on the assistance. But I'm sure Heritage and Cato and whoever will come out and go on this rant soon enough (if they haven't already - and incidentally, this is probably the only non-platitude issue I agree with Heritage on).

Whatever. At least increased funding for food stamps came out of it, and a couple of tax loopholes got closed. I don't know if I was seriously expecting meaningful subsidy reform out of Congress, and I don't think I ever will unless Jeff Flake or Ron Paul becomes Speaker - and what are the odds of that happening? It's still disappointing, though. I at least thought the momentum was there to make some sort of dent in the system. Maybe the Senate can make some headway here, though with the Senate's necessarily more rural makeup, that's far from likely.

Hilarity of the week: House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D), one of the prime pushers of this legislation, said he opposed cutting subsidies because he didn't want to help big business (the Chamber of Commerce wanted a subsidy cut so they could get a manufacturer-backed trade deal through faster). Good thinkin' there, Collin. You don't want to help big business, so you subsidize the shit out of massive corporate farms.

(And given the big sugar giveaway, is anyone surprised that Peterson received big money from Minnesota sugar producers? Archer Daniels Midland also cut Peterson's campaign a $4000 check - its third largest contribution to a House member.)

Godwin: The Sequel

I posit a new form of Godwin's Law: As the length of any discussion thread increases, the probability of a comparison to al-Qaeda or terrorism approaches one. The probability of one commenter questioning the patriotism/loyalty of another commenter also approaches one.

Also, I want to point people to this amusing Godwin FAQ, which contains this gem of a statement:

If you're really bored, a fun game to play is Six Degrees of Godwin. Take a topic - any topic - and see how quickly you can relate it to Nazis using legitimate topic drift methods. For example: a discussion about computers will eventually lead to discussions of keyboards and which are best, followed by a lot of complaining about the Windows key on 104-key keyboards, leading to complaints about Microsoft, forcing the standard MS-vs-government flamewar that I'm sure you're all aware of, leading to attacks on Microsoft's "fascist" tactics by one side or another, which will force the other side to start talking about the differences between fascism, capitalism, and, of course, Nazism! The fun never stops!

Garfield. Go.

Public Service Announcement

If you're planning on destroying a major religion's holiest site, thus precipitating a fast day for that religion's adherents, please keep the hydration needs of future generations in mind and wait for cooler weather to do your sacking.

That is all. Thank you.

How Do You Know She Is A Witch?

Apparently in Israel, it is illegal to read fortunes from coffee grounds. It's "practicing magic," which is apparently against the law.

The Yahoo article leads me to believe that the law is aimed at pseudo-mystics who know they're bilking gullible people out of money, so it probably doesn't criminalize Jacob. I guess it's more of a fraud law than anything. It's still kind of goofy, though.

The best part is that the court appeared flummoxed that the law was even on the books. They appear to have no idea what to do in this case. The Ministry of Justice said this: "In light of the fact that there is no clear judicial decision how to determine the crime of magic..." May I suggest a scale and a duck?

You Have the Right to Remain Loquacious

For those of you hiding in a cave, the Bush Administration has ordered its aides not to testify before Congress regarding the attorney firing scandal. In response, Congress has threatened to hold the aides in contempt - the Administration, naturally, has requested that the Justice Department not pursue any contempt charges. So what's a Congress to do?

According to Frank Askin writing in the Post, Congress can arrest the aides themselves. How cool is that?

Of course, this wouldn't lead to actual Congresspeople breaking into the White House SWAT team-style and dragging away White House aides in a paddy wagon. They'd probably use the Capitol or D.C. police to make arrests in a more civilized fashion. But if you wish to entertain the thought of Nancy Pelosi busting into Chief of Staff Josh Bolten's office and cuffing him... I'm not stopping you.

Twelve Angry Banditos Theorem Proofs

I challenge anyone - anyone - to argue with a straight face that an armed robber should be convicted of murder if a policeman gets into a fatal accident while looking for him. And yet, that's what a Missouri jury just did.

Quick E-Mail Clarification

Jamie introduced me to a chain-letter beginning to make the rounds claiming that the UK has removed the Holocaust from its school curriculum to avoid offending radical Muslims who deny the Holocaust. I smelled a rat in here somewhere, but I had to check this out and see whether or not it was on the level.

After I researched this claim a bit, I can give it a Crap Percentage of 97%.

The truth: Here's the UK Daily Mail article on which the rumor was based. The article cites a couple of examples of teachers being reluctant to teach topics such as the Holocaust or the Crusades because of anti-Semitism among pupils. However, it quotes only one instance of a teacher actually dropping the Holocaust from the curriculum, and two instances of refusal to teach the Crusades.

