We've Moved!

Herr Doktor is now in the Middle Kingdom, where access to the blogger.com domain can be sketchy.

I've taken the liberty of relocating things over to a much cooler server. The Onymous Guy 2.0 can be found here.

McCain advisor: "We're fucked."

The Carpetbagger Report says it all in this lede:

Maliki’s game-changer; GOP says, ‘We’re f**ked’
Posted July 20th, 2008 at 8:30 am

By any reasonable measure, the debate over U.S. policy towards Iraq changed in a fundamental way yesterday. Just as importantly, the presidential campaign has experienced a game-changing moment, from which John McCain may struggle to recover...

Josh Marshall explained, “Maliki has now handed Obama the trump card of all trump cards with which to parry all of McCain’s attacks.”

Or, as a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign told the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, “We’re fucked."

Is there any VP candidate who will make Iraq go away? I don't think so.

If you need to vote Republican ...

Très amusant.

Una perla anzi porci

This story in the Times prompted these letters. The last caught my eye:



I love the author's words: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

Again: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

Again: "No reputable college or university will teach the “strengths and weaknesses” of atomic theory or the theory of gravity."

I am ashamed to say that I am affiliated with an institution at which "the “strengths and weaknesses of scientific theory" was part of the general education science requirement, until the most recent revision of the curriculum.

What made this situation even more unbearable is that the institution regarded itself as relatively enlightened.

Compared to what? The Inquisition?

I wish that there were members of the faculty outside of our science division who were as vocal as

Michael King at the Austin chronicle, who wrote this last December 14:

DECEMBER 14, 2007:

Point Austin: God Knows

Mitt Romney, Christine Comer, and the political uses of religion

BY MICHAEL KING

Today's homily might as well begin with a borrowing from the Rev. Mitt Romney, who recently visited Texas to explain to us the relationship between religious belief and political freedom. "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom," Romney pronounced. "Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together or perish alone." ...

---

Pray for Freedom

There is plenty of corollary foolishness. New SBOE Chair Don McLeroy, a Bryan dentist and an amiable boob in the pure-dee Texas tradition, is an avowed creationist who has adopted the new intelligent-design lingo and says all he wants for the schools is to teach the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theory – the latest cant, echoed by his creationist brethren on the board. He also insisted last week that TEA employees "can say what they want. They have freedom of speech." McLeroy apparently hasn't communicated that elementary constitutional principle to staffers at the agency, who explicitly cower in fear that anything they say that violates the science/anti-science "neutrality" doctrine will result in their sharing the fate of Christine Comer. They may be timorous, but they're not stupid.

There you have it: the current state of intellectual and political freedom in Texas, where a small group of fundamentalist fanatics drives public education policy, and an utterly cynical governor – who this week endorsed the brazenly unfundamentalist Rudy Giuliani for president because he's "electable" – panders to the worst sort of religious fanaticism (emphasis mine - OG) as a working principle of governance. Yet the Rev. Romney solemnly declares, "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom."

I'm perfectly aware that religious faith can form the ground of community engagement and social activism. But in this time and in this place, religious sentiment is most often used as an ideological bludgeon to enforce conformity and obedience to authority. So it is that Mitt the Mormon journeys to Texas and pleads, "I'm just like everybody else," and Christine Comer and her colleagues receive a rather different sacred message: "Do as your told, if you know what's good for you."

If this is religion, I'll choose freedom from it, every single time.

---

See the TEA's justification for terminating Christine Comer, and Comer's resignation letter .

Send your prayers, curses, and news tips to mking@austinchronicle.com.

I will drink a toast to you tonight, Michael King.

Pour les musiciens entre nous

If you find four musicians, you're sure to find a fifth.

A fine Irish joke it is indeed

This old but fyne bit of Irish humor comes from a colleague.

John O’Reilly hoisted his beer and said, “Here’s to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife!”

That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night.

He went home and told his wife, Mary, “I won the prize for the Best toast of the night”.

She said, “Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?”

John said, "Here’s to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife.”

“Oh, that is very nice indeed, John!” Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of John’s drinking buddies on the street corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, “John won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Mary.”

She said, “Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised myself. You know, he’s only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell asleep and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come.”

Ah, you're full of shyte!

USB devices we wish we had

Incroyable!

USB Wine, telechargez vos vins en direct des domaines !
Uploaded by zs2creative

Animator versus Animation

Very amusing. Click here to animate.

