Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.

[Cross-posted.]

JAMES BAKER, secretary of State under the elder Bush:

Guantanamo “gives us a very, very bad name, not just internationally. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how we can hold someone, pick someone up, particularly someone who might be an American citizen, even if they were caught somewhere abroad, acting against American interests, and hold them without ever giving them an opportunity to appear before a magistrate.”
[The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Former secretaries of State: Close Guantanamo]

Just drop the irrelevant “particularly someone who might be an American citizen,” and we’re there.

[Don't forget to look at the music we posted earlier. Good hypnotic stuff.]

Fly:

IF I WERE BETTER at telling time, I could tell you if Your Montag’s MySpace blogging experiment was actually over before it even began.

While you’re there, “friend me,” friend.

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, steroids in Major League Baseball is an abscess on the ass of America. I know. But did Roger Clemens lie to congress? And did Roger Clemens have an abscess on his ass? Who will answer these questions?

The report . . . addresses issues such as whether Clemens attended a party at then-teammate Jose Canseco’s house in 1998; information about injections of vitamin B-12; and whether Clemens developed an abscess on his buttocks.
[FOXNews.com: Republican Issues Report Questioning Whether Roger Clemens Lied]

Congress and the FBI will get to the bottom of it. (See what I did there?)

There Will Be Awesome.

PS: The president does the people’s work, too. You have probably seen the picture of him warmly greeting the Easter rabbit the other day at the White House. This wasn’t the first meeting the two have had. Stump Lane has this exclusive photo. Pretty sure the bunny is metaphor for something though I’m not sure what.

Books That Changed Me: Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, Alain Badiou

BADIOU’S CONCEPTION OF ETHICS is about exercising one’s capacity to do good. To do so is to be more than just an animal operating on instinct alone. Badiou would say one becomes immortal in defining and propelling a truth forward in “the situation.” This ability is what makes us human, and there are no ethical truths without subjects possessed of this ability.

There is one ground rule: In order for a truth to be a truth in Badiou’s sense, it must be a universal truth. And there is one ethical obligation: fidelity to a truth; which basically boils down to: keep going!

It seems to me, that people can come to be truth subjects in different ways. Through religious faith; simply having a strong inner conviction; by engaging in reasoned thought; or in combinations of two, or all three of these — we will, ideally, find ourselves subjects in the same truth process. For instance, we might each arrive at the conclusion: murder is wrong.

But murder is an easy one. Seems pretty universal, so keep going on the not murdering thing! Because, more important than how we come to be truth subjects, is accepting the moral imperative of fidelity to that truth.

HOWEVER, no matter what processes we are subject to, we often come to different conclusions, for instance, on questions of abortion, gay marriage, environmentalism, etc.

By Badiou’s standard, truths are universal. On the other hand, simulacra masquerade as truths, and though their subjects may earnestly believe in them, they are not universal. Subjects — whether they be subjects to a truth or a simulacrum — who are not content to simply keep going, (their sole ethical duty,) but feel that they should also compel, coerce or force others to go along face the same dilemma. Though there is certainly room for evangelizing, cajoling, or proselytizing, Badiou warns:

• Imposing the power of a simulacrum is terror.* (A form of EVIL.)
• Imposing the power of a truth is disaster. (Also EVIL.)

For example: imposing the power of a simulacrum (“national belonging,” for instance, the “truth” of the greatness of a single nation, which is clearly not a universal truth but is based in ideas of “soil,” “blood,” “borders,” etc.) results in terror. And though, as we have noted, proselytizing is certainly allowed in the militant fidelity required of subjects to a truth — the totalitarian imposition of a truth, (say: a prison state that results in the incarceration of a full percent of its population and disproportionately imprisons minorities,) is disaster.

Which is to say, imposing religion — or even putting the power of the state behind certain religious values — is to flirt dangerously with EVIL. So Your Montag Blogs Against Theocracy.

* Different sense than Global War on Terror.™

CREDIT: Some sentences and phrasing in the above post have been plagiarized from Your Own Fehlleistungen. Thanks, Fehlleistungen!

Handlebars:

WHAT’S the latest craze that’ll have the rogues and ruffians buzzing all season?

Grabbing your credit/debit card information “in transit.”

They just snatch that shit during the card verification process while you’re making a purchase at the grocery store:

Hannaford said 4.2 million debit- and credit-card numbers were exposed between Dec. 7 and March 10. There was a report of fraudulent activity on 1,800 unique cards as of Monday, but a running tally of all fraud associated with the case is not being kept…
[Portland Press Herald: Data stolen from Hannaford during transit]

Apparently it was a real “no one could have anticipated the breaching of the levees” moment:

In [a grocery store point-of-service] transaction … the card information does not have to be encrypted because it is in a private network. But it is supposed to be transmitted over an encrypted line.

If I read that right, the information was compromised after the swiping of a card but before transmission. OMG! THE HACKING IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE STORE.

Your Montag is no security expert, but it seems to me that an organization that gives prospective employees a personality test to determine what they would do if a friend or co-worker stole ten dollars from the till, might have had stricter safeguards in place for credit card data.

for Success you must be opportunist
low hanging grist cannot be missed
at times foresight fails
and you short your blackmails
have some sympathy for poor Joe Lewis

Could have happened to anybody, really.

The nature of this mug shot will make sense in a minute…

THIS GUY made an illegal U-turn, taunted a police officer by revving up his engine and led police on a high speed chase through four sleepy Maine towns last night. Three local police departments and the state police were involved, two cruisers were damaged but eventually they laid down the spike strips and flattened all four tires on the man’s Dodge Neon and he ended up in a snowbank. When he could drive no more, he gave up without a fight.

