arse poetica

Get a New String for Your Can, dumbyass

What fresh hell is this?

The game of telephone that this insufferable incompetent thinks he's playing (see post title) MUST come to an end if this country is to regain our reputation and any moral authority (sic) in the world. I simply cannot believe that after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Force Base, the secret CIA prisons, "extraordinary rendition," and God only knows what else, that this simpering fool would not have as Rule #1: Stop Torturing and Murdering People and Rule #2: I Need to Be the First to Know About What's Going Down.

Are we to believe he heard about Haditha from a reporter?

Of course, the incredulity volcano-sized fireball of fury implied in that question stems from the assumption that he is, in fact, preznit. Which he most.obviously.is.not.

White House: Haditha details to be public.

On Tuesday, White House spokesman Tony Snow said President Bush learned of the killings only after a reporter from Time magazine asked questions. Time published an article in March that said the Pentagon was investigating the incident.

Asked when Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call."

Bush was briefed on the incident and investigation by his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, Snow said. He would not detail Bush's personal involvement since.

I'm not being facetious. I actually don't understand the above. What the hell is it saying? He was informed by a Time reporter? He was briefed -- when? afterwards? -- by professional suck-up Stephen "Whoops, My Fault" Hadley? Apparently, stupidity is working for these folks. Why should they change their game now?

[Update: Edited for clarity, 9:18 and 9:38 p.m. Sheesh.]

Why "They" Hate Us Reason # 490284937b

Exhibit A:

Pimp My Grill*.

A KALAMAZOO grill can suck a standard tank of propane dry in two and a half hours. Not that backyard grill-users would want to crank every burner simultaneously and reach the full 154,000 B.T.U. capacity of this $11,290, six-and-a-half-foot-wide brute. But, as with a Porsche that can go 175 miles an hour on the autobahn, some owners find it sweet to know they've got that kind of juice under the hood.

"Our gas line had to be doubled in capacity from the house," said Connie Dove of York, Me. She and her husband, Mo Houde, took delivery last year of a Kalamazoo Bread Breaker Two Dual-Fuel grill with an infrared rotisserie cradle system and a side burner.

They hooked the 600-pound stainless steel hulk into their home's main propane supply, choosing not to mess with standard tanks, which each hold only four gallons of fuel. That's enough to allow a typical backyard grill to run at maximum for 15 hours, according to the Propane Education and Research Council in Washington.

"It is very, very powerful," Ms. Dove said. "A turkey you can have in an hour and a half."

Turkey alright. db tells me that if one works 40 hrs/wk for minimum wage, one makes less in a year than it takes to buy the behemoth above. Mm hmm. That's not out of all proportion to anything decent and just, no.

*And, yes, that is the NYT headline. Again w/ the "pimp." That has become tiresome in the extreme, and I don't care if I'm humorless (because I am now, and I know who I blame); the sexual subjugation of women is just not funny. It is a horror. And not to put too fine a point on it, but it's what's wrong w/ the world.

Sunday, That's My Fun Day

Sweet fancy Moses, it was hotter than Hades today! Gaaah. Summer in NC is a little like childbirth in that the body's natural defenses kick in and you forget how painful and physically grueling it is until faced with it again. I feel like I just had triplets.

And so, since it was hotter 'n Hades, db and I spent the majority of the day outside. Obviously. Because that is how we roll. [Melting and wilting.] The front yard is benefitting from our ministrations. The back is what we could call in polite company "a project." In impolite company (mine), we'd call it a *&%$#! mess. And one day, as Bank of America is my witness loan agent, we'll figure out how to approximate Babylonian-level lushness in a shady, oddly shaped, pine tree-filled backyard.

[L to R] 1. db plants the Lantanas. 2 The Adorables romp in the grass. (Yes! There's actual grass! That would be because it's the front yard. Hmmph.) 3. Say hello to my leetle friend. 4. Some purty orange fleurs that we bought today. They did not have a tag and since I'm not going to spend 6 hrs googling them, I'm probably not going to know what they are. Unless, that is, some kind soul wants to ID them for us. Not long after this photo was taken, when the sun shone directly on the plants, some of the blooms opened. V. pretty.

Overheard in Durham

On our nightly walk w/ the beasties, we have learned that at dinner time there is a fair amount of commotion on the deck of one house in particular on our route. Multiple generations sitting under a deck umbrella squabbling away, and today was no exception. Today, following a series of loud, static-y nooo, nooo, nooo, nooo, nooos as we were cresting the hill, we saw a woman bending over awkwardly to reach a toddler behind a chair in which a man was sitting. We glanced over long enough to note that she got no help from him or anyone else and as she lifted up the child, we overheard her ask the deathless question: Did you just pour beer on that baby?

Alrighty then. Just another night in some person's cartoon vision of North Carolina.

Like Dumber, Like Dumb

I've worked since I was in 7th grade. I worked in high school, never had any money, certainly none w/ which to be frivolous; worked all through college, worked every summer for a wage, no money to take that swank internship that paid nothing and required $1,000+/month in rent in an actual city. I've worked since graduating college for everything I have, and I'm grateful for it. I worked in grad school. I kept a rich family's developmentally delayed daughter company in the afternoons and cooked their evening meal. It was a singularly odd experience, though only because rich people live very differently in their large, quiet houses. I've cleaned toilets, I've fetched and ferried, I've taken my share of orders and worked my share of holidays. I have school loans which impact (hamper, mostly) every decision I make. My education gave me some opportunities, yes, but they did not land me in the White House at age 22, sans degree, working for the Preznit of the Divided States, then ferry me to Harvard Business School on a cloud of privilege. Wow.

Bush Aide Gets Exception at Harvard.

