The emperor wears no clothes: Part II

There is a "hydrocarbon law" pending before the Iraqi parliament. As reported several weeks ago here, this law would open up Iraqi oil production to private oil companies, giving them unprecedented access to the world's third largest oil reserves.

As outlined here, the contracts awarded to oil companies under the law are so-called "production sharing agreements", which are "roundly rejected by all the top oil producing countries in the Middle East because they grant long-term contracts (20 to 35 years in the case of Iraq’s draft law) and greater control, ownership and profits to the companies than other models."

I personally feel that this structure may be very beneficial to Iraq's economy (and in turn, the well-being of its citizenry), at least in the short term. At present, Iraq has a very poor oil production infrastructure and very little of its own expertise in maximizing profits from its oil resources. So, this may be a good idea.

But, what I can't seem to wrap my head around is how the facts surrounding this law are not receiving far more play in the media. A Google News search turns up very few articles, most from what appear to be "alternative" sources (e.g., Green Party U.S., Earthtimes, The Progress Report, and (of course) Al Jazeera (caution: clicking on the Al Jazeera link will probably put you on one of Mr. Alberto Gonzales' many lists of citizens in need of re-education)).

Despite this, the Iraq hydrocarbon law is not terrorist-loving liberal hippie propaganda. In fact, it is a "key linchpin" (according to Tony Snow, as quoted in Oilweek magazine) in the Bush administration's Iraq plan. Apparently, without anyone noticing, the passage of this law has been made one of the administration's "benchmarks" set for withdrawal of U.S. military forces.

According to someone on the NYT editorial page, "the Bush administration has been aggressive in shepherding the oil law toward passage", and the Iraqi parliament is under "tremendous external pressure being exercised by the Bush administration, the oil corporations — and the presence of 140,000 members of the American military."

The NYT??? Yes, they have an editorial on this, apparently written by a crackpot terrorist lover: "Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International, a watchdog group, is the author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.”". But not a single news article that I can find.

Very odd. I'm wondering if the MST (yes, I'm using a stupid blog-speak acronym. Kill me.) is reluctant to approach this, because then they will inevitably be forced into the "Oh, wait, so that's why we invaded Iraq" angle, and they just really, really hope in their hearts that that angle is not the correct one.

Or maybe it just isn't a big thing.

Hopefully more to come.

"The Failed Attorney General"

While I can't put into words my chagrin in sharing an opinion with the reprehensible monstrosity known as Mr. Senator Charles E. "Chuck" Schumer (D-NY), he and a significant number of other congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle have joined me in calling for the head of our exalted attorney general. (Metaphorically calling for the head, of course.)

Additionally, the NYT has joined the voices of reason in advocating the unceremonious dismissal of this asshat. According to their Sunday editorial, Mr. Gonzales "does not have a clue", "has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency", is a "public champion of the absurd notion" that the rule of law does not apply to this presidential administration, has "repudiated the Geneva Conventions", has "sanctioned the use of kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture", has "been central to the administration’s assault on the courts", has "abandoned [his] duties as guardian of election integrity and voting rights." They say Mr. Gonzales' "weak resume" at the time of his confirmation to the post essentially consisted of "producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say." And finally, Mr. Gonzales "symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law."

I think that about sums it up.

Anti-American

Because I often criticize persons and institutions that I feel are destroying America from within, some people have characterized me as Anti-American. Clearly, I feel this is silly and not deserving of a rebuttal. Nevertheless, I was recently reminded of something I read years ago that made me want to go and find the nearest American flag and run down the street, waving it.

The quote below is from an essay by P.J. O'Rourke, entitled "Among the Euro-Weenies", from his excellent collection "Holidays in Hell". Some of the material is a bit dated by now, but still a great read, certainly worth $2 at Half Priced Books.

Back in London, I was having dinner in the Groucho Club -- this week's in-spot for what's left of Britain's lit glitz and noveau rock riche -- when one more person started in on the Stars and Stripes. Eventually he got, as the Europeans always do, to the part about "Your country's never been invaded." (This fellow had been two during the Blitz, you see.) "You don't know the horror, the suffering. You think war is..."

