What about the death penalty? It's an issue on which I suspect people of faith are sharply divived [sic]. What about the environment? Global AIDS and world poverty? Poverty in America? These are all issues that go to the core of what it means to be a Christian.

The recent memorial for long-term New York Review co-editor Barbara Epstein, sadly felled by cancer on June 15, was disfigured by an unseemly outbursts from Christopher Hitchens. There was a list of invitees for the private ceremony and C. Hitchens -- a sometime NYT contributor ­ was not on the list. He implored to be admitted, and some misguidedly decent soul gave him the green light.

Visibly taken with drink, in the estimate of at least one observer, Hitchens showed up and soon made his way to Jean Stein, a close friend of Barbara Epstein, also editor of Grand Street in recent years. Hitchens spared Stein the habitual presentation of his hairy cheek but made a low, facetious bow and offered his hand.

Stein icily declined, saying she had no desire to shake hands with him for many reasons, not least the fact that Hitchens had attacked one of her best friends, Edward Said, while he was on his death bed.

As Hitchens retreated, someone remarked to him, "So your glorious war has turned out to be a total disaster, hasn't it?"

"It is glorious," the sodden scrivener blared, "and it IS my war because it needed Paul Wolfowitz and myself to go and convince the President to go to war."

As mourners digested this megalomanic outburst, Hitchens continued, "And we are going to kill every Al Qaida terrist (sic) and Baathist in the country and that's a good thing. They need to be killed and we will kill them."

I'm starting to think that this Presidenting gig doesn't really require much skill. Lots of style, but very little substance, from what I've seen over the past five years. I mean, your working knowledge of geopolitics need only be basic; whenever something bad happens, your press secretary burns a DVD of all the news footage for you to watch while you're perched on the West Wing john; the Armed Forces keep dressing you in discontinued, presidential seal-emblazoned "Members Only" jackets that would make "Kickin' It" Kim Jong Il launch an ICBM in a fit of envy; and you get to hand-pick your audience when you have to make that annoying policy speech over and over again.

God knows, you don't have to be particularly photogenic or articulate. You don't even have to believe what you're saying. To quote Eddie Izzard: "70% of what people react to is how you look . . . , 20% is about how you sound, and only 10% is what you say." All you have to do is mouth the words.

...

And when the press hounds you for surrounding yourself with over-protective sycophants, all you have to do is forcefully pound the podium, look sternly at Helen Thomas, call yourself "The Resolver" or "The Chooser" or "The Figure-Outer," and you're out of the Rose Garden and on your mountain bike before Andy Card can put on his jock.

As far as I can tell — and I’m not the smartest or most sober guy ever, but I can often make up for it by doing really focused due diligence — the reason we’re in Iraq is that there’s oil there; and we’re building permanent military bases because we intend to maintain a presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, in regard to that oil, which would otherwise be on the market where such entities as China would be competing for it equally. It’s not about WMDs, or about removing a threat, nor about ’spreading democracy,’ and never was; but about the simple fact that there isn’t very much oil left unclaimed in the world, and whether ensuring a supply of it militarily, through conquest, is a good or bad thing geopolitically (I wonder about that often, with clammy discomfort), the current administration is an administration of oilmen, who are also focused almost exclusively on the needs of people like themselves.

So no, they’re not leaving. They intend to stay.

And the time to decide what you stand for is not after you lose the election.

"[The soccer ball] consists of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons, and a standard question one can ask is: why can't we tile the whole surface with hexagons ? This shape is also called the Buckyball, and is a special case of a carbon allotrope called a fullerene.

Apparently, the soccer balls being used at the World Cup are no longer polyhedral. They consist of 14 pieces, many of which look a lot like the squashed oval shape you see on tennis balls and baseballs. This makes the ball rounder and faster, and apparently gives it baseball-like effects when moving through the air."

'Thirst for knowledge' may be opium craving

The brain's reward for getting a concept is a shot of natural opiates

Neuroscientists have proposed a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix.

