Culture: Suffer the Children

Having just gone to court today on a pro bono adoption case, I have an appreciation of how important charity and legal aid agencies are in helping find homes for children who because of tragedy, recklessness or failures of the system have no place to call home and no one to call mom and dad.

The Catholic Church thinks otherwise and because Massachusetts state law was going to require them to not discriminate against gay parents seeking to adopt, they've decided that the ones who need to suffer for their discrimination are the children: The Church's primary charity arm in Massachusetts is going to no longer help any kids find homes.

If those meek want to inherit the Earth, they had better do it themselves. A sad day for both the Church and for hundreds of children in the Commonwealth.

Culture: Krauthammer's Straw Man and Little Gold Man

Charles Krauthammer wrote a pretty sorry excuse for a column in today's WaPo; essentially suggesting that any awarding of the film Syriana would be an insult to this country. (Personally, I find that awarding art that challenges the nation and criticizes its practices, even if in fictional settings, would be a tip of the hat to the folks who thought to put in a First Amendment -- the Middle Eastern version of Syriana probably leads to fatwas for everyone involved, even the co-executive producers.)

Syriana tells a story about oil, politics and foreign relations from a variety of perspectives. It is by no means a flawless film and it's efforts to express how muddled our interests are at the nexus of democracy and oil, it ends up losing its audience to some degree. Near the end, the CIA kills a prince of a foreign country who was planning on reforming his nation and expanding demcoracy within it, in order to elevate his brother to the throne as he was more favorable to American oil interests.

Only the most naive of American political commentators could look at this depiction and suggest that something like that never happens ( ChileGuatemalaIraq ). But, Krauthammer does so, and then gives us the lousiest straw man to refute the film's central premise: He mentions how Afghan President Harmid Karzai (a/k/a "the mayor of Kabul") is a reformer in the region and how we have supported him. This is true, but it is irrelevant.

The U.S. does not have a competing interest in Afghanistan. Sure, we used the country in the 1980s when the Soviets were marching into Afghanistan, and supported what Ronald Reagan called "freedom fighters" (later, the Taliban). But with the Soviets gone, what interest does the United States have in Afghanistan? It is not an oil rich nation, it is not teeming with other resources that benefit us, and given how unmodern the nation is outside of its only sizable city, there is no strategic benefit to doing anything but support Karzai, who would we back? The Warlords? Al-qaida?

(And that we have done such a half-assed job of supporting Karzai, neglecting it for the boondoggle/quagmire/clusterfuck/shitstorm that is Iraq, shows just how much we care about peace/freedom/democracy/buzzword of the week that this administration uses.)

Also, there is a question of timing in Krauthammer's column: The awards are in 48 hours, the film was released in early November. Syriana is nominated for two little awards, and if George Clooney wins for supporting actor, it's more likely a consolation prize given the near-certainty that his much better and less challenging film, Good Night and Good Luck, will be all but shut out.

Sports: Bracket, March 2, 2006

Through last night's games:

(Different format as I'm busy. Not too busy as to not make a bracket. UConn moves to overall #1 with Duke's loss. Texas still can get a #1 if they run the table and Memphis has a close game or loses. Oh, and book the Duke and Gonzaga in the same region as #1 and #2 matchup. Place a bet on it if you can, it becomes even easier to do if Duke isn't the overall #1 seed.)

(Washington region plays Oakland region; Atlanta region plays Minneapolis.)

(East) Washington, D.C.
1 Connecticut
2 Illinois
3 Tennessee
4 Kansas
5 Boston College
6 Marquette
7 Wichita State
8 Bucknell
9 Alabama
10 UNC-Wilmington
11 California
12 Western Kentucky
13 Wisconsin-Milwaukee
14 Winthrop
15 Albany
16 Lipscomb / Southern University

(Midwest) Minneapolis, Minn.
1 Villanova
2 Texas
3 North Carolina
4 UCLA
5 Oklahoma
6 Michigan State
7 Arkansas
8 Michigan
9 Missouri State
10 Cincinnati
11 Creighton
12 Air Force
13 Florida State
14 Murray State
15 Northern Arizona
16 Fairleigh Dickinson

