Essential B-BBC

The current open thread at Biased BBC is full of beans as the regulars dissect Al-Beeb's coverage of Iran's kidnapping of the 15 British marines and sailors. They're pissed off, they're funny, and they link. It helps if you know a little about the BBC, but even skimming unearths gems like this link from the great "Biodegradable" to a piece today in the Telegraph:

The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.

Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks.

Banned terms are said to include "jihad", "Islamic" or "fundamentalist".

The word "jihad" is to be avoided altogether, according to some sources, because for Muslims the word can mean a personal struggle to live a moral life.

One alternative, suggested publicly last year, is for the term "Islamic terrorism" to be replaced by "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam".

Catchy!

An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, "common lexicon", is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the alienation of Muslims in Europe. . . .

Which do you suppose worries them more?

"Careful usage of certain terms is not about empty political correctness but stems from astute awareness of the EU's interests in the fight against terrorism.

Astute awareness, not empty political correctness. Got it.

"Terrorists exploit and augment suspicions."

Details on the contents of the lexicon remain secret, but British officials stressed that it is there as a helpful aid "providing context" for civil servants making speeches or giving press conferences.

"We are fully signed up to this, but it is not binding," said one. . . .

Meanwhile, UK Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten claimed that the EU was in denial over the true roots of terrorism.

"This type of newspeak shows that the EU refuses to face reality," he said. "The major world terrorist threat is one posed by ideology and that ideology is inspired by fundamentalist jihadi Islam."

Biodegradable also links to Melanie Phillips's latest article. She's been on fire herself lately, even for her.

Unless the story is a hoax . . .

The Post has the San Diego Museum of Hoaxes' ranking of the ten best-ever April Fools' Day (checking notes) hoaxes. It won't kill you to read it. The funniest, I think, is the Grauniad's observation of the tenth anniversary of the tiny Indian Ocean Republic of San Serriffe.

Sports brief

This will get me hauled before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (J. Parnell Thomas, Chairman), but--I haven't watched a single game of the NCAA tournament.

Update: No, its name wasn't the "House Un-American Activities Committee." It was just cooler (and easier) to say HUAC ("Hugh-ack") than to say HCUA ("Hih-kuh-ooh-ahh"). Did you notice, though, what the bio of Thomas I linked to called it? The "House of Un-American Activities" Committee.

Update II: Several people have claimed that "Hih-huh-ooh-ahh" is actually Ward Churchill's Indian name. Wrong! It's Kenis. Or maybe Keezjunnahbeh.

Blog brief

The Rocky:

A veteran member of Aurora's legal staff was fired this week after setting up an Internet blog accusing his wife of having an affair with the city's fire chief.

Homer Simpson voice: Internet blog, eh?

That's, I guess, as opposed to a "chair blog" or an "ear blog." The reporter says it again, too: "Internet blog."

Anyway, dumb story, none of these people should be allowed near machinery, etc.

Political brief

Colorado Rep. Tom "Miami's a Third-World Country" Tancredo is set to announce Monday that he's running for president. He has no chance, of course.

Update: Michael Medved just sarcastically called Tancredo a "juggernaut," which he pronounced "jewggernaut." Weird.

Weird Bird Friday: Sandhill Crane Fest!

Drunkawife is off to Kearney, Nebraska, tomorrow--home of the largest gathering of sandhill cranes in the world. Perhaps next week I'll have some of my own pictures, but for today, these are my favorites among the ones I found on-line.

"Joy" by Michael Forsgerg. Sandhill crane in a mating dance.

Baby sandhill crane from the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

Mother & Chick. Another one by Michael Forsberg. Damn, he's good.

A way cool sandhill by Arthur Morris at Birds As Art

--Drunkawife

Update: By the way, I'm not going to Kearney to see the sandhills; that's just a perk. I'm going to try to beat some sense into childcare providers so they don't turn the next generation into a bunch of Jeffrey Dahmers, which is, basically, what I do for a living.

Churchill case to go to CU prez next week

In the lead of a fascinating article on the case, Jefferson Dodge of the Silver & Gold Record says CU's Privilege and Tenure Committee will make its recommendation on whether Ward Churchill should be fired to President Hank Brown "within the next week."