I snapped.

"A John Wayne movie," I said. "That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? We think war is a John Wayne movie. We think life is a John Wayne movie -- with good guys and bad guys, as simple as that. Well, you know something, Mister Limey Poofter? You're right. And let me tell you who those bad guys are. They're us. WE BE BAD.

"We're the baddest-assed sons of bitches that ever jogged in Reeboks. We're three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother's side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them all together and it wouldn't give us room to park our cars. We're the big boys, Jack, the original, giant, economy-sized, new and improved butt kickers of all time. When we snort coke in Houston, people lose their hats in Cap d'Antibes. And we've got an American Express card limit higher than your piss-ant metric numbers go.

"You say our country's never been invaded? You're right, little buddy. Because I'd like to see the needle-dicked foreigners who'd have the guts to try. We drink napalm to get our hearts started in the morning. A rape and a mugging is our way of saying "Cheerio". Hell can't hold our sock-hops. We walk taller, talk louder, spit further, fuck longer and buy more things than you know the names of. I'd rather be a junkie in a New York City jail than king, queen, and jack of all you Europeans. We eat little countries like this for breakfast and shit them out before lunch."

Of course, the guy should have punched me. But this was Europe. He just smiled his shabby, superior European smile. (God, don't these people have dentists?)

Shocker

Boy, I let out a huge yelp of disbelief when I saw this headline: "FBI abused power to get private records: report".

I'm being facetious, obviously, but it actually is really surprising that the headlined "report" wasn't done by the hysterical, America-hating hippie lawyers at the ACLU, or the terrorism-loving liberal whiners at Human Rights Watch, but was promulgated by the Justice Department's own inspector general. Clearly the I.G.'s office did not clear this with our esteemed and brilliantly exalted Attorney General. Maybe some of the checks and balances in this government still work?

For those who want to know more...

about Alberto "The People's Attorney" Gonzales, here's a Salon article that was published shortly after his nomination. It is called "The Torturer General".

And here's one called "Our Soviet Attorney General", posted by those crazy libertarians on LewRockwell.com (always interesting stuff on there).

Treason doth never prosper:

What's the reason?

For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

And on a completely unrelated note (bugmenot.com)...

This country's celebrated and exalted attorney general, a Mr. Alberto R. Gonzales, testified before congress that the U.S. Constitution does not grant the right of habeas corpus. His actual quote was: "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There's a prohibition against taking it away."

This person, Mr. Gonzales, went before congress to argue that the captives held at Guantanamo Bay were not entitled to due process under the law. You may snicker at this quote, as I did, simply by virtue of the fact that he appears to be using a very clumsy (i mean, uh, clever) lawyer trick to deny something that is plainly evident.

Which is true. But to stop at this easy comedic aspect hides a more important truth, which is that the Constitution really does not grant, or purport to grant, habeas corpus. Mr. Gonzales, in fact, correctly interprets Article One, Section 9, which states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

Why does it not? Because habeas corpus is a privilege that pre-dates any government and exists independent of any law. You might say it is "endowed by the creator". The Framers did not have the arrogance to "bestow" this right on "citizens", because whether or not a person is a citizen of any particular nation is irrelevant: no person, in any country, should be deprived of his or her liberty without due process of law.

And, of course, the Supreme Court has also, many times, confirmed the idea that the Constitution simply assumes the existence of habeas corpus, rather than purporting to grant it, in much the same way that it assumes "people" are "alive" without purporting to grant them life. For example, you might think it odd if the Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of speech could be taken away because the Constitution does not grant the right to free speech, but merely states that "congress shall pass no law... abridging the freedom of speech."

I have seen the thoughts of Mr. Gonzales echoed on this subject by blog commenters (yes, they were of the Wise County retrograde variety, but still. A sample (and I quote): "Old rules don't handle this newest situation."). They say -- and I paraphrase -- that the Constitution must be interpreted in light of modern day threats, and that the Founders never envisioned the type of enemies we face today. Etc.

