Creepiest. Ad. Ever.
Dick Vitale for Hooters.
The prospect of seeing it again is almost enough to keep me away from the Bellagio Sports Book. Almost.
…don’t blame me for the embed. A commenter made me do it.
Further Evidence that Chess is Among the Most Noble of Human Pursuits
Mr. Kasparov, 43, is not Mr. Putin’s only critic, but he may be the most prominent. And he has brought to oppositional politics the same energy and aggression that characterized his chess, attacking Mr. Putin and the Kremlin — or the regime, as he repeatedly calls it — with language rarely spoken so bluntly in Russia.
“This regime is getting out of touch with the real world,” he said. “It’s a deadly combination of money, power and blood — and impunity.”
Such attacks have drawn the scrutiny of the authorities, though so far nothing worse; someone who sounded angry that Mr. Kasparov had given up chess for politics attacked him with a chessboard in 2005. (“I am lucky,” he said at the time, “that the popular sport in the Soviet Union was chess and not baseball.”)
Just try not to get yourself killed, Garry. Seriously.
Unfortunately, his old rival Anatoly Karpov has developed from being an apologist for the Soviet state to becoming an apologist for Putin.
“I don’t think [Kasparov] has a big future in politics. I don’t think he has traveled much in Russia. Russia is a state within a state. To understand the population of Russia, you need to know the areas of the country, you need an understanding of the people and their interests,” he said. “He knows Moscow. He has an understanding of the Russian elite, but not of the people of Russia. This is his problem.” …“In general, I believe Putin has [done] the necessary things to keep Russia as one country. Putin needs strong moves to keep the country as one,” he said. “There is some criticism that he is centralizing power, but in Russia, if you don’t centralize power, you have the risk of losing the country.”
Worst American Birthdays, vol. V
George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party and Hatenanny Records; author of racist paperweights such as This Time in the World and White Power; failed gubernatorial candidate in Virginia; assassinated outside a laundromat in August 1967.
More Rubble
Today is the anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II, when hundreds of American B-29s incinerated 16-17 square miles of the city and turned 100,000 people — civilians mostly — into ash. Placed along side the sustained Chinese Japanese raids on Chongqing, the German assault on Guernica, and the destruction of Dresden by British and American pilots, the March 1945 raids on Tokyo must surely rank as a low-point in human history.
They are, however, unjustly overlooked, eclipsed by the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later and diminished by the thoroughly merciless theater of the Pacific. Fog of War probably did more to resuscitate the memory of Tokyo’s destruction among Americans, as Robert McNamara reminded us that by any measure these events must be counted as war crimes. In a single night, the United States inflicted a toll of death equal to one quarter of the number of Americans who perished over the course of the entire war.
A French reporter named Robert Guillain described the unthinkable scene:
They set to work at once, sowing the sky with fire. Bursts of light flashed everywhere in the darkness like Christmas trees, lifting their flame high into the night, then fell back to earth in whistling bouquets of jagged flame. Barely quarter of an hour after the raid started, the fire, whipped by the wind, began to scythe its way through the density of that wooden city. As they fell, cylinders scattered a kind of flaming dew that skidded along the roofs, setting fire to everything it splashed, and spreading a wash of dancing flames everywhere. The first version of napalm. Roofs collapsed under the bombs’ impact, and within minutes the frail houses of wood and paper were aflame, lighted from the inside like paper lanterns.. . . . The inhabitants stayed heroically put as the bombs dropped, faithfully obeying the order that each family defend its own home. But how could they fight the fires with that wind blowing and when a single house might be hit by ten or even more of the bombs, each weighing up to 6.6 pounds, that were raining down by the thousands? As they fell, cylinders scattered a kind of flaming dew that skittered along the roofs, setting fire to everything it splashed and spreading a wash of dancing flames everywhere – the first version of napalm, of dismal fame. The meager defenses of those thousands of amateur firemen – feeble jets of hand-pumped water, wet mats and sand to be thrown on the bombs when one could get close enough to their terrible heat were completely inadequate. Roofs collapsed under the bombs’ impact and within minutes the frail houses of wood and paper were aflame, lighted from the inside like paper lanterns. The hurricane-force wind puffed up great clots of flame and sent burning planks planing through the air to fell people and set fire to what they touched. Flames from a distant cluster of houses would suddenly spring up close at hand, traveling at the speed of a forest fire. Then screaming families abandoned their homes; sometimes the women had already left, carrying their babies and dragging crates or mattresses. Too late: the circle of fire had closed off their street. Sooner or later, everyone was surrounded by fire.
…update by Rob; I wrote a bit about the Tokyo Fire Raid here.
