Governor Bobby Jindal
State of Louisiana

Dear Governor Jindal,

I was delighted to learn that SB 733, the LA Science Education Act passed votes in both houses of the Louisiana legislature, and that you intend to sign it. Your determination in the face of logic has always impressed me, like that time in college you exorcised demons from a woman. When I was in college, that’s not what we called it, but hey, go you!

SB 733 is an attempt to introduce intelligent design into the schools, though it’s a very thinly disguised attempt, like if everyone at the hilarious Discovery Institute wore mustaches on False Witness Fridays. But let’s not get picky. Sign that bill and you do the residents of every other state a tremendous favor. Even Guam might send you a thank-you note. See: once you’ve taken the science out of science education in Louisiana, everyone else stands a better chance at getting into college. Once again: go you!

As a resident of New Jersey and the daughter of a science teacher, I had to thank you for doing your very best to elevate real science education by undermining it for your youngest constituents. I thank you, polytechnic institutes around the world taking fewer American students thank you and the job market thanks you. Too bad about those trusting little children you’re condemning to a life of frustration, poverty and amusing righteous indignation. Isn’t WalMart hiring?

Best wishes in your future endeavors. I look forward to the next thing you do to make American public life sillier and more dangerous for the rest of us.

Sincerely,
Princess Tata

Crossposted at Agitprop.

Hat tip: that guy in the next cubicle who also sends me This Modern World.

Voice of America News:

The estimates of the number of Chinese people still in prison for their activities in 1989 range from 50 to 200.

“China, if you want to do something to improve your image, how about setting free the remaining June 4 prisoners, putting June 4 behind you?” he said.

The Guardian:

The United States is operating “floating prisons” to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

“By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least 26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to 80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these people are, where they are, and what has been done to them.”

Twenty-six thousand.

Crossposted at Blanton’s and Ashton’s.

This week, I had to stop watching One Life To Live because during the writers strike, a familiar soap plotline developed: a glib blond bully menaces the whole town. This show has been down this road before recently. This glib blond bully has the added loathsomeness of racism and sexism, whereas the last one was merely a scheming sociopathic murderer. I have nothing against this actor and I wish him well in his career; I don’t have any patience for cruelty and no desire to watch it for entertainment purposes. So. I’ll read the plot summaries until the bully is no longer Chief of Police, because that shit is a little too much like real life. Via Pandagon:

Two years ago, Tunde Clement stepped off a bus at the city’s main terminal downtown.

Clement, a black man, was carrying a backpack and coming from New York City. That may have been enough to pique the interest of undercover sheriff’s investigators scanning the crowd with their eyes.

They cornered Clement and began peppering him with questions.

He was quickly handcuffed and falsely arrested. He was taken to a station to be strip-searched and then to a hospital, where doctors forcibly sedated him with a cocktail of powerful drugs, including one that clouded his memory of the incident.

A camera was inserted in his rectum, he was forced to vomit and his blood and urine were tested for drugs and alcohol. Scans of his digestive system were performed using X-ray machines, according to hospital records obtained by the Times Union.

The search, conducted without a search warrant, came up empty.

In all, Clement spent more than 10 hours in custody before being released with nothing more than an appearance ticket for resisting arrest — a charge that was later dismissed.

This story turned up in comments as a response to this post.

Police records show the officers called out a “Signal 38″ to alert a dispatcher they were onto something suspicious and about to pull someone over. They would later write in a report that they had pulled her over for “failure to signal,” although no ticket was issued, according to police records shared with the Times Union.

The actions of police in the minutes that followed would end in controversy rather than with an arrest. They would also leave Shutter, a 28-year-old single mother from Ravena, shaken and angry after one of the officers allegedly inserted his finger into Shutter’s vagina on a public street during an apparent search for drugs.

When it was over, “I pulled off down the road and I just cried for probably a half hour,” Shutter said. “I called my dad. – I felt like I had been basically raped.” The incident has triggered an ongoing internal affairs investigation by the Albany Police Department.

It gets worse.

One of the officers at the scene, Matthew Fargione, is the son of a former Albany police narcotics lieutenant, Thomas Fargione, who is a longtime friend of Chief James W. Tuffey. Fargione headed the drug unit for years when Tuffey was a narcotics detective in the 1980s and early 1990s, and the two men also worked together for the State Emergency Management Office.

A member of the Citizens’ Police Review Board, who spoke on condition of anonymity because only the chairman is authorized to make public statements, said some members of the board have privately suspected that the department may be hiding cases of police misconduct.