Dodge also exchanged e-mails with Eric Cheyfitz, the Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters at Cornell University and a witness for Churchill in the committee's hearings, who makes the arguments Churchill no doubt will use in his (threatened) lawsuit: the political motivation behind the investigation, the academic "double jeopardy" Churchill was subjected to, the claim that the Army did so give the Mandan smallpox-infected blankets, and the absence on the investigating committee of "experts" in Churchill's "discipline."

Read the whole thing. Dodge doesn't let Cheyfitz go unanswered. Here's one vigorous quote he got, for example, on Churchill's claim that a historian had said John Smith also gave Indians infected bankies:

[W]hen asked about Cheyfitz's criticism of the report regarding the Salisbury citation, committee member Michael Radelet of UCB sociology said an early draft of the investigative committee's report referred to "epidemic spread by John Smith," [sic] but the last four words were edited out by the committee. [Radelet added that] "If there's anything . . . that says the U.S. Army intentionally introduced smallpox, I'll eat the book at the 50-yard line," he said. "I stand by the report. If there are a couple of pimples on it, big deal. Every time I read it, I'm more proud."

The man's willing to eat a pimply report. That's gotta mean something.

This is all from Pirate Pirate Ballerina, by the way, who also notes that DU professor Dean Saitta, a founding member of Teachers for a Democratic Society (Recreate 68! Recreate 68!), has posted another defense of Ward Churchill--or, as PB puts it, scarfed another brimming mug of Kool-Aid™.

Update: Every time I read the S & G R, this starts running through my head. Make it stop!

Fair use!

The Mammoth Book of the Funniest Cartoons of All Time
Edited by Geoff Tibballs
Carroll & Graff Publishers, New York
520 pp.

Got TMBotFCoAT out at the main library the other day. Here are a couple knee-slappers from the "Animals and Pets" section:

Eenh.


Eh.

Wish I could stop there, but my attorneys tell me that "Eenh" and "Eh" don't constitute a review under the fair use provision of U.S. Code (Title 17, Chapter1, § 107), which reads:

§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

So. My review. Of The Mammoth Book of the Funniest Cartoons of All Time. Okay. Hang on a sec. Okay. Here goes:

The Mammoth Book of the Funniest Cartoons of All Time isn't.

Convention fun--and you're paying!

The two major political parties will get $50 million each for their 2008 presidential nominating conventions. The Dems' convention, of course, will be held in Denver. The Post:

An Oklahoma senator's attempt to strip out of a war funding bill $100 million for security at the Democratic and Republican national conventions failed today.

Senators voted 45 to 51 on the amendment from Republican Sen. Tom Coburn that would have removed the funding for both the Denver and Minneapolis events.

Coburn criticized the fact that the convention spending was added to a bill that's intended to cover emergencies. Spending in an emergency funding bill is exempted from Congress' budget spending cap.

"You're going to vote to ask your grandchildren to pay for a party you're having now," Coburn said, referring to the growing national deficit.

"Members will have to make a difficult choice between booze and balloons or body armor and bullets," Coburn said.

At that moment Coburn's battery ran down and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Did you say $50 million?) shoved him aside:

Salazar defended the funding as an emergency because "the national convention is a national target for those who wish to do our nation harm," Salazar said.

Um, maybe. So what? Pay for the damn security yourselves. Better yet, why don't you just cancel? Nobody will care, except maybe the regressives at Recreate68.

Update: Since when have taxpayers funded the conventions, anyway? Man, I'm ignernt.

Commies? We got commies out the--we got commies

The second show in the series, I Was a Communist for the FBI: "I Can't Sleep" (4/30/52).

Marxian analysis

Regular-ish commenter "dougie" notes astutely (in comments to the old-time radio post the other day) that it takes a long time to read Das Kapital. This reminded me of a book I almost read one time consisting of letters Marx wrote to his parents. And maybe vice versa. Can't seem to find it, but, I swear, a lot of the letters from Marx, Jr. went like this:

Dear Dad,

The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or - what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic - in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so we can not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life,
from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.

Love, Karl

P.S. The check was late again. Ask Mom to send more cookies. No chocolate chip!

Except, you know, about 4,000 times longer.