Here's the Guardian's take, which says much the same thing. I'm not sure there's evidence for a trend if one school somewhere in England dropped the Holocaust, one school was worried about the reaction of students, and one school had Christians challenge the school's teaching.

We Americans are no strangers to wackos challenging school curricula, and as such, we should be wary of any attempt to take such anecdotal evidence and interpret it as some sort of trend.

(Also, I don't know how much the British Muslim mainstream engages in Holocaust denial - certainly American Muslim leaders routinely affirm (and denounce) the Holocaust, but of course shit gets weird when you cross the Atlantic.)

As for the official view of the UK's education board? The report was not specifically on the Holocaust, but rather, it dealt with the teaching of emotionally sensitive topics, and it proposed ways for teachers to deal with such topics in the classroom. The Holocaust is currently an optional part of the UK's official curriculum, as are the Crusades. The Guardian reports that the education department will make the Holocaust compulsory next year. So in reality, the British government is taking the exact opposite action from that which the e-mail rumor claims it is taking.

General rule of thumb - if it sounds too outrageous to be true, it probably is, so check up on it.

Steroids On The Green?

Gary Player thinks steroids have crept their way into professional golf. Now anyone who plays golf knows two things:

1) Golf is as much about mental toughness as it is about physical ability. And the physical ability isn't all that much about muscular strength.

2) You can pound the ball 400 yards if you want, but if you suck around the greens, you won't have a chance at any golf tournament anywhere. You also have to hit the ball straight. Neither of these can be improved by drugs.

So if golfers are taking steroids, they must not only be jerks but they must also be colossally stupid. Unless they're taking some sort of nerve-calming drug, that is.

If You're Gonna Do It...

So the Republicans, now finding themselves in the minority, have taken a slightly different view of the filibuster than the one they held during the Great Judicial Nomination Kerfuffle of 2005. They have decided to filibuster the Levin-Reed Amendment, which would call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq in 120 days from the bill's passage and currently has 53 supporters in the Senate (Republican Senators Hagel, Snowe, Collins, and Gordon Smith support the measure; Independent Lieberman is opposed). I'll bet there are more than a few Republicans who are happy Frist didn't pull off the "nuclear option" back in '05...

Anyway, as you may have heard, Majority Leader Harry Reid took the unusual step of actually making Republicans hold their filibuster instead of just threaten to do so. This is good, but after the failure of the cloture vote yesterday morning (by a 52-47 vote; Reid had to vote no for procedural reasons), Reid meekly withdrew the bill for consideration later.

Here's the thing about the filibuster in recent years: no one has actually used the filibuster in a while. The minority has simply used the threat of the filibuster to block legislation. The old practice of actually talking a bill to death has fallen somewhat by the wayside. I say: revive it. The filibuster is, at its core, a battle of wills. Who will cave first? Will the bill's opponents tire of talking and support cloture? Or will the bill's supporters tire and withdraw the measure?

So Reid should leave the Levin-Reed Amendment before the Senate and keep debate open. If the Republicans are so passionate about defeating this bill, they should be forced to grind the Senate to a halt, keeping themselves and their colleagues in Washington through the August break, to do so.

Post 404 Not Found

Geeky, I know.

I just wanted to link to this story which proves that there is at least one judge out there who is willing to completely ignore Morse v. Frederick. Which is a good thing.

I'd Rather Have Greenmail, Thank You

Sometimes, you come upon a story so crazy that there really is no other reaction than laughter. The strange, sad saga of Miss New Jersey is one of them.

Apparently, the winner of the Miss New Jersey pageant (who, as a result, will be a Miss America contestant) was caught with some "racy photos." She has been blackmailed by some unknown crazy person. She has now revealed the photos. The Miss America folks are attempting to decide whether she should still be in the pageant.

The punchline: look at the photos. There is absolutely nothing "racy" about the photos. She's fully clothed in all of them. The worst thing that happens is that her boyfriend is goofily biting her boob (through her shirt) while she looks embarrassed. Seriously, you can see much more titillating stuff on Glenwood Avenue on a typical Saturday night.

If the Miss America folks think this is racy, they're insane. You know what would be racier than these pictures? Having her walk across a stage in a skimpy bikini while having millions of people stare at her. Oh, wait, that's PART OF THE FUCKING PAGEANT.

Actually, I'm More Afraid of Ted Kennedy's Gut

Get your canned food stashes and duct tape ready, folks... Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling!

Radley Balko over at The Agitator has an excellent post in response. Read it here.