Guy told the police he’d been driving around for 20 minutes looking for a cop to chase him.

So yeah, kinda dumb, but that mug shot is so punk rock.

JUST FOR THE RECORD, under the right conditions, (i.e. if your political enemies are powerful enough,) fucking is an impeachable offense.* War and torture? It seems they are not.

You may have already heard that a new Pentagon study of 600,000 Iraqi documents coming out this week will continue in the United States’ tradition of EPIC FAIL in uncovering the document in which Saddam Hussein ordered the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Or that there was any operational link between the Iraq and the al Qaeda, (bin Laden-type,) whatsoever.

But still, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, right?

Wrong.

Absence of evidence may not be definitive proof of absence, but it most certainly is evidence of absence. It’s the only kind of evidence of absence you can have, really. And you know what? In this case, there has been an absence of evidence ALL ALONG. From the start.

This was a lie:

[Emphasis added.] …acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 [Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002] is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
[White House: Presidential Letter]

Remember all those great Bazooka Joe rewrites?

No? Look here, here and here.

The result? Bush Tied to Child Prostitution – Resignation or Impeachment Expected!

To recap: Lies, war and torture? All in a day’s work. Fucking a high-priced prostitute? A fantastic way to take down a political rival if you can pull it off.

Is this paradox a symptom of a system that one can “work within” to “incrementally” effect change? Or can we rightfully call it Disaster?

[H/T: Monkeys for Helping for "Spider-Fail"]

*If the charge is money laundering, then yeah, that is pretty bad. But what do I care? I don’t live in New York. Yankees Suck!

Attention, all personnel. Due to conditions beyond our control, we regret to announce that lunch is now being served.

Trapper: They got a lot of guts.
Hawkeye: And they keep serving them. You realize this is an anniversary? They’ve given us liver or fish ten straight days in a row.
Trapper: Eleven.
Hawkeye: If they try to serve that to us one more time today, I’m gonna throw a fit.
Trapper: You won’t throw a fit.
Hawkeye: All right, then I’ll throw a berserk, with a strong resemblance to a fit.

I’ve eaten a river of liver and an ocean of fish! I’ve eaten so much fish, I’m ready to grow gills! I’ve eaten so much liver, I can only make love if I’m smothered in bacon and onions!

[M*A*S*H -- "Adam's Ribs"]

Yeah, it’s kinda like that.

AT LEAST SOMEBODY listens to you:

Yesterday another whistleblower stepped forward with troubling charges that at least one major wireless telecommunications giant may have given a Governmental entity access to every communication coming through that company’s infrastructure, including every e-mail, Internet use, document transmission, video, and text message, as well as the ability to listen in on any phone call.

Babak Pasdar, the chief executive officer of a computer security firm whose clients have ranged from multi-national corporations to small organizations, asserts that a major wireless carrier allowed a third party, known only as the “Quantico Circuit,” access to all data communication in it’s network.
[Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan: New Whistleblower (.pdf)]

The Quantico Circuit would be a fucking fantastic movie title.

The British are skipping down the cobblestone toward a total surveillance state, too. [Via: Michael] They may be further along, than US even. At least we think they may be…

This guy wants to kill them with surveillanceness. [More info: Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project] Not that Your Montag would ever have the energy to provide this type of documentation; but my day-to-day life is way to embarrassing for this level of personal transparency. (If only “our” government would be so forthcoming.)

I suppose we’ll all have to get used to the scrutiny soon enough. [Sigh.]

OBAMA WON’T be “ready” or “experienced” enough to be president until Hillary is dead; that’s why she wants him to be her vice president.

“If Sen. Obama can’t be seen to be commander in chief against Sen. Clinton, how can he possibly expect to be seen as someone who can win the commander in chief question against Sen. McCain?” top Clinton strategist Mark Penn asked during a conference call with reporters.
[Houston Chronicle: Democrats' feuding is music to GOP hopes]

If your own top strategist Mark Penn calls it like that, what chance does even a Clinton-Obama ticket possibly stand against the steely, war-tested and resolved Grillmaster?

None of these three with their reprehensible militaristic attitudes should be commander in chief. But that is not important, in certain areas, (like imperial militarism,) there is no choice allowed. What is important to the household voter is this: All animals are “seen as” commander in chief, but some animals are more “seen as” commander in chief than others.

Wait, maybe there is an area where a Clinton-Obama ticket would outshine the other…

While he may be the best suited to beating the drumbeat of war out on his manly chest, McCain isn’t so cut out for filling up the war chest in the first place. Time for some clever marketing and some daddy-child coddling:

…now that Mr. McCain, of Arizona, has vanquished his Republican rivals, his campaign hopes to tap some of the big donors who had supported them.

The McCain campaign will also try to give incentives to its fund-raisers by bestowing them with honorary titles, each coming with new perks and levels of status, in much the same way the Bush campaign did by naming its biggest fund-raisers Rangers and Pioneers. One proposal that has not been officially announced calls for dubbing fund-raisers who bring in $100,000 Trailblazers, those who bring in $250,000 Innovators, and those who bring in half a million dollars co-chairmen of the campaign.
[New York Times: McCain Uses Breathing Room to Focus on Coffers]

This is what it comes down to. Being seen as the bestest EVAR nation-killing martial nutjob on the market, and raising teh moneys.

Play Stump Lane’s “Seen As” Commander In Chief game below the fold… (more…)