Update: Okay, you caught me. The quote is actually from Marx's "Preface to 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'" (1859). This in no way detracts from the point, which, if I have to spell it out, is that Marx is REALLY BORING.

More (bad) spelling!

Remember yesterday how the Post misspelled the word "siege" on its front page? They've done it again. This time it's "Ukrainan." Wait. They didn't spell "siege" U-K-R-A, etc. They spelled the word Ukrainian, Ukrainan. On the front page.

This is gettin' monotonous.

Update: Weird story, too.

Dog returned to pound; owner cites missed performance goals

Make your dog sit! to read this:

CALVERT, Md.- Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman's chest. The dog's owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.

The Heimlich maneuver? Oh, bullcheet. Take a moment to examine this diagram:


The Heimlich maneuver.

Notice anything? Like, how the woman's hands are gripping each other under the sternum of the rather-too-ostentatiously choking lad? Yes, hands. Dogs ain't got 'em. Coupled with the fact that Toby was "jumping up and down" on the woman, it's perfectly clear he was performing, not the Heimlich maneuver, but CPR. And what dog doesn't know CPR?

Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn't work. After she began beating on her
chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved.

Billy Bob is not the getting-involved sort.

"The next thing I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders," she recalled. "He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest."

One time when I got a piece of steak stuck in my windpipe, Billy Bob pushed me to the ground and, once I was on my back, began gnawing on my neck to get it out.

That's a lie. It wasn't steak, it was a piece of that 70/30 ground round that comes in a tube.

Okay, there was no meat involved. Billy Bob just got me down and tore my throat out. Now I talk through one of those vibrating boxes. Happy? More about the heroic fuckin' Toby:

That's when the apple dislodged and Toby started licking her face to keep her from passing out, she said. . . .

Now we're getting a little ridiculous. Licking her face? Do they teach that at lifesaving school? (Billy Bob, of course, taught himself.) Sorry. This is all about Toby:

"The doctor said I probably wouldnt be here without Toby," said Parkhurst, a jewelry artist. "I keep looking at him and saying 'You're amazing.'"

Are you gazing into his eyes as you say this? What does he say back? Is he smoking a pipe? Have you ever been placed on an involuntary 72-hour hold?

Update: Performing self-Heimlich is easy! Just follow these simple steps:

1. Put on 1950s housedress. 2. It doesn't matter, just stop making that face, for the love of God, stop making that face!

Update II: The Cecil Whig is a "newspaper."

Update III: Waited till late to post this one so the kiddies would be in bed, but: does it look to you like the ostentatiously choking lad is sporting rather a respectable stiffy? Especially since he's choking on--well, what do you suppose he's choking on? Never mind. That's some weird coffee cup.

On the Post's front page

A story about the sick POS who held seven students hostage at Platte Canyon High School last year, killing one of them before shooting himself, reads, "No conclusions in seige report." Seige? Oddly, it's misspelled in the story too. Does that mean neither the reporter nor the editor knows how to spell the word?

Update (2:13 a.m.): Still on the front page, still misspelled. May have to go to liveblogging on the story.

Monday Night at the Radio!

This one's pretty durn funny: Dana Andrews as Matt Cvetic in I Was a Communist for the FBI (April 23, 1952).

And, of course, a 15-minute episode of Vic and Sade: "Manual for Wives" (February 2, 1941). Wait for the Latin.

Update: Best line from IWACFTFBI: "I went back to my room and boned up a little on the Communist Manifesto."

Update II: Oh yeah, you need Quicktime to play the shows. It's fwee! It's fwee!

Mumia wins social justice award!

Woikers Woild:

The Community Church of Boston will present the 30th annual Sacco and Vanzetti Social Justice Award to death-row political prisoner and renowned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal on March 25. The award will honor Abu-Jamal for the work he has accomplished, despite government repression.

Fine, fine. Just take it outside before it stinks up the joint.

Actually it's quite a church, the Community Church of Boston. They don't have worship services, they have Sunday "forums." The one a few weeks ago was on "The suburbs as a place for justice: Youth activism in the 'burbs"; the 11th was "International Women's Day with the Navarasa Dance Theater"; and last week was Central America Week, with a forum on "Globalization and the Undocumented."