House Homeland Security Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS - yes, a Democrat from Mississippi, don't adjust your computer screen) gets two cents worth.

Once everyone discovers that terrorism is really about as much of an existential threat to the U.S. as gold-plated lemur turds, we'll have won the war on terror.

Oh, and I love the bit about al-Qaeda being able to train more freely on the Afghan-Pakistan border. You think that's because we're wasting all that time and energy in Iraq, perhaps?

Also: anyone who bitches about their in-laws around this woman is going to get quite an earful, I suspect.

Month-Long Backlog

Getting married and going on a honeymoon to Bora Bora may be wonderful, but it doesn't help the blogging. So I wonder what's been happening in the past month...

- Britain seems to have an exploding car problem. Doctors seem to be responsible. Doctors, folks. Personally, I didn't think the Hippocratic Oath - "first, do no harm" - squared with the Terrorist Oath ("first, do as much harm as possible"). I guess if you're an incompetent terrorist, you actually do satisfy the former - which, fortunately for these deranged docs, was the case.

- Speaking of dumbass terrorists, Gaza managed to go completely feather-pluckin' insane. Here's what I think happened: the JIMF got pissed off, somehow kicked Fatah (and Abbas with it) out of Gaza, then had to engage in a prisoner swap with something called the Army of Islam (which appears to be six guys with a gun) to get some BBC reporter freed. Meanwhile, Israel invaded Gaza. Abbas seems to be perfectly okay with this. In fact, Hamas' takeover seems, in a perverse way, to have actually helped the peace process. If all the radicals get sucked into the black hole that is Gaza, West Bank moderates can be free from the rightward pressures that force them away from the bargaining table. This could lead to the beginnings of a Palestinian state in the West Bank with Abbas and the moderates at the helm - which would basically kill Hamas by demonstrating the ineffectiveness of their... well, I hesitate to call what Hamas does "tactics..."

It already seems to be working. Usually, the Israeli killing of a Palestinian militant gets met with what can only be described as darkly comical outrage - this time, it seems to have been met with a glorified "whatever."

- The immigration bill got revived some 88 times before finally being killed. Essentially, everyone in Congress seems to have forgotten that killing the bill is a vote for the status quo, which isn't exactly working out for us. Note to Congress: when you make the perfect the enemy of the good, you also make it the ally of the crappy. Do you want to be on the side of the crappy? Yeah, it was a flawed bill, but it had some good aspects to it, and would have made things at least a little bit better.

Related news - Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, who I usually like, just signed an anti-immigrant bill that even she admitted was a horrible bill. On the one hand, this is good - it signals a willingness to get things done even if the end result isn't exactly to your personal liking. On the other hand, if it's so awful that it needs to be amended severely before being enacted, why sign the damn thing now?

- The new airport security regulations don't provide any real security? No shit.

My favorite part: "In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport checkpoints. The screeners at Albany International confiscated the water bottle but missed the bomb."

- The Pope is partying like it's 1529.

- The coolest line in this article: "He passed through clouds. He said they were fluffy."

Bong Hits For ONAF

I'm off to Tahiti in a half-hour, but I thought I'd just mention this:

Morse v. Frederick will go down as the second-worst decision the Court has made in 20 years (narrowly losing out to Kelo v. New London). This is an absurd ruling that has no basis in anything approaching legal reasoning. The "prevention of illegal drug use" is the worst excuse yet for the violation of free speech rights.

This is why we shouldn't rely on the Supreme Court to fight our battles for us. The Alaska legislature should have nipped this in the bud by passing a law making it illegal for school administrators to punish off-campus non-school-related student speech. It seems redundant when it's placed next to the First Amendment, but obviously it's not.

The islands call. Later, folks.

Worst News Ever

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Drink your 'ritas now, folks...

Via Jacob.

Ridiculous Sign Alert

On the door of a CVS at the corner of Hargett and Fayetteville Streets in downtown Raleigh:



Really? That's all I have to do to provide for the well-being of our soldiers and their families? Pay $2 to some corner pharmacy and soldiers get livable pay, comprehensive health care, proper equipment, reasonable veterans' benefits, and good compensation for the families of the fallen? Such a deal! Remember when we had to ration gas, food, and metals? Or pay more in taxes?

Let it never be said that the spirit of shared sacrifice has escaped us here in the City of Oaks.

Only in Alabama...

Everyone's favorite state has apparently taken down an anti-terrorism website that their department of Homeland Security had launched. The website apparently included pretty much every single-issue advocacy group as a terror threat.