I think us Freedomists will probably win this debate, in part because I feel like you have really reached the bottom of the barrel in terms of arguments when you must claim that the Founders were naive, short-sighted, or lacked vision.

And who will be charged with this reinterpretation of the Constitution? Why, the noted visionary George W. Bush and his die-hard band of cronies, sycophants, and yes-men. Uh... I mean, his White House Counsel, Attorney General, and Supreme Court appointees.

The following takes place between....

...two points in your life where you are actually doing something productive or worthwhile.

Light posting on this blog lately.

I blame it on a lethal combination of too much work and an insidious bout of addiction with audiovisual crack, otherwise known as "24".

I recently made the mistake of Blockbuster-Total-Accessing the first disc of Season Three. Which, of course, meant that I was forced to access discs two, three, four, five, and six in rapid succession. So rapid, in fact, that my BBTA account could not keep up with my 24 abuse.

What I mean is, you know how they mail the discs to you, and when you finish watching them, you can take them to an Actual Blockbuster Retail Outlet and trade them in, right then, for a free disc rental? But then they also immediately credit the disc as being mailed back and mail you the next disc in your queue right away without waiting to receive it from you in the mail? Well, that's how it works, and but despite this addict-friendly, state-of-the-art 24 delivery mechanism, I ended up Actually Renting 3 of the discs (i.e., actually paying to rent the damn things, which amounts to about $15, or an entire month's worth of BBTA fees) because I watched them so fast.

But the upshot is: boy, that Jack Bauer sure is one bad-ass mofo. ** Spoiler Alert ** In the episode where Jack tells Ryan Chappelle to get on his knees, because he, Jack Bauer, needs to kill him to stave off certain planetary destruction for yet another hour, and Ryan Chappelle goes into his "Ok, Jack, you're sure this is the only way out of this... there aren't any other options, right?" speech, I actually expected him to say "Jack, just use your superpowers! It's ok, I won't tell!"

I just renewed my membership

I would encourage you to join.

dis·am·big·u·ate

I've never seen this word before. It means "to remove the ambiguity from; make unambiguous". I wonder if they just made it up ("they"?), or if it just isn't used much. Or maybe I don't read enough. In any event, it's hard to believe I haven't seen (or noticed?) it before, since it sort of describes my job.

Fed Judiciary gets medieval on our ass

Yes, you read the tombstone correctly. Blackstone, the most famous of all legal scholars, puts the birth of the writ of habeas corpus at 1305 AD. According to some, it has its roots in the Magna Carta, signed in 1215.

Either way, earlier this week our esteemed federal judiciary, at the behest of our president, buried the "Great Writ", in direct contradiction to Article One, Section 9 of the United States Constitution, which states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

As we know, there does not exist a state of rebellion or invasion in this country. But neither our esteemed federal judiciary, nor our great and revered president, argued that such a state existed. Rather, their reasoning hinged on the fact that "Cuba -- not the United States -- has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay." Which means that:

1. Lawyers for those imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay are, right this moment, rushing to file writs of habeas corpus with Castro's judiciary.

2. Once granted by Castro, these writs will be presented to the Guantanamo Bay prison guards, who will then immediately release the applicable prisoners.

3. Then, Castro will ride his old beater of a motorcycle into Gitmo and respectfully ask all the marines there to please vacate the place, which they will do, immediately, since, after all, Castro and his government have sovereignty there.

4. Then, at this point, pigs will fly out of my ass, journey to the moon, and found a new civilization based on free slop for all newly liberated flying livestock.

Nurture or Nature?

Folks, today was a beautiful day in the suburbia-plex. After a long and hard winter, we had temps in the upper 70s, a slight breeze, and not a cloud in the sky.

The first thing I did when I started my car on the way home from work was hit the auto-window-down buttons. I turned up some music, and had a very enjoyable commute home. It occurred to me though, as it sometimes does, the majority of other people were driving home from work with their windows up. According to unscientific research conducted by me at one of the suburbia-plex's many outrageously long red lights, 80% of cars did NOT have their windows rolled down or even cracked significantly. I even spotted 3 convertibles with their tops NOT down. I find this to be a shockingly poor use by local humans of our planet's weather.