There's no Sunday School, either; rather, it's called (don't run!) Social Justice School: "The Justice School teaches and learns from young people about social justice and how to live it. It's a great program on Sundays and other days that's just beginning, for kids and teens ages 7-17."

There's only one thing missing from the Community Church of Boston: God. On the entire website He doesn't rate a single mention.

Anyway, Mumia's award ceremony featured:

Pam Africa—activist, community organizer and president of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Pam Africa will accept the award on behalf of Abu-Jamal [Mumia, of course, being unable to attend].

Other speakers . . . include Lynne Stewart, human rights attorney and recipient of the 2005 Sacco and Vanzetti Award; Boston’s popular political hip-hop group “The Foundation Movement”; Kazi Toure, former political prisoner and co-chair of Jericho-National; and youth performers from Voices of Liberation.

Dashed sorry to miss it.

(via Schnapps (I salute her, um, indefatigability! (yeah, that's the ticket))).

Blog check!

The Rocky Mountain News' first, tardy foray into blogging was Maximum Editor John Temple's Editor's Blog, which debuted in April, 2005. Now they have at least 18 of the little beasts, not including the "citizen journalism" dealiebob the paper has with the Denver Post, YourHub.com.

They've got every Colorado pro sports team covered, except, for some reason, the Orange Crush, Denver's team in the Arena (indoor) Football League. They've got their main blog RockyTalkLive. Their fillum critic, Robert Denerstein, has his Film Clips blog, and there's a Mile High Tech blog as well (no business blog, apparently).

The Real World Denver blog scored a massive scoop last week, revealing that Tyrie had been busted for urinating on the sidewalk in Lodo. (I gotta start watching that show.) Uber-lib cartoonist Ed Stein uses his blog to comment on his 'toons; there's a "Shop Smart" blog, a "style" blog, a video games blog . . .

And amazingly, all these blogs are active--if by "active" one means "updated in the last two weeks." The single exception? Editor John Temple's blog, which hasn't been updated in two months.

For shame.

Title pending

Post theater critic John Moore on the man who went down--er, brought down the Rev. Ted Haggard:

Mike Jones needs to go away. Fifteen minutes ago.

Has there been a more shameless grab for fame than the aging prostitute/masseur/drug liaison's ongoing effort to parlay his exposure of now-disgraced evangelist Ted Haggard for his own aggrandizement? . . .

Jones made the news three times just last week: First for appearing with sleaze-talker Montel Williams, then for auctioning the massage table on e-Bay that he used to oil up Haggard. Then for e-Bay's decision to yank the auction from its site.

Actually, according to Jones he did more than "oil" Haggard "up" on the infamous table. Moore moralizes:

To me, Haggard is the worst kind of religious hypocrite. The former head of a 14,000-strong Colorado Springs megachurch and president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals was a staunch opponent of the statewide referendum that would have provided basic legal rights for same-sex couples.

But Jones sent Haggard - and any chance of Referendum I's passage - down the toilet by accusing Haggard just six days before the election with paying him for three years of meth-fueled sex. (Haggard admits only to massages and buying drugs from Jones.) . . .

Mini-digression: can one be accused with something?

Jones thought shining a light under Haggard's bushel [nice, John] so close to the election would bolster I's chances, but it more likely torpedoed it: His tawdry tale introduced stereotypical images into voters' minds intertwining homosexuality with drugs and prostitution and seedy, back-alley sex.

What back alley? They had that nice, comfy, slightly torn massage table.

Pro-I Mayor John Hickenlooper's election message of "It's not marriage, it's fairness" had been carefully tailored to emphasize equal legal rights and responsibilities, mostly to benefit long-term, monogamous, same-sex couples. Goodbye, I. But at least Haggard had the decency to go away.

Jones hired a publicist.

The referendum lost 53% to 47%; no way Jones swung the vote that much. Doubtful he swung it at all, either way.

Moore gets indignant when Jones' publicist sends a press release asking the theater critic to "sit with Jones through a performance of Boulder's Dinner Theatre's [sic] 'Crazy For You.' Seriously: Offering up Jones to a theater critic is scraping the bottom of the barrel."

Oddly, Moore doesn't say whether he accepted. The Drunkablog's guess: no--he'd already reviewed the musical.