Shutter said she grew increasingly unnerved by her experience with internal affairs — which is known as the Office of Professional Standards — because male detectives twice requested she wear clothes from the night of the incident to re-enact the body search.

Tuffey declined to comment on a list of written questions submitted by the Times Union last week, including why internal affairs officials didn’t assign a female detective on Shutter’s case.

I get that sometimes white guys don’t think sexism exists because women are so used to the vast pile of shit men heap out that ordinary, day-to-day crap isn’t worth a mention. This morning, the man sitting at the next desk thought it’d be a hoot to email me about the hilarity that is a woman driver and I did not whack him with a shovel. I get that if I did whack him with a shovel the university would contact the local gendarmerie and I would be escorted off the property in shiny restraints because my co-worker’s annoying remarks are supposed to amuse me, wherein my position becomes indefensible and, oh by the way, someone’s going to have to mop that up: call a woman, preferably one who doesn’t speak English. I get that.

I get that many white guys think there’s no such thing as racism because it’s not happening to them. People tend to congregate around other people who are like them and validate what they think, so white guys who don’t think much about racism tend to spend time with other white guys who don’t think much about racism. Together, they don’t think much about racism, and are offended by any mention of the fact that they are white guys who don’t think much about racism, which means they’re practicing it willy-nilly. These are also the first people to get indignant when someone says, “You should hire some people of color, maybe a few of them should be women, and some people who aren’t the same religion you are.” I get this.

I get that through the lattice of patriarchal oppression, people near the bottom oppress each other in festive circles of hideous words and deeds, and by oppressing, get something they need from the patriarchy by making sure some other group doesn’t get it. It’s ghastly to observe and weird to be a part of because society is set up such that I must actively or passively do a certain amount of it to get by and so must you, but I get that.

What I don’t get is how these white guys aren’t sued into extinction by the vast numbers of lawyers being churned out by law schools in this country who can’t get jobs because now even litigation can be outsourced to India, and by gum, those white guys are infinitely replaceable by qualified men and women who may or may not be a different hue or follow a different creed. Why yes, the Supreme Court is stacked against those seeking relief from the throttling cruelty of the bullying white guy, but I have faith in the sheer number of ingenious seekers and the wear of time. Someone shall overcome, fuckers.

The days are now numbered.

Sorry to disappoint, Poor Impulsives, but pussycat pics will come somewhat later. Last night, Drusy walked around Pete’s shoulders against the back of the couch, then settled across his crossed arms. Pete’s more of a giant floppy dog guy than a tiny cat man, so at first he was perplexed and awkward. I said, “Unlike many animals and most people, Drusy is entirely open about loving us with every fiber of her furry being. It’s perfectly okay to kiss her back.” And that, in a way, is how things should be at my house: one giant, happy canoodlefest, as opposed to this salami party.

The College Republicans at the University of Massachusetts are hosting an event called “All I am Saying is Give War a Chance.” It is devoted to the “costs, necessities, consequences, and benefits of war.” The speaker is grizzled warrior Jonah Goldberg. Is there anything more outright ludicrous than a bunch of combat-avoiding, prime-fighting-age College Republicans and Jonah Goldberg sitting around in Amherst chatting with each other about the Glories and “benefits of war”?

In what perverse, backward fucking hivemind does this –

– offer an opportunity to this fucking coward –

ON AND ON [Jonah Goldberg ]

Of all the emails Cole has received because of this silly brouhaha this is the one the great scholar sees fit to post:

“I wouldn’t rush to pack your bags. But if you actually do get an oppurtunity to verbally castrate this weasel, ask him if he truly meant “In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, “Why aren’t we killing people yet?” And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people.” ‘

He looks to be of military age. Ask him why his sorry a** isn’t in the kill zone.”]

For the record, I did in fact mean it. I wrote it here. As for why my sorry a** isn’t in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give – I’m 35 years old, my family couldn’t afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few – ever seem to suffice. But this chicken-hawk nonsense is something that’s been batted around too many times to get into again here. What I do think is interesting is that out of the thousands upon thousands of emails I’ve gotten from people in the military over the years, maybe a dozen have ever asked this question. Invariably, it’s anti-war leftists who believe that their personally defined notions of hypocrisy trump any argument and any position. Meanwhile, the military guys have been overwhelmingly friendly and very often grateful for the support we offer around here.

– to do this?

Lecture: All I am Saying is Give War a Chance

Sometimes, I hope there is an afterlife – not because I’m anxious to compare polyester tracksuits with the demon next door but because I want to be there when God patiently taps the fingers that created parallel universes and says, “Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Say, you’re driving down the street in your swingin’ YouMobile. You’re fiddling with the radio. You’re feeling pretty good. You’re warbling, “Do you believe in live after love? after love? after love? I can feel something inside me say – WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?”