The "click" of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances, said Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California. He presents his theory in an invited article in the latest issue of American Scientist.

"While you're trying to understand a difficult theorem, it's not fun," said Biederman, professor of neuroscience in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

"But once you get it, you just feel fabulous."

The brain's craving for a fix motivates humans to maximize the rate at which they absorb knowledge, he said.

"I think we're exquisitely tuned to this as if we're junkies, second by second."

Biederman hypothesized that knowledge addiction has strong evolutionary value because mate selection correlates closely with perceived intelligence.

Only more pressing material needs, such as hunger, can suspend the quest for knowledge, he added.

The same mechanism is involved in the aesthetic experience, Biederman said, providing a neurological explanation for the pleasure we derive from art.

"This account may provide a plausible and very simple mechanism for aesthetic and perceptual and cognitive curiosity."

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in Iraq? Are the good guys the U.S. troops fighting to impose American hegemony in the Gulf? Are the good guys the American forces who have installed a murderous Shi'ite theocracy in Baghdad? Are the good guys the Marines who murdered children and babies in Haditha in cold blood? Are the good guys the U.S. officers who brought us Abu Ghraib, or the generals who signed off on their methods, or the administration that set them on such a path in the first place? Who was it, after all, who pulverized the institutions of the Iraqi state and society?

DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl can enter into a common-law marriage in Colorado, a state appeals court ruled Thursday. Younger girls and boys may also be able to marry.
While the three-judge panel stopped short of setting a specific minimum age for such marriages, it said they could be legal for girls at 12 and boys at 14 under English common law, which Colorado recognizes.

The ruling overturned a lower-court judge's decision that a girl, who is now older than 18, was too young to marry when she was 15. The panel said there was no clear legislative or statutory guidance on common-law marriages, and that Colorado courts have not determined an age of consent.

Colorado is one of 10 states, plus the District of Columbia, that recognize common-law marriage, which is based on English law dating back hundreds of years.

For traditional ceremonial marriage, Colorado law sets the minimum age at 18, or 16 with parental or judicial approval.

"It appears that Colorado has adopted the common-law age of consent for marriage as 14 for a male and 12 for a female, which existed under English common law," the ruling said. "Nevertheless, we need only hold here that a 15-year-old female may enter into a valid common-law marriage."

Could we be on the verge of another financial catastrophe? I'll admit it: I'm hopeful. First, because I'm poor and spiteful, and secondly, because one of the nice things about financial collapses (like military disasters) is that all the ugly, corrupt realities underpinning a so-called economic boom are revealed, and the worst in humanity is laid bare, and everyone everywhere gets pissed off, cynical, and hopeless. That's the kind of thing that boosts my mood, not to mention my sexual drive. Financial panics are to me what endangered mammal horns are to Chinese men: pure Viagra placebo.

. . .

The bottom line is this: the global economy is experiencing one of those insane, untenable imbalances, all emanating from New York and Washington, just like the last time around, most of the effects of which will be felt in Mumbai, Istanbul and Moscow.

As the easy credit dries up in the US, assets that inflated most wildly -- like American houses and Russian stocks -- are the first to fall. And both already are.

What's happening with emerging market stocks is just a snapshot of what's to come. In just the last month, the stock market selloffs have wiped out $2 trillion in wealth around the globe. That's scary, and that means that more money's going to be leaving places like Russia. And just like last time, first it's the stocks and bonds that get hit, and eventually, property prices get creamed as more and more money leaves.

How far everything will fall, and for how long, is anyone's guess. All one can do is hope. And my hope is that the whole fucking house of cards comes crashing down, to the point where in a couple of years from now, humanoids will be roaming barren cities in packs, competing with crows and stray dogs for carcass bones. Because when that happens, everything, even a nifty three-room apartment in Kitai Gorod, or a humble condo at Zuma Beach in Malibu, will be affordable to a lifelong fuckup like me.