Money quote from the website: "Single-issue extremists often focus on issues that are important to all of us. However, they have no problem crossing the line between legal protest and ... illegal acts, to include even murder, to succeed in their goals."

Congratulations, Alabama - you're now the most cynical state in the Union.

It's About Frickin' Time

Looks like the Bush administration is finally talking tough on Sudan. He is planning to introduce new sanctions on oil transactions carried out in US dollars (a big portion of Sudan's business) and to push for further-reaching UN sanctions. The UN sanctions won't happen, thanks to opposition from China (a friend and major client of Sudan's). And the US already has sanctions against Sudan. But Bush's willingness to buck the UN, which had asked Bush to not talk about Sudan much, is heartening.

Here's a question for you. Why was Bush so keen on ignoring the UN and acting unilaterally in Iraq and yet so hesitant to do so in the case of Sudan? It is clear that the UN was failing to do what it needed to do in Sudan, thanks to its unwillingness to cross Sudan's borders without permission from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Bashir (played by Alexander Siddig) has a history of diplomatic double-talk and of frustrating humanitarian efforts. He even harbored bin Laden for a while.

It is the opinion of this blog (and of a few other people I know) that if Al Gore had won in 2000, we would be at war in Sudan right now instead of in Iraq. Given that the case for unilateral action in Sudan is far stronger than the one for such action in Iraq, I don't think that would necessarily be a bad thing.

A limited military campaign is looking somewhat more likely in Sudan, incidentally. France has suggested opening up a humanitarian corridor from Chad, with French-led European forces launching the operation. I worry that the French are too keen on UN involvement which, as I mentioned earlier, won't happen because of China. But France is more likely to take a lead on humanitarian issues in Africa under Sarkozy, who seems more likely to pursue humanitarian goals over French interests in Africa (or at least less likely to block humanitarian efforts because of his country's interests). Of course, American troops won't be available thanks to Iraq. Maybe the Canadians can get involved.

Also from overseas, Israel's Labor Party has sacked Amir Peretz, chief architect of the Great Lebanon Clusterfuck of 2005. Labor can now choose between former PM Ehud Barak and Ami Ayalon, who promises to (figuratively) nuke the government if elected. This creates something of a catch-22 for Labor. If they vote for Barak and he keeps the Labor-Olmert alliance intact, Labor will lose support for continuing to stick with the radioactive Olmert. If they choose Ayalon and he forces new elections, the right-wing Likud will probably win and keep Labor out of government altogether. Yeah, good luck with that.

(Incidentally, the Likud leader is former PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Ayalon might end up winning a new election for the sole reason that he's the only candidate with any real chance who hasn't already screwed something up.)

And also, we're apparently talking to Iran about Iraq. Opening up channels of communication with Iran is a good thing - we can't expect to change their minds about anything if we don't talk to them. Hell, we kept talking with the Soviets throughout the entire Cold War. It's clear Iran doesn't want us in Iraq, so here's what I propose - Iran stops funding JIMF* and Hezbollah, shuts the hell up about Israel, and helps us out against al-Qaeda and we get out of Iraq and promise not to object too loudly if Iran gets involved. I'll take an Iran-friendly Iraq if Iran quits its terrorism shenanigans. Of course, this may not happen until 2010 when the batshit-crazy A-Train leaves the station, but it'll be good to have established diplomatic contacts with Tehran by the time they reclaim their sanity.

That's all. Carry on.

*I've long ago decided that Hamas, which stands for the Islamic Resistance Movement, is the worst moniker since the Holy Roman Empire. They're not particularly Islamic, they're hardly a coherent movement, and they have never engaged in anything that even resembles an effective resistance. Thus, they are now the Jihadist Incompetent Murderous Farce, or JIMF.

Deal or No Deal?

The Senate and the White House have come to a deal of sorts on immigration reform. The provisions, as I understand them, are as follows:

- Temporary legalization for everyone who entered the country before January. They would then be able to apply for residency and eventually citizenship if they pay a $5000 fine and a $1500 processing fee (and pass a background check, of course).

- Beefed up border security, including new border patrols, unmanned drones, fancy fences, radar systems, etc.

- Once the border security measures are in place (anywhere from 18 months to four years), a temporary worker program will start which will bring 400,000 workers into the country for two years and then force them to leave. The Post article makes no mention of a path to apply for legal residency.

- Visas will be awarded on a "points system" that favors skilled and educated workers and English speakers instead of simply granting favor to those with family in the country.