Brace yourselves, children.

This family in Madison, NJ loves Halloween. They decorate like mad. Unfortunately, they’re not up on current events of the last 100 years. We’ll let the Daily Record take it from here, because I couldn’t do this justice without my own appellate division.

Public uproar that compared an image to a lynching has led a Madison family to remove a hanged dummy from its Halloween display.

Homeowners David and Cheryl Maines angrily denied the display, including a life-size figure with a featureless black head hanging from a noose, was racist. They had refused to remove the figure dressed in a navy blue shirt, blue jeans and sneakers earlier Monday.

“It’s a Halloween decoration, that’s all it is,” said David Maines, who is Madison’s superintendent of public works. “I’m at the end of my rope because of one lady … a lady who is being a pain in the neck.”

Flying Spaghetti Monster! Lynching jokes! Man, that’s fresh comedy! What in glamorous tarnation is going on here?

Cheryl Maines said her family was being harassed by people like [Millie] Hazlewood and others who were taking pictures of their home.

“This has destroyed my son,” Maines told Hazlewood, and the two other black residents, Nora Drewery and school board member George Martin, who also were present during Monday’s exchange outside the house. “This is why the world has gone crazy, people take offense to everything.”

Drewery, 62, a 35-year Madison resident, replied that no one was trying to hurt the Maines family.

“We’re just requesting that you take this down,” Drewery said.

That’s when David Maines showed up at his home, got out of his truck and said:

“Ma’am, shut up. We are not racist.”

Maines then abruptly walked away, got into his truck, and sped off.

Are we in a Dave Chappell sketch? Because it is genius.

David Maines said his life was being made a “living hell” and that his job was being jeopardized because of the incident. He said a town official asked him to remove the figure, but would not name the person.

He and his wife said that their son spent $5,000 on all the decorations and that taking down the one piece would “ruin the whole effect.”

Also in their front yard are some plastic skeletons and a figure depicting Michael Myers, the character from the Halloween movies. Inside their home, in an enclosed porch, is a display including life-size figures of other movie characters such as Igor from Frankenstein, Jason from Friday the 13th and a mad scientist with beakers, skulls and rats on a table.

“It’s like a fun house,” Jennifer Maines said. “The kids love it.”

Cheryl Maines said those who find it offensive are now harassing them. The Maines family called police Sunday afternoon when several people stood outside taking pictures of the display.

“I’m angry because this woman took something and blew it out of proportion,” Cheryl Maines said of Hazlewood. “If you’re offended, don’t come by the house, there are other routes people can go.”

Re-route traffic? Ruin the whole effect?

At first, I thought these people cannot be real – that the reporter was having a little fun at the expense of these wacky exterior desecrators. Well, of course they’re real. White people just like them are everywhere. These four happen to be concentrated at one address, which is good news for us, if not for their neighbors.

Look, we all say stupid things. We do stupid shit. We fuck up, we apologize and hope we never do anything that blockheaded again until the next time we do something blockheaded. This is that, and then some. There’s a little conversation you can hear on TV daily, if you’re paying attention.

Person 1: You really hurt me.
Person 2: I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.
Person 1: But…you really hurt me.
Person 2: But…I didn’t mean to hurt you. I would never hurt you.

Person 1 is discussing events. Person 2 is discussing fantasies. They will go around this mulberry bush until Person 1 realizes no apology and no change in behavior are forthcoming. Person 2 will be forgiven in the next scene when he or she brings home a bowling trophy with a sheepish grin. Person 2 can’t help it. Person 2 is a lovable blockhead. All horrifying accidental hilarity aside, it’s time for the Maines family to wise the hell up.

It’s 2007, and no matter what they intended to do, what they have actually done is offensive and not just to black people. It’s offensive to all people – or it should be. The family’s taken down the mannequin, so the show’s over for the real dummies. They’ll live to festoon again.

Will all their Christmases be white?

h/t: Wintle.

Daria: You know I stick my head in and read Poor Impulse Control sometimes.
Tata: Yup.
Daria: Not for nothing, but you’re blogging angry. How can you say you’re so happy when you’re so mad?
Tata: I’ve never been as happy in my whole life without expensive chemical enhancement, yes. On the other hand, there is a whole lot of very seriously bad shit going on in the world, which is bound to put a slight damper on my mood.
Daria: Yes, but you used to be funny.
Tata: I contend that I am in fact funny, current events are not. Hilarity is ensuing around the globe, only with bombs.
Daria: That’s not so funny. Step it up, willya?

