Ahab Has A Blog.

Indeed

And outing Plame, whether illegal or not, did harm to our national security.

Why didn't Bush two years ago just ask Karl Rove and a few others in the administration whether they had leaked Plame's identity to Bob Novak and the others? Why doesn't he ask Rove now? Is it because he knows the answer? Or because he doesn't want to have to fire Rove?

As a precaution against such a catastrophe, Bush now says he will fire anyone found to have broken the law by outing an undercover intelligence operative. Previously he had said he would fire anyone who outs an intelligence officer, period.

The coverup, in short, is going well.

have you heard The Double Black Album ? JayZ vs Metallica. it's actually pretty entertaining and very dark. check out bannedmusic.org. that's the hook to me - music that is basically outside The System. even if there is a (largely brit-originated "mashup" culture derived) persistent tendency to mix non-hip-hop with hip-hop, authentically black music with "mainstream" aesthetics (a la fatboy slim or chem bros), well - great. that's always been the game, not since hip hop, not since rock, not even since jazz but since the blues and the first commercial vinyl.

basically, even though it doesn't fit my aesthetics, like hip hop in general it fits my values.

This is a new feature that will appear from time to time: unfortunate real names. E.g. "Fuk Yu", some unfortunate Chinese guy (this one even made it onto Crank Yankers somehow, but we'll leave the tin-foil hat stories for another day).

Today's real name (middle name withheld to protect the innocent little baby): Frank N. Bean.

Ah well it's another in an endless stream of grey days and so there are many unlovely things we'll leave to rest beneath the grey smooth waters.

So we'll just say instead we know what Joanna Newsom's "The Sprout and the Bean" is about. The easy part is that she's kinda mopey and down.

I railed and I raved
At the difference between
The sprout and the bean
It is a golden ring
It is a twisted string

A parallel list of nouns: sperm, embryo, egg, DNA. Or, alternately, embryo, child, life, DNA. This is the imagery of conception. So why the "endless dreams of lead"?

And the danger, danger
Drawing near them was a white coat
And the danger, danger
Drawing near them was a broad boat
And the water, water
Running clear beneath a white throat
And the hollow chatter of the talking of the tadpoles
Who know th'outside

Doctors, crossing a river (e.g. Styx, the River of Death), a swan (sometimes a symbol of death), the sound of the children - who were born and so know "the outside". So: a miscarriage. The chorus is addressed to the child who might have been, an invitation to join us in life:

Should we go outside
Should we break some bread
Are y'inter-ested?

Disappointed to see this Reviewing Star Wars Episode III: Last argues that the "flawed despotism of the empire is better than the aristocratic smugness of the Jedi."

I can't think of a better argument against public radio (and I'm not trying to argue against public radio!) and in favor of, say, Clear Channel. Worse, it appears that the reviewer didn't bother to see the movie: a - no, THE - major focus of the film is the danger of supposed moral clarity and the truly ruinous danger in (and partial falsehood of) the Jedi's surety in their rightness. I can forgive flawed despotism and aristocratic smugness (sometimes), but I can't forgive reviewers who can't muster a high-school grade understanding of a popular film.

In another irony, I won't bother to actually listen to the review because public radio makes their audio available online in a private (flawed, despotic) format. There are plenty of alternatives that are neither smug, nor aristocratic, nor despotic. Shame on you, NPR. It's two-double-ought-five, you prigs.

It's like watching the world's stupidest zombie rise from the grave and barbeque itself on an electric fence. Hillary Rosen - yes, that Hillary Rosen, the face that lawsuits, has the fucking gall (no, it's not chutzpah, it's just shameless bile) to call someone - anyone (even Chairman Mao would be too much) "anti-consumer".

Yes, read it all right here>. Steve Jobs is, in her squinty view, "anti-consumer" for having his software comply with the very legal environment she did so much to foster. And now she is asking Jobs to expose Apple to infinite liability and zero benefit in order to give a free ride to a company as rapacious as any in existence. She is apparently so totally irony-free that she can say all this with no thought to how Microsoft licenses software and access to rivals. It's as simple as this: she bought an iPod, she wanted to download something onto it (I'm imagining Steely Dan, which she takes for intellectual), and she couldn't. She didn't stop to ask why Apple couldn't just admit more filetypes in, or why she couldn't transfer MP3 files bought from another service. Baby say waaah.

