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Hey, That’s a New Twist!

[ 0 ] March 19, 2007 | Robert Farley

For some reason, it seems like the number of “I’m a Nigerian ministerial official, and have $36 million I’d like to share with you if only you can help me get it out of the country” e-mails have gone through the roof. I can’t understand why; did people suddenly get a lot stupider, or have they just been picking my e-mail address out more often? Anyway, I got a slightly classier version this morning:

1st Armored Division
Iraq

Good day,

We are American soldiers fighting in Iraq serving in the military of the 1st Armored Division. The saga of rise and death tolls should not be new to you and i am sure you will not find this mail worrisome. We have seen so much in our days of stay here and no matter how much we paint the picture, you will never understand.

During our invasion of some hiding out mansion used by al-Qaida leader in Iraqi Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi we discovered huge amount of money in cash and mostly in 100 dollar bills, Most of the funds were taken by our superiors and we can not authoritatively or emphatically make over statements concerning the money

But it will interest you to know that we are able to secure part of the money for ourself, please we need your assistance to secure and Invest the money in our behalf,I am interested in investing in Real Estate or any other profitable venture you may suggest,

You may be surprise or skeptical why I chose you as a partner in this deal since I do not know you, well I decided not to contact any body I know for this business to avoid any implications or blackmailing now or in the future considering my self as an American Soldier, I hope you will understanding and co-operation accordingly

The funds are available and will be released to you as soon as I receive a positive response from you. attached is the pictures of where and how the fund was discovered, more will be explain to you once I get your consent to this effect

Feel free to come up with your percentage sharing pattern of the fund as I am as good as yielding towards accepting a reasonable percentage share of the fund you will demand for the benefit of our mutual understanding.

Wow; it would almost be unpatriotic of me if I didn’t help these guys out! And I get to share in some terrorist money, too!

Private Morality and Public Policy

[ 0 ] March 18, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

Matt quotes my colleague Ken Sherrill about why Democrats who support equal rights may be reluctant to disclaim the notion that homosexuality is immoral. The other important point, I think, is that from a political (as opposed to personal) level, what matters is the policy, not the subjective morality. Just as it doesn’t matter what John McCain “really” thinks about abortion when he’s resolutely in favor of criminalizing it, if you support gay rights your personal position about the morality of gay sexuality is not terribly important.

…Pithlord, Matt and lt are correct to point out in comments that it’s wrong to imply that public comments about the morality of sexuality are irrelevant. Obviously, it’s suboptimal for candidates to express the wrong opinion on the issue.

WASPS!

[ 0 ] March 18, 2007 | davenoon

Victor Davis Hanson may or may not actually f**k like a beast — I really don’t want to think about it — but he certainly writes as if he were swinging slabs of raw pork against his keyboard.

In the latest free “outtake” [sic] from his upcoming novel, Cultosaurus Erectus No Man a Slave, Hanson spins a humble parable about the wisdom of declaring pre-emptive war against gall wasps, fairy flies, flower wasps, mud divers, yellow jackets and all other insects of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that are not bees or ants:

“But tell me this also farmer,” Epaminondas pressed even closer, still grinning at upping the Thespian. “Think when you have wasps with the sharp tails in you vineyard that Malgis planted. You know the terrible black ones. The ones that sting the paws of sleeping Sturax over there. Or land on the nose of Porpax. Or even in their pride jab the tall legs of your Neto or the chest of buxom Damo—do you chase them all over the orchard, flailing at one or two of them with the broom or clapping at them with your hands?”

“Of course, not!” Odd that the Theban knew of Neto and his son’s wife Damo, and of Chion and apparently Sturax and Porpax too, but at least not Gorgos as well.

“You think me a fool, Theban? To protect this household that you apparently know so well, I hunt out the nest of these stingers and then burn them out all at once with a torch of straw. Yes, I do. And so would you, had you any sense.” Melon sensed the Theban had a good lid on his own pot, and would need two or three more sticks on the fire before boiling over.

Still, Epaminondas flashed his black eyes, “Then don’t mark me a fool either, when you call me dream monger and worse. Like an old woman by the fire, you warn me that it is terrible to fight the Spartans. Maybe it is—as we both know—or maybe not. But when you fight the Spartans, you must kill their king. No one, not even our Malgis had done that. Then when you take on Sparta, you fight in Sparta, not where and when the kings slither or buzz to sting you.”

Now, this may be the way Epaminomodilsaiuhurlhhdsdjkas likes to fight a nest of wasps, but there’s probably a better way, me thinks. When my dogs — who for all their faults at least don’t have wuss names like “Sturax” and “Porpax” — are stung by wasps from the yonder fields of Thespai, Thisbe, and Tangara, I’m generally too fucking lazy to go deal with the problem sensibly. After all, the rich bastards who live on my farm want their rents lowered, and they want to ride around in their big fucking wagons with those expensive Arabian horses and their togas spun from gold and all that. And what am I going to say? “No?” As if! So I figure, fuck it — I’m going to just borrow a lot of money and pay some dickheads who live near the wasps’ nest to take care of the problem for me.