I know that there isn't any right or wrong in this situation, and I try not to judge others on this basis, but this is a mindset that I just cannot understand. Truly. It makes my head hurt, trying to understand. And yet, I am clearly in the minority.

Something that is so hard-wired into my brain, something I don't even question (i.e., "should I roll my windows up or down?" does not run through my mind before, during, or after I hit the auto-window-down button). But the other 80% of drivers feel oppositely. Even on a day as perfect as today. That's really hard for me to wrap my head around.

So... maybe I should just stop thinking so much, and just go ahead and feel superior. Yeah, I think that will work.

Book recommendation

with semi-amusing personal anecdote thrown in at no extra charge:

Once upon a time, after I got my first "real" job, but before I had definitively left the parental nest (and therefore still lived in the eponymous "Hick Town"), I used to go to a place called Fry Street on the weekends. For the uninitiated (I assume very few of my readers fall into this category), Fry Street is a loosely defined area full of college bars adjacent to the University most proximate to the aforementioned Hick Town.

Most proximate, but still a half hour drive. Due to a very unfortunate previous event which will not be detailed here, said half hour drive, coupled with my usual Fry Street drinking habits, necessitated that these visits would end with me crashing on a friend's sofa at closing time and driving back the next morning.

One such morning, after a more-than-typical night of tipping many (many) Shiner Bocks, I awoke with the usual feeling of "Where the fuck am I, exactly?". I usually try to work out the answer to this question prior to opening my eyes. Because sometimes you want to circle around that answer a bit, let it come to you in small packets, catalyze it somewhat, rather than have it -- BAM! -- thrust right upon you all at once.

But in this instance, I was in a relatively safe (if not clean, or orderly) place. Once I had determined this to my satisfaction, I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, ignored the pounding in my brain pan, and slowly opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the spine of a book inches from my face on the coffee table. The book had a curious name that -- in my stuporous state -- I couldn't quite parse correctly: Cryptonomicon. I stared, trying to puzzle out the name, and my misfiring brain kept making associations with Necronomicon, which has something to do with witchcraft, or satan, or something.

But so I finally, without moving my head, picked the book up and looked at the back cover for the blurbs. These contained words like: "brilliant", "visionary", "mind-boggling", "genre-busting", etc. I'm a sucker for good blurbs -- especially the kind that come from more august sources than "The Akron Gazette" or suchlike. Which these did. The NY Post (not exactly the NYT Book Review ("electrifying... hilarious"), but still) called the author, Neal Stephenson, "the rarest of geniuses" (to which I say, NY Post, you might want to tap the brakes a bit there, buddy).

So on the way home I stopped at Recycled Books (a sprawling used book store that you should definitely patronize, if you have the means) and got my own copy. It isn't for everyone (lots of tech stuff, jargon, and highly detailed descriptions of things that some people don't care much about... oh, and plus, not exactly a tie-a-nice-bow-on-top airplane-fiction type ending, which will kill it for some people).

But all of this is really just an excuse to post the following quote, from page 51:

After a series of conferences in a room at the town's Holiday Inn, the veteran emerged, accompanied by one of the five most famous lawyers on the face of the planet, and announced that he was filing a civil suit against the Three Siblings that would, if it succeeded, turn them and their entire community into a flat, smoking abrasion in the earth's crust.

I prefer to remember her like this:

Or, maybe like this:

"Let them eat set design"

This was Sophia Coppola's response when told that viewers of her film, Marie Antoinette, were starving for character development, a story, a cohesive structure, and some semblance of a point.

This was truly one of the worst movies I have ever seen, as I will detail below. But let's start by saying what was good about this movie: the costumes, set design, locations, and cinematography are extravagant and gorgeous. If this had been a one hour History Channel HD special on the topic of "Wow, look how well we can recreate pre-revolution France when we have millions upon millions of dollars to spend", then ok, fine. I would watch the thing without complaint. Or maybe an elaborate set up for a still photography series to be published in a glossy Vanity Fair type mag.