(South) Atlanta, Ga.
1 Duke
2 Gonzaga
3 Iowa
4 West Virginia
5 Wisconsin
6 Georgetown
7 Washington
8 Nevada
9 Kentucky
10 George Mason
11 Southern Illinois
12 Texas A&M
13 Northwestern State
14 Kent State
15 Pennsylvania
16 IUPUI

(West) Oakland, Calif.
1 Memphis
2 Ohio State
3 Pittsburgh
4 Louisiana State
5 George Washington
6 Florida
7 North Carolina State
8 Arizona
9 Syracuse
10 Northern Iowa
11 San Diego State
12 Indiana
13 Manhattan
14 Pacific
15 Georgia Southern
16 Delaware State

Last Four In: Texas A&M, Florida State, Southern Illinois, Air Force
Last Four Out: Bradley, Hofstra, Alabama-Birmingham, Seton Hall
Lingering on the Bubble: Louisville, Maryland, Utah State, Colorado, Brigham Young

I'm starting to hope that there are some big upsets in the various one-bid league conference tournaments: It would make it a lot easier to sift through this weak crop of bubble teams.

News: Media bias against Ginsburg / Texas Redistricting

The AP reports that during the Supreme Court hearings on the Texas Redistricting case, Justice Ginsburg fell asleep for a portion of the two-hour argument:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060302/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_texas_redistricting_12

What they don't report is that according to pretty much everyone who attends hearings at the Court from time to time, Justice Thomas dozes off just about every argument. Just another fine example of that liberal MSM. Of course, there might be an alternate theory here: With Justice Alito joining the Court, Ginsburg now sits in what was Justice Thomas' chair on the bench. Perhaps it's a cushion thing. Or, maybe, it's a heated massage chair that Thomas installed in order to keep his boys warm and ready for the next visit to the Coke machine.

Sports: Duke v. Florida State Box Score

This post is mostly for the coaches and ESPN nitwits, and Duke haters who a few short weeks ago were bitching from dawn until dusk about foul disparity and free-throw disparity:

Score by Periods 1st 2nd Total
Duke.......................... 33 41 - 74
Florida State................. 36 43 - 79

Total Fouls
Duke... 30
FSU... 18

Free Throws Made-Attempted
Duke 10 / 17
FSU 32 / 40

The message? This game was clearly rigged.
(kidding.)

The real message: Shut it.

News: Hitchens is still an ass

Alas, Christopher Hitchens cannot turn his powerful lens back on himself. Someone should create a Hitchens mad-lib, the only problem would be there would be so many blanks to fill with stock expressions and straw men, it wouldn't be very funny. Meanwhile, Hitch says the following (although in his defense, he might have been shitfaced when he wrote it):

"There appears to be an arsenal of clichés and stock expressions located somewhere inside his word processor, so that he has only to touch the keyboard for one of them to spring abruptly onto the page."

http://www.slate.com/id/2137134/nav/tap1/

Sports: Len Elmore

Len"clarified" his remarkes on Feb. 27 for saying the following during the Duke-Temple game:

"This is what fuels that kind of controversy. And no one can argue with the pictures. It's not the abundance the number of fouls, it's when they occur at critical times.. That's absolutely a push-off. I'm not picking on Duke, and if people want to send letters that's fine. but you gotta wonder..you gotta wonder - and again it goes to the aggressive nature of this team and eventually the officials buy into it, and they're not the only ones."

The play he was discussing was arguably a foul on the Temple player, and upon review, even Elmore's play-by-play guy, Mike Patrick was suggesting that Elmore was seeing things.

So, he retracted a bit tonight off his "let's-reignite-the-conspiracy-bullshit" comment, saying that he meant that all the good teams get the benefit of the doubt. Still, in a game where a fifty year old record in the greatest conference in college basketball was set, Elmore wasted the final couple of minutes of the game discussing refereeing, fouls, free-throws and Duke. I don't think Len is obsessed (though he is a Maryland alum), but he's smart enough to know better than to push these meaningless statistics and grassy-knoll conspiracy theories of college basketball.