My neighbors usually offer to help out, but I figure fuck them, too — what do they know? They seem to object when my hired dickheads catch a wasp here and there and bring it back to me so I can pull its wings off and get out the magnifying glass and make it listen to bad music from my pan flute. So the neighbors are out, the pussies.

Anyhoo, while other folks are off dealing with the wasps’ nest, I’m going to borrow some more money, fluff the rich some more, and start looking around for some ant hills to crush. They may not be wasps, but they’re Apocrita all the same, and I’m pretty sure I can take them.

. . . in comments, Texas’ newest ex-pat points us to a cartoon that just about says it all . . .

Sunday Deposed Monarch Blogging: House of Iturbide

[ 0 ] March 18, 2007 | Robert Farley

In the wake of the Mexican War of Independence, General Agustin de Iturbide came to power as head of Mexico’s new ruling junta. Originally an officer in the Spanish Army, General Iturbide had switched to the rebel side in 1820, a defection that proved important to the cause of Mexican independence. Iturbide defected, in part, because of his commitment to conservative criollo values; a coup d’etat in Spain had brought a liberal government to power, and Iturbide wished to protect Mexico from the threat of real revolution. Consequently, while Iturbide’s defection helped ensure Mexican independence, it also served to deradicalize the pro-independence forces.

Nevertheless, Iturbide remained a committed royalist. Part of the deal that brought together the various pro-independence forces was a scheme to find a European monarch to replace Ferdinand VII on the throne of Mexico. However, no immediate replacement could be found, as few European monarchs had much of an interest in insulting Ferdinand. At the behest of his officers and men, Agustin de Iturbide decided to accept the throne, and was declared Emperor of Mexico in May 1822. The young emperor (thirty-nine years old when he assumed the throne) had been born in Mexico to Spanish parents. Unfortunately, he did not make a successful transition from military to civilian leadership. His management style grated on the rest of the ruling clique, and in early 1823 a movement developed to force his abdication. He gave up the throne in March 1823 and fled to Italy. For unclear reasons, he returned to Mexico in 1824, at which point he was immediately arrested and shot shortly thereafter.

In the absence of the strong, guiding hand of an Emperor, the Republic of Mexico proceeded to lose a third of its land territory and accumulate massive debts over the next forty years. In 1860, Britain, France, and Spain attacked Mexico in order to force the payment of debts. Although Britain and Spain soon withdrew, Napoleon III had other plans. French forces marched to Mexico City, and in 1864 placed Maximilian I on the throne. Mexican monarchists had previously entertained the idea of offering the crown to Maximilian, but he turned down an offer in 1859 because he suspected popular support for the monarchy was insufficient. Maximilian’s father was a Habsburg and his mother a Wittelsbach, giving him a suitably impressive bloodline for his stint as Emperor of Mexico. Sadly, Maximilian had been misled about the extent of royalist sentiment in Mexico. Although he adopted the grandsons of Agustin de Iturbide as his heirs, he was unable to win the support of Mexican liberals, and irritated conservatives through his efforts to win republican support. In 1866 France withdrew its troops at the behest of the United States, and Republican forces began to prevail. Captured in May 1867 after the fall of Queretaro, Maximilian was court martialed and, to the horror of the crowned heads of Europe, executed by firing squad.

Agustin and Salvador de Iturbide, the appointed heirs of Maximilian, continued to press their claims to the Mexican throne, although without success. Agustin died in exile in the United States, and Salvador died of appendicitis in Venice. Salvador’s daughter Maria Joseph then became head of the Imperial House, dying in 1949 after being interned by the Rumanian Communist government after World War II. The current claimant to the throne of Mexico is Maximilian von Götzen-Iturbide, who presumably will become Maximilian II if his claim is recognized. Born in 1944, Maximiliano has demonstrated little interest in pressing his claim, perhaps because of the rather grim fates of his two predecessors. Prospects for a return to the throne appear extremely grim, as no monarchist movement worth mentioning exists in Mexico, and because of the lack of interest on the part of the Maximiliano, who currently lives in Australia.

Trivia: The current claimant to which throne has served successively as Minister of Health, Minister of Education, and Ambassador to the United States?

Hacktacular!

[ 0 ] March 18, 2007 | Scott Lemieux

Glenn Reynolds asserts as fact that “it was Joe Wilson who outed Valerie Plame.” If you clink through the link, however, you’ll note that the linkee provides no evidence whatsoever for his assertion; he’s got nothing but a just-so story based on pure speculation. Of course, we are dealing with a guy who proclaimed the Plame scandal “bogus” because she appeared in a public photo after she had already been outed, so admittedly the illogic and lack of evidence here are modest by his historical standards.