So keep the easy credit rolling, ye greedy finance goons...the higher it rises, the harder it will fall. And the more for me.

1. The Prez watches PBS. Maybe he'll catch a rerun of one of those Frontlines where they talk about how his administration has fucked everything up.
2. The Prez changed his mind. I don't think that the importance of this can be overstated. This isn't some bullshit, "Whoops, I shouldn't have said, 'Bring it on.' But Rumsfeld, you're doing a heck of a job." He had one opinion, completely changed his opinion, and this change led to positive action. This is awesome. I think this is a very hopeful sign. I don't really have a lot of hope, but hey, it's something.

... Antonin Scalia, writing for the Majority...

"The closest Karl Rove ever came to combat," said Kerry spokesman David Wade, "was these last months spent worrying his cellmates might rough him up in prison. This porcine political operative can't cut and run from the truth any longer."

Do you go dancing up to people in wheelchairs too, you sick fuck? "Hey there, Ironsides! Race ya!"

A joint resolution referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) calls for the withdrawal of all American military forces from Iraq by Dec. 31. Boxer's "redeployment" bill cites in its preamble a January poll finding that 64% of Iraqis believe that crime and violent attacks will decrease if the U.S. leaves Iraq within six months, 67% believe that their day-to-day security will increase if the U.S. withdraws and 73% believe that factions in parliament will cooperate more if the U.S. withdraws.

The Kosniks are cultists, and there is, ultimately, nothing more tiresome. They've invested so much, emotionally, in the Democratic Party that it's made them rather shallow and monotonous. All their thinking, all their energy, is bent toward getting people like Massa and Sestak -- and ultimately, Warner or Hillary Clinton -- into office. As the song says:

One, two, three, what're we fighting for?Don't ask me, I don't give a damn...

No doubt they all started with a vision, a generous, humane vision. But the instrument they chose to realize their vision has turned them into its instruments instead.

Obama will often be a reliable liberal vote, and he can give one hell of a speech. But we should believe him when he downplays our expectations. He says he's "a work in progress," but he's in an institution that tends to stifle greatness. As comic Jon Stewart said, "Everybody thought Barack Obama was going to [inspire people] when he came to Washington, but, you know, the Senate seems like the place where smart people go to die."

"Why is coca legal for Coca-Cola but not for native peoples and peasants?" Morales asked members of the European Parliament in a speech last month. Some non-narcotic chemicals extracted from coca are used to flavor the soft drink.

Even though Morales appears to have support from some European Union members to end the ban, he faces a herculean task in convincing the United States. Anne Patterson, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics, says Washington will veto any attempt to amend international law. "The U.S. is not going to support the idea," she said last month on a visit to La Paz, Bolivia.

Cognitions which contradict each other are said to be "dissonant," while cognitions which agree with each other are said to be "consonant." Cognitions which neither agree nor disagree with each other are said to be "irrelevant."

The introduction of new cognition that is dissonant with a currently held cognition creates a state of "dissonance," the magnitude of which relates to the relative importance of the involved cognitions. Dissonance can be reduced either by eliminating dissonant cognitions, or by adding new consonant cognitions. The maximum possible dissonance is equal to the resistance to change of the less resistant cognition; therefore, once dissonance reaches a level that overcomes the resistance of one of the cognitions involved, that cognition will be changed or eliminated, and dissonance will be reduced.

This leads some people who feel dissonance to seek information that will reduce dissonance and avoid information that will increase dissonance. People who are involuntarily exposed to information that increases dissonance are likely to discount that information, either by ignoring it, misinterpreting it, or denying it.

A 16-year-old Michigan girl who authorities say tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew off to the Mideast to be with a West Bank man she met on MySpace.com headed for home on Friday.

U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded her to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank.

. . .

Katherine disappeared Monday after talking her family into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff's officials said. She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.

The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York's Kennedy Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, FBI agent Robert Beeckman said.

. . .