Because my sister Daria is the only person I’ve ever traded Friday and Saturday underpants with I will concede this point: I haven’t been writing down Teh Funny. I apologize for falling down on the comedy job, which would be funny involving an ottoman if the Turks hadn’t just recalled their ambassador. Since my other jobs include playing with my food and reading you the dictionary by flashlight, here’s a tender but flaky ghost story fresh outta Merriam-Webster:

in·sur·gen·cy

Pronunciation: \-jən(t)-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural in·sur·gen·cies
Date: 1803

1: the quality or state of being insurgent; specifically : a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as belligerency
2: insurgence

Let’s say for a second you’re you, but you live where I live. Sorry about the pre-war wiring, but don’t plug that in, hmm? Now let’s move on. You live almost literally on the banks of the Raritan River.

Yeah, that thing. Now, suppose some stern foreign authority bombs the shit out of New Brunswick, which happened a few hundred years ago and kind of a lot. The bombing eventually stops and tanks roll either up or down Route 1 and park on George Street. (Interesting coincidence: named for a former despot.) They say they’re here to liberate you from your current despot while shooting your neighbors in the streets. The occupying army organizes a new government with the biggest suckups it can find. You have very limited electrity, little clean water and no gas. The garbage is never picked up because it could contain explosives. You risk your life each time you venture out for toilet paper and Snausages. You bury your dead relatives under the front lawn because funerals up the body count.

Maybe you keep your head low for a while. You’re not a soldier and maybe you’ve never handled a weapon. The occupying army can’t stay, right? The despot’s pushing up daisies and armed gunmen have all the freedom they can eat. What do you do? Do you bet your survival on good behavior? No, in this hilarious setup, you eventually go all Viva Maria! and coffeepot radio, which is why I laugh until I cry whenever I hear a politician talk about defeating the Iraqi insurgency.

As a comedy writer, I can’t compete with Dick Cheney and his utter misapprehension of human nature. Now, that’s funny.

This is what we are talking about. Take it away, John Mellencamp.

Down With Tyranny has the story and the impotent backlash.

I could just puke. How can anyone vote against habeas corpus?

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Allard (R-CO), Nay
Barrasso (R-WY), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Nay
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Nay
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Brown (D-OH), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Nay
Bunning (R-KY), Nay
Burr (R-NC), Nay
Byrd (D-WV), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Cardin (D-MD), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Casey (D-PA), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Not Voting
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Nay
Cochran (R-MS), Nay
Coleman (R-MN), Nay
Collins (R-ME), Nay
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Corker (R-TN), Nay
Cornyn (R-TX), Nay
Craig (R-ID), Nay
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
DeMint (R-SC), Nay
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dole (R-NC), Nay
Domenici (R-NM), Nay
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Nay
Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Nay
Grassley (R-IA), Nay
Gregg (R-NH), Nay
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Nay
Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Nay
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Lieberman (ID-CT), Nay
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Nay
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Martinez (R-FL), Nay
McCain (R-AZ), Nay
McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Nay
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Nay
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Yea
Salazar (D-CO), Yea
Sanders (I-VT), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Nay
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Stevens (R-AK), Nay
Sununu (R-NH), Yea
Tester (D-MT), Yea
Thune (R-SD), Nay
Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Warner (R-VA), Nay
Webb (D-VA), Yea
Whitehouse (D-RI), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Despite what you may hear, the issue is simply not that complicated. There is no excuse for cowardice, and no day will dawn when this will become a glorious moment. There is only infamy here, and shame.

This morning, Matt Lauer was in Teheran. I had only a minute to watch but I sat down anyway because I couldn’t pick up my jaw. Lauer interviewed Seyyid Mohammad Marandi, Professor of North American Studies at the University of Tehran, who grew up in Virginia and spoke perfect English. Things were kind of moving along with the Republican talking points interview, starting at about 5:00 into the clip, and you can actually SEE the professor, who does his best to answer questions framed in the madness of King George, hesitate a few times before he answers. It’s plain he wants to tell Matt he’s being deceived. The thing that will take your breath away is that by the end of the interview, where Marandi has remained rational and patient, Lauer gets a little jumpy and tries to persuade the professor to agree. This morning, I couldn’t hear what Lauer was saying because his body language was happily shouting, “So you SEE, don’t you, that we absolutely have to nuke your country? It’s obvious, right?”

One more thing: Marandi delivered a line with some real punch and Lauer passed it by. The professor said that the United States should not attack Iran because the United States has got the other two wars with weaker countries but war with Iran, which is much stronger, would be “a calamity.” I heard it loud and clear. Who knows what Lauer heard?