As with all compromises, there are good things about this bill and bad things about it. The bill gives all the undocumented workers currently here a chance to come out of the shadows. I like that, and while I'm not a big fan of the expensive fine, it's still reasonable - honest workers or not, they did break the law, and a minor punishment is worthwhile. I fully expect to see a new crop of charitable organizations working to help undocumented workers pay those fines. (It'll also be a nice new source of income for our budget - if even half of the 12 million undocumented workers pays up, that's $6500 x 6,000,000 = $39 billion, or roughly a fifth of our current budget deficit.)

Second, the emphasis on skilled and educated workers can help fix some of these horror stories we hear in the academic community about grad students or professors who leave the country for a visit and can't get a visa to come back. It's good to see Congress tackle this issue.

Third, as much as I rip on the people obsessed with border security, beefing up the Border Patrol is a good thing. The Patrol is horrifyingly undermanned and has no resources to fight the actual crime that occurs on the border. The extra funds and equipment will help out a lot.

Now, the things I don't like...

First and foremost is the guest worker program. Guest workers are often tied to a certain employer - if they quit because of low pay or bad working conditions, they would have to go back to the country from whence they came. Furthermore, who actually thinks that all these guest workers will go home after two years? It's not going to work that way. A fairly significant portion of the undocumented workers in our country are visa overstayers - they simply didn't leave when their visa expired. (I think that's about two-thirds of the current undocumented population, but I'm not sure.) This simply recreates the problem we currently have. Furthermore, guest workers will be tied to their current employers, who can hold over their heads the prospect of being forcibly returned home - just like now. This seems to legally approve the underclass status of the current shadow labor force while doing nothing to ensure that all laborers, immigrant or no, are treated by the same standards.

I wouldn't mind so much if the guest worker program had an option to earn a green card after two years of work - say, if you could demonstrate English proficiency, show a tax return, pay a fee, or something - and if there were whistle-blower protections so that a worker could point out violations of labor laws in exchange for a green card. An even better system would be that a guest worker had to stay employed for two years with someone, not necessarily the company that brought the worker over the border - so the employee could leave and find another job if the employer that brought them over was sketchy.

Another problem is the limitation on unskilled workers. With the new emphasis on the educated and skilled, you'll still have unskilled workers who can't get visas and who thus have to cross illegally. Only now, many of those unskilled workers may have family here and thus be even more motivated to cross illegally. The new visa rules will not cause a decline in the number of attempted border crossers. A better solution would be to simply increase the number of overall visas and beef up the background check capability (so we're not giving visas to people who might blow us up).

I suppose I'm a little bit wary of replacing one broken system with a system that contains very visible cracks. However, a flawed solution is better than no solution at all, so I support the bill. Furthermore, the cracks in the system are very obvious and visible - they're known unknowns, if you will - and are fairly easily filled once the political will is there. It's better than the current system, and as Senator Feinstein said, no sense in letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Bush will need every ounce of his infamous steamroller strength to get this bill through. He has a 29% approval rating, and the 29% who approve of him are the 29% of the population most likely to abhor the path to legalization for current illegal immigrants. He'll be smart to let the senators take the lead on this one - Kennedy is well respected by the left, and Kyl by the right. And Heaven only knows what will happen in the House, where windbags like Tancredo and Hunter will try anything to stop it. We'll see if this one comes out alive...

- On a different note, I'd like to acknowledge the death of Jerry Falwell this past week. When I was first gaining my political bearings, Falwell had already contracted the severe case of foot-in-mouth disease that plagued him during his later life, so I didn't get a sense of Falwell's actual power during the '80s and early '90s. He was still influential, mind you, but he was fading fast. Soon he became a self-parody, a laughable dinosaur, and his power was ceded to a new breed of evangelical more willing to play well with others. He was not an evil man, and as I have a policy of not celebrating the death of anyone who isn't evil, I will not rejoice.

I will mention this: we cannot understate the negative effect Falwell and his ilk had - and continue to have - on the mainstream public's impression of Christianity (especially evangelical Christianity), an effect that is only beginning to be undone by warmer, fuzzier leaders like Rick Warren. On a personal level, Falwell and his ally, fellow Virginian Pat Robertson, were enough to give me an almost hateful view of evangelical Christianity that persisted until I met an an actual, loving, caring evangelical Christian. There are many people out there whose view of evangelical Christianity is shaped by people like Falwell, and this is unfortunate. While Falwell preached that the secularists and non-Christians were destroying our society, he obscured the true nature of evangelical Christianity to those who he was railing against. I'm afraid this sharp division characterized by mutual distrust between non-Christians and conservative evangelicals will be Falwell's most enduring legacy.

Stupid Question...

In honor of the debate questioning...

If you could vote for any movie/TV President, who would it be?