A laser pulse melted a tiny piece of metal on a silicon chip, resulting in an unexpected shape that looks like a very, very small Easter bonnet. An unintended dust particle serves as a decorative flower on its top. The size of the bonnet in this photo, measured from left to right, is about 45 micrometers, half the diameter of a human hair.

By superimposing images of mitosis and cell division on mass-produced floral fabric, this painting speaks generally of growth. It also extends the notion to encapsulate unregulated growth, and as the fabric pattern reveals, it could extend infinitely. Thus this could be conceived of as a sort of tumor. The floral pattern and the coloration of this piece are also reminiscent of feminine qualities, which opens up the door for dialogue about conceptions of growth. Utilizing elements of modern art, such as a grid, emboldened to an organic state, this piece is very much within a contemporary time frame while being simultaneously timeless.

Before leaving Amman, I had asked the high-level Jordanian intelligence official with whom I met whether al-Zarqawi, in his view, was a potential challenger to Osama bin Laden.

“Not at all,” he replied. “Zarqawi had the ambition to become what he has, but whatever happens, even if he becomes the most popular figure in Iraq, he can never go against the symbolism that bin Laden represents. If Zarqawi is captured or killed tomorrow, the Iraqi insurgency will go on. There is no such thing as ‘Zarqawism.’ What Zarqawi is will die with him. Bin Laden, on the other hand, is an ideological thinker. He created the concept of al-Qaeda and all of its offshoots. He feels he’s achieved his goal.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Osama bin Laden is like Karl Marx. Both created an ideology. Marxism still flourished well after Marx’s death. And whether bin Laden is killed, or simply dies of natural causes, al-Qaedaism will survive him.”

Traditional "libertarianism" holds that government is evil and thus must be minimized. Any and all government intrusion is bad. While practical libertarians (as opposed to those who waste their votes on the Libertarian Party) have traditionally aligned themselves with the Republicans, it's clear that the modern GOP has no qualms about trampling on personal liberties. Heck, it's become their raison d' etre.

The problem with this form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty -- the government and other individuals.

The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty -- the corporation. The Lib Dem (in the US context, not the UK political party) understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties. (emphasis added)

Lib Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Lib Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

In other words, government can protect our liberties from those who would infringe upon them -- corporations and other individuals.

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that explicitly bans "humiliating and degrading treatment," according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further, potentially permanent, shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards.

Just four months after joining the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito Jr. on Monday joined the club of jurists who have been targets of Justice Antonin Scalia's wrath.

Alito wrote Zedner v. United States for a unanimous Court on Monday, siding with a criminal defendant in a dispute over interpretation of the Speedy Trial Act. But Scalia, while joining the decision, wrote a concurrence criticizing Alito for citing the legislative history of the statute, which Scalia believes is irrelevant.

"Because the use of legislative history is illegitimate and ill advised in the interpretation of any statute -- and especially a statute that is clear on its face -- I do not join this portion of the Court's opinion," Scalia wrote.

The side spat is a small but significant sign of Alito's independence from Scalia, whom many presumed would be a consistent conservative ally and friend.

In the drafting process, Alito could easily have mollified Scalia by deleting the paragraph that invoked legislative history. In interpreting acts of Congress, Scalia has vocally criticized reliance on legislative history -- congressional floor statements, committee reports, and the like -- in his 20 years on the Court, preferring instead to go strictly by the words of the statute. But the fact that Alito left the paragraph in, and Scalia felt moved to object to it, revealed at least some daylight between the two.

Alito's use of legislative history places him closer to the camp of moderate-liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who last year warned in his book "Active Liberty" of "the danger that lurks where judges rely too heavily on text."

• Celestial Archer, who has ties to Chinese mythology
  
• Ghost Fox Killer, an emissary from a dwindling colony, whose task is to kill evil men
  
• Mother of Champions, who can give birth to a litter of 25 super-soldiers about every three days
  
• Accomplished Perfect Physician, who uses sound to cure cancer and promote healing
  
• Thundermind, who, um, looks like Buddha
  
• Socialist Red Guardsman, who used his solar powers to carry out the Cultural Revolution
  
• Immortal Man in Darkness, who gives off dark, swirling vapors (kind of like SARS, or bird flu?)
  