But no, this was a big budget Hollywood film, probably released in 1000+ theaters. As such, it requires viewers, paying $8-$10 per ticket and $12-$15 per popcorn bucket, to be entertained for three hours (honestly, I don't know how long this movie was, but it seemed like 5 hours) and to leave the theater feeling some small level of enjoyment or at least with the feeling that they had gained some knowledge or insight. Or something.

I had been wanting to see this movie. I saw a trailer for it a few months ago, and the trailer made it look like it was a modern riff on an interesting historical tale. Kind of like A Knight's Tale or one of those Ann Hathaway movies from a few years ago. One of those movies that juxtaposes present day pop culture and modern sensibilities within a historical setting. I think the word I'm looking for is anachronistic. For example, A Knight's Tale has a soundtrack of pop music transposed onto a medieval story -- to good effect, according to me.

The Marie Antoinette trailer had pop music. And the clips in the trailer made it look like the point of the movie would be: imagine Marie Antoinette as a Mariah Carey/Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton type of spoiled diva princess character, and see how she flails and sasses around in Versailles before getting her head chopped off, all set to a Depeche Mode/Madonna/Prince soundtrack. Sort of like Mean Girls meets A Tale of Two Cities.

THAT might have been a decent 95 minute movie. Good for a few laughs and a couple of feel-good moments. But THAT is not this movie. My guess is that this is what the studio's marketing department did with the trailers and ads after their focus groups (and non-brain-dead studio execs) saw the film and went into convulsions.

As nearly as I can tell, this movie was supposed to be a dead serious biopic about Marie Antoinette. Here are some nuggets:

1. The first ONE HOUR of the movie is spent laboriously describing why, exactly, Marie is sent by the Empress of Austria to France, where she is married off to the French King's grandson, to be the eventually Queen of France, and how she is then expected to produce an heir to the throne with said grandson, and how she has a really hard time with the latter part of this because Louis XVI just isn't into having sex with her.

2. Why is Louis XVI not into having sex with her? After an hour of watching, we have no idea except that the presence of a "stable boy" is just barely alluded to.

3. To really, REALLY beat the idea into our heads that "Louis XVI isn't into having sex with Marie", we see the same scene (I mean, it is just short of identical) repeated six (6!) times of the two lying in bed, and Marie making the most perfunctory advances to him, and him rolling over and saying good night. I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite SO redundant outside of a Defensive Driving film.

4. So, after all of that, Marie flirts with a handsome Swiss guy. Briefly flirts with him. After some other stuff happens, we see Marie giving birth. Did the Swiss guy get her pregnant? I have not the slightest idea. But somewhere in there we see the Marie-Louis XVI bedroom scene again, and this time he inexplicably rolls on top of her, end of scene.

5. And after Marie gives birth the first time, she inexplicably gives birth several more times. Have Marie and Louis XVI unexplainedly solved their problems in the bedroom? Or is Marie catting around on him? Not even the smallest clue is given, and this after a ONE HOUR buildup of this storyline, during which, like, NOTHING else happened.

6. Then there are some lame-appearing parties, where the characters drink some champagne and wear fancy costumes. It is shown that some of the characters don't like some of the other characters. Who are these people? What are their motivations? The only two characters we even know the names of are Marie and Louis XVI, and the latter says about 18 words during the entire movie. In fact, this may be the only movie I've ever seen where there is no dialogue. I don't remember a single scene in which more than 4 lines were strung together. I mean, the main character barely even speaks!

7. At the very end, we find out that there exist such things as French citizens who do not live at Versailles, and these people are upset about something. What is their complaint? I couldn't tell, and so probably it isn't really very important. Seriously. If this movie were not based on actual historical events which I happen to know something of, I would not have the slightest clue why an angry mob formed outside the palace in the last 3 minutes of this movie. I don't think the French citizenry was ever mentioned prior to this, and we damn sure never saw any of them.

8. Also in the last 3 minutes we see some political-type persons urging Marie to flee with her children. She is adamant in refusing, stating that she must not leave her beloved Louis XVI. WHY? They've barely even spoken to each other, they have no discernible bond whatsoever, and we know virtually nothing about this guy other than he is (probably) a nit-wit. For that matter, we really don't know a hell of a lot about Marie either, other than she has very extravagant taste in shoes and desserts.