People, that is the quality of thinking going into policy decisions regarding intellectual property these days. If this doesn't stop, we'll soon be entering a New Dark Ages (I believe there are many countervailing reasons this is not so, but that's a longer discussion that makes this particular triumph of ignorance no less dark).

Clearly, Hillary Rosen, lesbian or no, is the sort of person who feels the only kind of power that is good is unaccountable to individuals, remote, disciplinarian, and corporate. The only conceivable motivation for this asinine writing of hers is that she, in the deepest depths of her tiny little heart, believes that the real offense is that Steve-o doesn't bend over and take it for Big Daddy Bill. The person with the power, in this sycophantic, might-makes right view, must be appeased at all costs, and anyone who thinks different must never raise his voice. It is truly difficult to imagine anything more anti-consumer than any single brain-fart she pppphhhhttts.

She is, in other words, a total brown-nosing asshole; a little nothing, a mere ass-mouth, a filthy alimentary canal, in between the asslickers below and shit-dumpers above. Eliminate any party in the equation and you have the spectacle of a dog licking its own ass.

Linked on Drudge: Congressional relatives on the payroll. Any idiot could guess that this is getting flogged in the wingnut echo chamber today. I can almost hear Rush intoning dramatically about corruption, blah blah blah. Good thing I don't actually need to hear or smell that gasbag.

The wingnut cavalry is surely counting on their gullible listeners' inability to analyze information, do math, or understand statistics that involve complicated things like medians and averages. If they could do those things, here are some things they might noodle on:

• See what DeLay's family got compared to the total figures.
• Sort the list by dollar amount, and draw an R or a D next to each figure
• Write down what they were paid for on a separate sheet. Rank what they were paid to do on a scale of "legit" to "monkey business", taking into account how much was paid for the services (e.g. a minimally-paid accountant is legit: a high-paid "consultant" is monkey business). Now write down the political party next to each.

Results? Republicans are clearly more involved in raking campaign money into their own homes; their relatives got far more money than those of Democrats for services generally less tangible. Yet in the end, most of these have some degree of legitimacy, while DeLay sticks out like a baboon's ass. He's still going to be a target, because he's crooked as hell.

For reference:

• House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas: Wife and daughter were paid more than $500,000 since 2001 for working for DeLay's campaign and political action committees.
• Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman: Son Matthew received about $34,000 and daughter Rebecca about $36,000 for working on the senator's 2004 presidential campaign.
• Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.: Nephew Todd Reichert was paid $3,000 last year, plus several hundred dollars for mileage, for serving as driver.
• California Democratic Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark: Wife Deborah earns $2,400 a month for serving as campaign consultant.
• Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.: Wife Arlene Willis serves as congressional chief of staff at a salary of nearly $111,000.
• Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich.: Wife Laurie Stupak earned about $36,000 annually the past two years as the finance director for her husband's campaign.
• Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio: Wife Elizabeth was paid about $1,730 a month during his 2004 campaign. She has worked as a campaign consultant for him since the 2001 election cycle.
• Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif.: Cousin Ken Costa made about $45,000 for serving as a co-campaign manager last year.
• Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah: Three college-age children worked on his campaign last year. Emily was paid $5,425, Jane $9,508 and Laura $17,766.
• Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn.: Sister-in-law Sharon Davis has been his campaign treasurer since 1994,and daughter Libby Davis was his campaign coordinator in the last half of 2004. Libby Davis was paid about $2,334 a month; Sharon Davis was paid about $1,000 a month for bookkeeping last year.
• Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, employs his wife, Kathy, as his campaign manager. She was paid $21,791 over four months, including a $7,500 bonus last November.
• New York Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop: Daughter Molly was paid $46,995 as his 2004 campaign's finance director.
• California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher: Wife Rhonda Carmony makes $40,000 a year as his campaign manager.