• August General, who is known for preventing the Shaolin Robots from enforcing a return to imperial rule
  

At first I thought it was a joke, but it's for real. It's a Chinese superteam comprised of a mythical archer, a mystic killer, a cancer curer, a Buddha, a Socialist robo-suit man, a dark vapor guy, and—my favorite—a woman who literally gives birth to more Chinese men. Not only does it sound stupid, the character names and designs are ridiculous as well. It's a whole team of Chinese stereotypes! Someone actually thought this was a good idea. Can't wait to see where they take this.

Last weekend, rail commuters in Toronto were befuddled by hacked in-car electronic displays that, instead of traffic and advertising notices, repeated "Stephen Harper Eats Babies" every three seconds. You may not know that Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada.

[...]

Two items of interest here for marketers: this message repeated, on at least five different displays, for THREE days before being removed.

[...]

"Commuter Gerry Nicholls said he thought he was hallucinating as he relaxed in his seat for the 35-minute GO train ride between Toronto and his Oakville home. ...

"No one seemed to be reacting to it," ... "I kept waiting for the kicker,'' he said. "I thought, there's got to be something to this. It's a joke, it's an ad for baby food or something like that. It just kept going over and over again and I realized that this is something that could be pretty serious.

"I wasn't even sure when I got off the train. Was I hallucinating?"

The Bay Area might be home to a small cluster of a horrifying and as-yet-incurable disease that leaves patients with open sores all over their bodies and strange, unidentifiable objects poking out of their skin.

Or not. It's possible that this mystery disease is all in their heads.

The disease is called Morgellons, and no one knows what causes it or if it's even real.

[snip]

It doesn't help convince disbelieving doctors that many sufferers complain of hard-to-believe symptoms. One San Francisco woman describes "tiny green shrimp"* that come from her face, and she said she saw a fly pop out of her right eye. Even doctors and patients who believe Morgellons exists cringe at such reports.

"There really are physical symptoms that occur in people who are not crazy, although once they have it, it usually makes them pretty crazy," said San Francisco Lyme disease specialist Dr. Raphael Stricker, who has seen several patients with Morgellons symptoms.

[snip]

"These people, I feel terrible for them. They're suffering a ghastly disease, and no one will believe them, no one will help them, and in fact, everyone tells them they're crazy," Savely said. "If any one of these people came to me alone, I might have been skeptical of their stories. But when you have more than 100 people, and their stories are identical, that's impressive."

[snip]

Stricker said he has studied samples under a microscope, and they look like cellulose fibers, which typically would be found in plant material.

"When you see it, it's very hard to explain away. These patients have something that's really not delusional," Stricker said.

Still, plenty of doctors disagree.

Many Morgellons symptoms -- the feeling of something crawling beneath the skin, the open sores, even patients' conviction that they are absolutely infested with a parasite -- can be attributed to delusional parasitosis, doctors say. The sores are self-inflicted, caused when people scratch at a spot they think is infected, they say. ..."It's probably just a group of patients who haven't gotten the appropriate treatment, and they're calling it Morgellons."

Democrats will also choose between two inept mud-slingers to face Arnold Schwarzenegger -- Steve Westly and Phil Angelides. It's taking everything I have to head to the polls after I'm done with my morning blogging.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

The Empire State Building in New York City is struck around 100 times a year, on average. The building is even designed as a lightning rod to keep lightning away from other buildings.

"German artist Martin Kippenberger once proposed a subway system for the entire world, connecting Los Angeles to Helsinki, Tokyo to Rome, Münster to Dawson City. Greek islands, Canadian towns, Swiss lakes, pharaonic tombs – there would be entrances everywhere."