9. At the very end, we see Marie heading off in a carriage. There's no payoff. I for one would have been slightly mollified if each and every person appearing on the screen during the previous 3 hours were shown being horribly and graphically beheaded. Even if we were never shown why this was happening. Which we aren't, and which, unfortunately, they aren't. aaarrrggghhhhh!

Incompetence

Or maybe just plain laziness. Either way. The other day I drove by a house that had a For Sale sign in the yard. Being possibly in the market to buy such a house, I u-turned my automobile and pulled into the driveway. What had attracted me to this particular house was that the sign said "POOL!" on it. I've always wanted a house with a pool. Not so much to swim in, though I might do some of that, but more so I can sit beside it, drink beer, and look at it. Kill me.

But anyway. I got out of my car, and looked through the gate at the pool. It was pretty nice. There was no one there at the time, so I took a a picture of the house, a picture of the For Sale sign, and another picture of the street sign on the corner, for later investigation. I left. Later, being in front of the internets, I looked up the website of the real estate agency mentioned on the For Sale sign.

So first off, this website sucks. Maybe I'm a dummy when it comes to the internets, but I had to click through like 12 pages before I got to the right place to do a "property search". Then, it has this really annoying form with too many fields. Then, you can't just fill in the "postal code" field and get a list of all properties offered in that zip code. No, you also have to fill in the "city" and "state" fields (why???). THEN, since you didn't fill out all the right fields, it zeroes out all the fields that you DID fill in, so that you have to start all over. Aarrgghh.

But despite this, I finally found the house in question in the search results list. This list has a few items of info for each property: (1) address, (2) number of bedrooms, (3) number of bathrooms, (4) price, (5) name of agent, and (6) MLS number. And there is a link designated "Property Details".

So far so good.I click on the link. The "Property Details" page for this house contains the exact same information as the search results list with the addition of two other relevant items: a "picture" and a "description". Unfortunately for me, the consumer, a person who has a down payment in the bank and a decent credit rating and a possible desire to purchase this particular property, the "picture" is a placeholder that says "no picture available" and the "description" is a single sentence that says "This xxxx square foot Single Family Home(s) in xxxx county has x bedroom(s) and x.00 bathroom(s)."

In response to this -- possibly the WORST instance of marketing I personally have ever witnessed -- I opine as follows:

1. No picture??? How *#$%& hard is it to take a $#*%@# picture? I'm a casual consumer, not really even actively searching for a house to buy, and I took not one but THREE pictures! And this shit-for-brains real estate agent, who stands to make upwards of ten thousand dollars in the event that the house is sold, can't be bothered to take a single fucking picture??

2. The description is a single sentence which adds NO information whatsoever beyond what is already listed on the same page? This brain-dead moron of a dwelling hawker deems it too much effort to type the word "pool" so that the most (probably the only) attractive feature of this property can be made known to the consumer??

Here is an example of a "property description" typically promulgated by a halfway decent real estate agent:

"Picture perfect!!! From the beautiful drive up, into welcoming wood floors, soaring ceilings & crown molding, frieze carpet, loads of storage, open kitchen & den. Into the backyard oasis complete with pool and spa with fountain. Three living areas, walk-in closets, brushed aluminum fixtures, and lots of extras. This home is perfect for formal gatherings or outdoor get togethers. See it now or see it sold!"

Salesy, yes. Blatant puffery, yes. But guess what? YOU ARE TRYING TO SELL SOMETHING! This particular listing goes on to enumerate approximately 40 other items of information about the property. Some of these items might not be of any relevance to a given buyer. But guess what else? They sure as hell might be! And it probably took all of 15 minutes to enter this stuff into the little database thing.

But no, Adam Driver, ACE SALESMAN, of Keller-Williams Realty, can't be bothered with any of that. At some point, sooner or later, Adam Driver, ACE SALESMAN, will collect his 6% because someone, inevitably, will purchase that house. But it damn sure ain't gonna be me.