More Tales from Academia

Part of our occasional series, "Tales from Academia", a vital service for our readers.

InsideHigherEd reports today

June 11
Not Our Best and Brightest?

The missteps in Iraq are well documented by now.

Library shelves could be lined with books that criticize the poorly constructed endgame, the insufficient troop levels and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. There have, however, been glimmers of promise that have gotten a share of ink as well. Among those success stories is the American University of Iraq, a Western-style institution in the war-torn country’s northern region that promises to “lead the transformation of Iraq into a liberal and democratic society.”

The university’s lofty aspirations, as espoused on its Web site, make the selection of its first chancellor all the more puzzling. Owen Cargol, who took the helm at AU-Iraq in 2007 and resigned in late April of this year, had a checkered past that could have been revealed to university organizers with a simple Google search. The sexual harassment scandal that brought down Cargol at Northern Arizona University in 2001 was well publicized, in all of its explicit detail, but apparently never came to the attention of the U.S. officials who trusted Cargol to help reshape the Middle East.

...Cargol’s 2001 resignation stemmed from allegations made by a Northern Arizona employee who alleged that Cargol, while naked in a locker room, grabbed the employee’s genitals, the Arizona Republic reported. In a subsequent e-mail to the employee, Cargol described himself as “a rub-your-belly, grab-your-balls, give-you-a-hug, slap-your-back, pull-your-dick, squeeze-your-hand, cheek-your-face, and pat-your-thigh kind of guy.”

Postscript: Kevin Drum mentions Cargol in his Quote Of The Day in The Washington Monthly

Uh huh. You'll be unsurprised to know that Cargol was considered an ideal choice by the Coalition Provisional Authority to become the first chancellor of the American University of Iraq last year. Via Henry Farrell.

Well, as I have written elsewhere, "shit shit shit shit shit."

Shit shit shit shit shit!

Is "Shit shit shit shit shit!" a grammatially correct sentence?

Krugman's blog referred today ("Post Post post post post") to

a grammatical but incomprehensible sentence:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Thanks to the web, you can easily learn both the explanation and the history.

The wiki entry is amusing. So what about "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck"?

IMNSHO, "Shit shit shit shit shit!" is a grammatially correct sentence, but "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck" cannot be. We can discuss this at beer:30!

Here is a good image for "Shit shit shit shit shit!" ( plenty more of these here) .

Sleeping with the enemy?

The image and the video are from Truth Through Action.org

Kasparov vs. Megalon?

Russian political press conferences are much more interesting than ours.

Please stop it! I'm gagging.

CBS aired - "erred" is probably th better verb - an interview with one of the henchmen responsible for our 7+ years of torture, rape of the environment, pillaging of the treasury, and trashing of the constitution.

I have a new name for this particular sphincter muscle: Antonin Smegma.

New Steve Novick Ad

Steve Novick's ads have been clever and smart. Here is another one.

Cheeses of Nazareth!

This is very funny up to the 1:35 mark. After that, it is painfully dull. But it is a great lead-in.

Have a good time, and keep your eye on the devil!

This video loads VERY sssslllloooowwwwlllllyyyy, so I recommend that you turn off the sound in You-tube, load the movie in entirety, then replay it with sound. Otherwise you'll be thinking "WTF?" a lot.

Someone didn't check with a native speaker...

The "LUMINE" chain of shopping complexes are adding new stores to several Tokyo area locations.


Take a look at these additions to the "LUMINE-ESUTO" shopping mall in Shinjuku (one of the special wards that make up the core of Tokyo).


Oops.

important legal news from japan

"Big breasts win verdict for Japanese pin-up"

The bikini model... was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole...

I actually saw this on the news last night while I was at the gym. The cameramen kept panning down to her breasts during the interview.

The Monastery Help Desk

I love this. It's in Norwegian!

Phillies Pitcher in Japan Trade Prank

The Phillies have been having fun during spring training. I was especially amused since the Japanese team the kid was supposedly being sent to is the one I'll be seeing next month when they host Boston.

hmmmmm...

Take a look at this partial tracklisting from a CD of "Nice English Songs".



I don't think they sing track 11 in American schools anymore. To be fair, the Japanese does just say "I like my tiny cat". Still, I think I'll leave this one off the list of songs to be sung next year.

keep it classy, comrades

(part of) A conversation between several gentlemen over at FuckedGaijin, my favorite Japan-based English-speaking message board.