VM S.3 (various spoilers)
I haven’t minded the more atomic structure of Veronica Mars season 3. While watching the first and second seasons, I thought that many of the linkages between episodes felt contrived, especially in the second. The plot in season 3, while less integral to each episode, seemed to flow a lot more naturally. Indeed, the weakest episdoes this season have been the most plot heavy. Really, who didn’t realize that a) the evil grad student had murdered the Dean, and b) that he would reveal himself to Veronica through the class discussion? It was telegraphed, and genuinely weak. Then again, I think that every season finale has been weak. I’m reminded of a critique I heard of Ocean’s Twelve. It’s interesting enough to see how the caper was pulled off, but the revelation didn’t proceed organically; we couldn’t figure out that they had already stolen the egg until Soderbergh decided to show us the secret stuff that we couldn’t have known about before. Unlike a good mystery, we couldn’t figure things out on our own. It’s been the same way with VM; the season finale has tied everything together, but twisted the plotting such that the season as a whole doesn’t naturally lead up to the conclusion.
Far more troubling is that the depiction of student groups comes straight out of PCU. I understand that a television show has to have conflict, and that one as complex as Veronica Mars needs to have some intrigue, but I’m pretty sure that the number of campus feminist groups that decide to stage rapes of their members is close to zero. And after the dour, humourless feminists come the almost as dour animal rights activists…
It’s remarkable that, even with all of these flaws, the show remains watchable. Kristen Bell and Enrico Colantoni are so good (and so good with each other) that I’m willing to ignore the problems and just enjoy myself.
… to be sure, I don’t mean to say that I prefer season 3 to either season 1 or season 2; season 3 is weak, but the atomic structure isn’t the real problem. It has more, I think, to do with the clumsiness of the move from high school to college, a move that very few shows have accomplished successfully.
The "Privacy" Dodge
Matt is right about this. Now, it must be said that when it comes to a candidate’s personal “family values” I’m strictly of the “Nice guy? I don’t give a shit. Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids” school. Personally, while there are many good reasons not to want Rudy to be president, the fact that he’s a jerk and bad husband and bad father is not, to me, one of them. You may remember this from the “Liberals should like Sam Alito because he’s nice to his wife and likes baseball” routine. George W. Bush is a much better husband and father than FDR or LBJ were, William Rehnquist a much nicer person than William Douglas, and so on and so on and so on. If it’s not entirely accurate to say that there’s no relationship between being a nice person and being a good president (or Supreme Court Justice or whatever), certainly the correlation is weak enough that you’d be crazy to put any real weight on it. When assessing candidates, “character” is bascially a Latin word meaning “bullshit.”
Having said all this, though, you can’t have it both ways. Either the fact that you’re a family man matters, or it doesn’t. Giuliani can’t use his family as a campaign prop and then squeal about his “privacy” when the rather more unpleasant aspects of his domestic life come to light. If he thought it mattered that he was a good husband and father, then it’s fair game for people to bring up the fact that he isn’t.
LGM Tournament Challenge
All,
It’s about time for the third annual Lawyers, Guns and Money Tournament Challenge. As is tradition, winner gets a free lifetime subscription to LGM, and a Certificate of Championship-ness, suitable for framing. Here are the details:
ESPN Tournament Challenge
Group Name: Lawyers, Guns and Money
Password: zevon
"It’s not just wrong, it’s stupid"
God knows there’s no shortage of Bush administration perpetrated outrages, the worst of which involve people dying hellish deaths. And so from that perspective this one may seem minor. But it’s important: it’s going to be up to the historians to tell the full story of just what the hell these lunatics in the White House were up to while in office. But who can doubt that the last thing Bush will ever want is a thorough investigation of his record?
President George W. Bush’s 2001 executive order restricted the release of presidential records by giving sitting presidents the power to delay the release of papers indefinitely, while extending the control of former presidents, vice presidents and their families. It also changed the system from one that automatically released documents 30 days after a current or former president is notified to one that withholds papers until a president specifically permits their release.
Today the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is scheduled to discuss a new bill that would overturn Mr. Bush’s order, said a committee spokeswoman, Karen Lightfoot. The sponsors, who include the committee chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, hope to bring the bill to the floor of the House next week.
Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, said yesterday that the order was not being used to prevent presidential papers from reaching the public, but that obviously “it has been increasing the time and delays, which are endemic.” The backlog of requests for documents now extends up to five years.
This story is also just a beautiful microcosm of how the Bushites do business. Look at this:
“There was a fair, reasonable, orderly, clear, sensible and workable process for presidential records in place during the 1990s,” which Mr. Bush’s executive order “overturned and replaced with the opposite,” Mr. Blanton testified. It “is not just wrong, it’s stupid.”
The 1978 Presidential Records Act, part of the post-Watergate reforms, clearly gave the American public ownership of presidential papers, said the historian Robert Dallek, whose latest book, “Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power,” is being published next month. But Mr. Bush’s executive order, he said, has had the effect of returning ownership to presidents and their heirs.
The transference of public property to private hands, the obsession with secrecy, the creation of a huge giant mess that someone else will have to clean up, the totally reckless lack of concern for the consequences of one’s actions… hold on, I think I’ve heard this story before.
“It’s not just wrong, it’s stupid.” Pithy.
(Also at Whiskey Fire)
Hey, Everyone Keep Your Fingers Crossed For Steve Gilliard, Okay?
The latest post on his health problems is kind of scary. And while other people have been keeping his blog going since he’s been sick, it just isn’t the same.