Ooh, a Murder Mystery! In Space!! (Spoilers)

[ 0 ] March 18, 2007 | Robert Farley

Note to Ron Moore: For whatever reason, the writing and production team you have assembled cannot put together a murder mystery. All of the episodes centering on a murder mystery (Black Market, The Woman King, Litmus) are really bad, and the murder mystery elements of several other episodes (The Son Also Rises, Final Cut) are also quite bad. As there are, in fact, other potentially profitable storylines (something involving Cylons, for example) please stop with the awful CSI: Battlestar Galactica eps.

Not Paying Attention

[ 0 ] March 17, 2007 | Robert Farley

Hey, statements like “I probably deserved this” make me feel bad about vicious. personal critiques of Mickey Kaus. On the other hand, statements like

U.S. military deaths in Iraq have apparently declined by about 20% since the “surge” began.

display what can only be described as an extraordinary level of ignorance about the US occupation of Iraq. Since the beginning of the Occupation, casualities have unsurprisingly fluctuated from month to month. I’m not sure when Mickey dates the beginning of the “Surge”, but US killed for January were 2.77/day, for February were 3.0/day, and for March thus far have been 2.94/day. November and September 2006 deaths were 2.57 day, and August 2006 2.13/day. Since December 15, 2005 US deaths have run 2.45/day.

Obviously, it’s absurd to claim that US deaths have dropped 20% since the beginning of the “surge”. But this is hardly surprising; Kaus’ assaults on the Left have never required evidence, while his attacks on the Right… well, if he made one, I might have something to say about it…

Aw….

[ 0 ] March 17, 2007 | Robert Farley

Deepest condolences to Mike “Leo” Strausz on the defeat of his Michigan State Spartans. Sadly, Mike made the cardinal error of confusing his rooting interests with a rational assessment of the odds. I would never make such a mistake…

Worst American Birthdays, vol. VIII

[ 0 ] March 17, 2007 | davenoon

John Wayne Gacy — restaurant manager, building contractor, Jaycee, birthday entertainer, Democratic party precinct captain, and serial killer — was born 65 years ago today in Chicago.

Although his father was an alcoholic and Gacy himself suffered a head injury and heart problems as a youth, his childhood was more or less uneventful. As a young man he meandered his way into the world of business, becoming a successful shoe salesman in Illinois and the manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Iowa. After enduring a divorce and serving a brief prison term for child molestation — a crime that stemmed from his days managing the KFC — Gacy returned to the city of his birth in 1971. He remarried, becoming a stepfather to two children, and during his free time — when he wasn’t impressing the community with his volunteer work as an amateur clown — began raping and strangling young men and boys. Dismayed by her husband’s erratic behavior and his peculiar reading habits, Gacy’s second wife left him in 1976; he was less than devastated by the divorce and continued about both his work and his hobbies. At the time of his confession in December 1978, John Wayne Gacy had murdered 33 people, most of whom he buried underneath his house and garage, which he famously described as an unlicensed funeral home.

Four days before his 38th birthday, Gacy was condemned to death by the state of Illinois. He spent the next 14 years at Manard Correctional Facility outside Chester, Illinois, where he passed much of his time painting clowns. In May 1994, Gacy was injected with a lethal dose of sodium thiopentol, pancurinium bromide and potassium chloride after reinforcing his arteries with a final meal of fried chicken and french fries. His last words, according to legend, were “kiss my ass.”

A cultural icon, John Wayne Gacy has been the subject of dozens of books, numerous documentary films, and countless songs. Of the latter, this is the only one worth a damn, even though it understates Gacy’s actual body count:

. . . better video (longer loading time, though) here:

“>

Ownership Foreclosure Society

[ 0 ] March 17, 2007 | davenoon

File this under “Depressing but Not Surprising”:

From 2000 to 2005, homeownership rates increased significantly only among households in the top two-fifths of the income distribution, those earning more than $46,883, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

Homeownership declined for families in the bottom two-fifths of the income scale. In the lowest fifth — where families make less than $20,180 — homeownership was only 42.4 percent in 2005, which was 3 percentage points less than it was 25 years earlier and 26 percentage points below the national average.

Part of the reason is the structure of government subsidies, which are worth very little to low-income families but quite a bit to families with big incomes. Those well-off families typically do not need government support to buy a home but use it to buy bigger places than they would otherwise purchase.

June, according to the article, has been declared “National Homeownership Month” by President Bush. By that time, it appears that well over half a million homes purchased with sub-prime mortgages will be in arrears or foreclosure. Thank goodness we’ve maintained our bankruptcy laws so that people facing difficult economic circumstances can start ov– oh, wait. Never mind.

Friday Cat (Power) Blogging

[ 0 ] March 16, 2007 | davenoon

Missed Opportunities

[ 0 ] March 16, 2007 | davenoon

Goddammit.

Oh, well. Looks like Assrocket was there.

That’s right. He actually wrote that “[a]nyone willing to criticize Gandhi, the most overrated man of the 20th century, is worth a second look.”

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