American A: Are you from Alberta?

Canadian B: Naw, my town name rhymes with vagina...yeah, we really do say it that way in Canada.

Canadian C: I had no idea you were from Mussy Lake, Ontario!

The Republican Myth of the Ownership Society

From Calculated Risk:
"The homeownership rate has plunged back to the levels of the summer of 2001."

Nice going, George.

365 Days and counting

Bush's Last Day. The Reign of Error will end in less than a year.

Global Climate De-stabilization

Here is a terrific video introducing the idea of risk management and the response to global warming. Well worth the whole time (9:58!).

S hits the F in 2009

I've just been reading a few posts by Stirling Newbury over at The Agonist

• The Coming Double Dip Recession
  

  ... Unfortunately for the US, it has replaced a personally corrupt evil stupid congress run by Republicans, with merely a corrupt cowardly evil stupid congress.run by Republicans with Bush Dogs as cosigners. It is that they aren't personally corrupt. The catastrophic failure of Democratic leadership will be masked by the good conditions of 2008 for Democrats, but unless dramatically changed, will lead to their losing Congress right back in 2010, especially if there is a Democratic President being hammered for the recession.
  
  This means that instead of Americans taking paper losses on the houses and retirements, they are goint to wake up and find a bi-partisan consensus, meaning Republicans plus Bush Dogs, to shave more off their entitlements. The Republican way to do this may well be double taxation: a national sales tax means that people who paid income taxes earning money, will then have to pay sales taxes spending it. The Democratic way will be nibbling away at benefits and technocratic shell games, as "hedonic adjustments' were used to nibble away at Social Security.
  
  Neither party is stating the obvious, that the various sticky fingers of the financial system, which have deprived Americans of the benefits of lower costs, now add up to over 10% of GDP. Plus the prison-security-military-industrial complex, this comes closer to 20 cents of every dollar boiling away into projects that do not improve the fundamentals of the American economy, but shift money directly from those who work, to those whose job it is to delay the day of reckoning.

  
  
• Dancing On a Volcano

  ...the present expansion, even if it were to continue, would not produce the burst of robust wage growth which would allow Americans to put their financial houses in order, nor for the country as a whole to do so. Now is the worst time to be spending money: prices are high, and the time to recoup those prices is short.
  
  The present continued inflation volatility, and increasing general level of prices, is an indicator of the extreme financial mismanagement of the economy by the Republicans, and a sign of how morally bankrupt, and simply economically blind, as well as politically inept, the present Democratic Congress is. The public hates this economy, it would be politically, a great time to simply oppose an out of control executive, and take the path of fiscal rectitude. Instead, the Republicans are starting to reclaim that mantle on the cheap by opposing a few projects here and there, while still dropping the GDP of Iraq into Iraq.
  
  Absent this sweet spot, the public is never going to see a recouping moment of wages, and when the recession hits, it will be deeper and wider than the previous recession. The bad news is that there is another, larger, recession coming after this one, as we continue to scale a new inflationary mountain.
  
  Think of this as the 1975 recession: bad, but only the opening act for the destabilization of a massive dollar glut.

It is fairly depressing reading, but well worth twenty minutes of your time. Go read, then think about the things we need to do to get Democrats to act - and vote - like Democrats.

William Kristol: Still Stupid, Still Wrong

If William Kristol were alone in a forest, and he said something correct, would anyone hear it? Wonkette says (This Must Be Embarassing)

Though they backpedaled a bit on their website this morning, this stupid Weekly Standard cover is sitting on a shelf right now at a newsstand near you. It will be there for the rest of the week, in fact. This is exactly the kind of political astuteness that earned editor Bill Kristol a spot in the pages of the New York Times. We can’t read the story because it’s behind a subscriber wall, but we imagine it’s full of the same kind of masturbatory wishful thinking the headline suggests. If you do have access to this thing for whatever reason, please send it to us so that we might mock it further.

Here is what the paper of record has to say.

Borger blows a line

CNN political analyst - so to speak - Gloria Borger, with enough makeup to paint a chorus line, flubs her lines; "hard fought" somehow becomes "hard fart" (aka "shart"). Gawker has it all. No Shit. KEYWORD breaking news.

Why I will never vote for Fuckabee

This fine effort by Max Blumenthal was reported by Steve Clemons here today in The Washington Note. Even though it is nicely anti-Fuckabee, have a bucket to throw up into.