The Harvard Crimson: "A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS)."

"Though it is rare for HBS -- or any other professional or graduate school -- to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate degree, admissions officers made an exception for Blake Gottesman, who for four years has served as special assistant and personal aide to Bush."

Reading this, all I can think of is the kid I had to tutor in my 6th grade class, the kid whose shoes did not fit, the scrawny little guy shorter than me whose clothes quite obviously belonged to a man, the kid for whom long division was never.going.to.happen., at least not on paper, and I think of my friend in 12th grade, so smart, wanted to study English Lit, couldn't afford college even though our tuition at the time was about $300 (let's hear it for state schools!), who went to the local technical college and became an electrician. I think of him as The Chaucer-Loving Electrician. I think of countless kids without a whole hell of a lot whose moms and dads couldn't get them a free ride to Harvard. F*cking hell.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

I am engaged in a pursuit in which I have the opportunity to ascend to all new glorious heights and when I told my pal Pablo that I knew this was akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, he said, "Yeah, but at least this chair reclines." HA! Perfect.

Two Galoots in Cahoots

So Rove whispered Plame's name in Novak's ear (just like when he got fired in '92 from the GHW Bush campaign for leaking, mm hmm), Novak went to press with no regard for the career and safety of a woman and her colleagues like the craven little succubus he is, and now it seems that the two may have cooked up a convenient cover story about their Plame malfeasance as the investigation got rolling. Uh huh.

[On knees, praying for Fitzmas to come!]

They're going down. Down, down, down, down, down, oooowoohooo. I tell you once more before I get out the door, they're going down.

Rove-Novak Call Was Concern To Leak Investigators.

On September 29, 2003, three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate who leaked the name of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, columnist Robert Novak telephoned White House senior adviser Karl Rove to assure Rove that he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the federal grand jury testimony of both men.

In the early days of the CIA leak probe, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was briefed on a crucial conversation between Robert Novak and Karl Rove.

Suspicious that Rove and Novak might have devised a cover story during that conversation to protect Rove, federal investigators briefed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on the matter in the early stages of the investigation in fall 2003, according to officials with direct knowledge of those briefings.

Ashcroft oversaw the CIA-Plame leak probe for three months until he recused himself and allowed Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to be named to take over the investigation on December 30, 2003. Ashcroft received routine briefings about the status of the investigation from October to December of that year.

Sources said that Ashcroft received a special briefing on the highly sensitive issue of the September 29 conversation between Novak and Rove because of the concerns of federal investigators that a well-known journalist might have been involved in an effort to not only protect a source but also work in tandem with the president's chief political adviser to stymie the FBI.

Rove testified to the grand jury that during his telephone call with Novak, the columnist said words to the effect: "You are not going to get burned" and "I don't give up my sources," according to people familiar with his testimony. Rove had been one of the "two senior administration" officials who had been sources for the July 14, 2003, column in which Novak outed Plame as an "agency operative." Rove and Novak had talked about Plame on July 9, five days before Novak's column was published.

There's more, and it's worthwhile reading. I am loving Murray Waas.

The Smartest Guys in the Big House

I think the former Enron employees were amazingly polite considering they lost their entire life savings. But poor Ken Lay. What'll he do about his 15 homes?

Reactions to the Enron criminal trial verdict.

Reactions from former Enron employees to Thursday's verdict in the Enron criminal trial were swift and unambiguous.

"Fantastic! Fantastic!" said Deborah Perrotta, who worked as an administrative assistant in Enron India's Houston-based office.

"It's a victory to show that corporate America can't get away with misleading the public and employees for their own personal gain," said Perrotta, who lost her job after the company filed for bankruptcy.

Enron founder Kenneth Lay was found guilty on six counts of conspiracy and fraud and former CEO Jeff Skilling was found guilty on 19 counts by a Houston jury in the biggest of the corporate fraud cases.

"Thank God," said Debra Johnson, another former Enron worker, "because the jury saw fit to punish them for what they did."

"The sentence may not be to everyone's liking," said Johnson, who worked as a coordinator in the Enron International office until the company's 2001 bankruptcy. "But the verdict is about being fair to everyday working people."

"Skilling and Lay thought the money, the power was everything," said Johnson. "This will let executives at other corporations know that it can happen to them. This is a milestone. And it's well deserved. We waited long enough. I'm smiling as I talk to you. I wish I'd been able to be there."

In a separate bench trial, Judge Sim Lake ruled Lay was guilty of four counts of fraud and false statements. Both Lay and Skilling could face 20 to 30 years in prison, legal experts say. (Full story).

"We're never going to get our money back," said Perrotta, who now works as a representative for the Texas Federation of Teachers in Dallas. "We're not going to reap from this. It's just the satisfaction. It helps me close the book on the Enron debacle.

"It closes the door. Now I can start a new chapter in my life," she said.

Wingnuttia: Irony-Free Zone

Wait. Is this real? Can the wingnuts possibly be this clueless? As my pal who sent me this link said: not only do they think Colbert's not funny, they think he's completely serious! It's simply too much.

Watch a clip from the Colbert Report at the Defend DeLay website. That's right. It's presented w/o commentary. Bwahaahah!

Born on the Cusp

The American Analog Set: Born_On_The_Cusp.

So you're born on the cusp
Or it's a run of bad luck
But it's bigger than us
It's bigger than love

This song reminds me of that time in your life when you’re too old to be playing at young, but you’re still mopey and heartbroken – poor broken-winged little bird! – and you Have So Much to Say (!), but you can’t get it out, and you sit at your desk biting your nails and pining for something – what? – who cares, something, and wishing you could have it but knowing full well that you don’t really want it because that would stop the wanting.

On that note, T.S. Eliot:

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.