Then last month I was invited to a screening of the documentary "Conviction" at the Skylark Lounge. It tells the story of three Dominican nuns who staged a peaceful protest against the Iraq war and served federal prison sentences of up to four years.

"Peaceful" might be stretching things a bit.

"As an amusing bonus," the press release said, "Pastor Ted Haggard is featured throughout the film to explain why supporting war is the genuine Christian choice. Of course, nobody knew what the future held for him when the film was made."

Not quite getting the connection there, but, Jonesward!

And so who did they line up to host the screening and lead the discussion afterward? Mike Jones, described in the press release as "Ted Haggard's former 'business associate."'

That turned my stomach.

What're you, anticapitalist?

This film was the story of three courageous people imprisoned for acting on their beliefs - hosted by a man whose entire life had been conducted in opposition to the teachings of any church. It's not that Jones is evil - he's just offensive. And icky.

The ewwwwww factor'll get you every time.

This sordid affair has left a trail of victims, starting with Haggard's family and all those who put their faith in a flawed, tormented man.

The only decent thing Jones can do now is take a cue from Haggard and go away - before he proves to be the bigger hypocrite.

Yeah, being called a hypocrite might ruin the "prostitute/masseur/drug liaison's" reputation.

Update: I really wanted to title this post, "Gays of Rage," but obviously it doesn't fit. Nobody's mad except Moore. Delusionally thinking the phrase quite clever and original, however, I googled it and found this.

Paranoid, vaguely threatening, bourgeois-demeaning quote of the day!

From the civil libertarians at the Maoist Internationalist Movement:

Trying to handle MIM, Ward Churchill etc. as if they were Third World Islamic teenagers is not going to work. The fact that we are politically unpopular does not remove our means of retaliation. We may not use the avenues that the ACLU uses, but we are aware of the inherent nature of bourgeois politics and we will see to it that politics do not regress beyond those limits. The nature of the conflict that the "Patriot Act" crowd wants has historical precedents and the enemy has overreached out of ignorance of bourgeois dynamics.

Third World Islamic teenagers. That's pretty good. But goddamnit. How many times has the Patriot Act crowd been warned not to overreach out of ignorance of bourgeois dynamics? Don't bother to look, I'll just tell you: hundreds of times. And what's the first thing they do? Overreach out of ignorance of bourgeois dynamics.

Idiots.

(h/t Schnapps)

Say it!

I've had the new(ish) AP Stylebook on my desk for weeks, determined to think of something funny to write about it. Amazingly, no luck. But that's never stopped me before, so here are a few entries from a page picked at random:

drowned, was drowned.

If a person suffocates in water or other fluid [smacks forehead: other fluids!], the proper statement is that the individual drowned. To say that someone was drowned implies that another person caused the death by holding the victim's head under the water.

A fine distinction!

Dr Pepper. "A trademark (no period after the Dr) for a brand of soft drink."

drugs. "Because the word drugs has come to be used as a synonym for narcotics in recent years [recent years?], medicine is frequently the better word to specify that an individual is taking medication."

"Yes, Mother, I've been taking drugs, and I'm feeling much better." Does sound a little peculiar, doesn't it?

drunk, drunken, drunkenness. No explanation necessary.

duel. "Three people cannot duel."

I'd say that depends on the people involved, and how drunk or drunken they are.

duffel. "Not duffle."

Dumpster. "Trademark for a large metal trash bin. Use trash bin or trash container instead."

Drugs, drunkenness, duel, duffel, Dumpster. Story of my life in five words. Six if (as recommended) you substitute "trash container" for "Dumpster."

Dunkirk. "Use this spelling rather than Dunkerque, in keeping with widespread practice."

So widespread I've never seen it spelled Dunkerque. People who spell it Dunkerque also say Neek-ah-rah-wah. Sorry, I just love saying that: Neek-ah-rah-wah. Say it! Pretend you're Antonio Banderas! (That's fun to say too: Antonio Banderas.)

Dutch oven, Dutch treat, Dutch uncle. Antonio Banderas.

dyeing, dying. "Dyeing refers to changing colors. Dying refers to death."

People change colors when they die, too. Longer they're dead, the more colors they change.