He's starting to sound as uninformed and anecdote-based as the dimwitted conservatives who cry about how academic bias and liberalism are ruining education... sure, they bitch, the entire time that they are at Harvard, but they never seem to transfer to somewhere else.

Sports: Bracket Feb. 27

Through Games of Feb. 26. This is a projection based on both what has transpired in previous games and what is likely (according to me) to happen over the remaining games of the season.

Duke is the overall #1. The Washington region plays the Minneapolis region. Atlanta plays Oakland.

Washington D.C. Regional

Philadelphia
1 Connecticut
16 Lipscomb / Southern University

8 Bucknell
9 Alabama

San Diego
5 Michigan State
12 Air Force

4 UCLA
13 Manhattan

Dayton, Ohio
3 Pittsburgh
14 Pacific

6 Boston College
11 Indiana

Greensboro, N.C.
7 Wichita State
10 UNC-Wilmington

2 Tennessee
15 Albany

Minneapolis Regional

Philadelphia
1 Villanova
16 Fairleigh Dickinson

8 Arkansas
9 Missouri State

Salt Lake City
5 Wisconsin
12 Western Kentucky

4 Kansas
13 Alabama-Birmingham

Jacksonville, Fla.
3 North Carolina
14 Kent State

6 George Washington
11 Creighton

Dayton, Ohio
7 Washington
10 Syracuse

2 Ohio State
15 Northern Arizona

Atlanta Regional

Greensboro, N.C.
1 Duke
16 IUPUI

8 Michigan
9 George Mason

San Diego
5 Oklahoma
12 Bradley

4 Marquette
13 Northwestern State

Auburn Hills, Mich.
3 Iowa
14 Murray State

6 Florida
11 California

Salt Lake City
7 Cincinnati
10 Nothern Iowa

2 Gonzaga
15 Georgia Southern

Oakland Regional
Dallas
1 Memphis
16 Delaware State

8 Nevada
9 Arizona

Jacksonville, Fla.
5 West Virginia
12 Southern Illinois

4 Louisiana State
13 Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Auburn Hills, Mich.
3 Illinois
14 Winthrop

6 Georgetown
11 San Diego State

Dallas
7 North Carolina State
10 Kentucky

2 Texas
15 Pennsylvania

The last four in: Alabama-Birmingham, Bradley, Southern Illinois, Air Force
The last four out: Florida State, Colorado, Hofstra, Seton Hall

News: 34%

A new CBS/NYT poll places W.'s approval rating at a whopping 34%, a new low for an administration that has redefined the concept of "a new low."

Even 50 % are disapproving of the way the administration is fighting the war on terror. That still seems a little low, given that we've not done anything to fight the war on terror since we failed at Tora Bora.

Looks like we will be approval-rating Orange alert before spring is out.

Culture: Those tolerant Catholics just can't quit ya

First it was Gonzaga students who were criticized by their own administration for chanting "Brokeback Mountain" at a St. Mary's player (there is, of course, no lower honor than calling a Catholic gay, unless he's a priest).

Despite an AP story that was picked up nationally about the incident, two weeks after, some Georgetown students tried to do the same thing. Honorably, some Hoya Blue (their version of the Cameron Crazies) students confiscated the signs and apologized.

I'd argue this was not a big deal and that it was a wonder where these hate-the-sin, love-the-sinner students got their marching orders from, but then you stumble upon this and this and it becomes abundantly clear that the Catholic Church's efforts to discriminate are not stopping anytime soon. (For an added laugh/sigh in disgust, check out the "Commitment to Diversity" page of the law firm representing them.)

The Catholic Bishops efforts to discriminate in the name of religion would seem on their face to run afoul of the Court's decision in Employment Division v. Smith, where the Court said that facially neutral statutes did not violate religious freedom unless they were specific towards a faith or went against a central tenet of the faith (the famous Peyote case, and one of Scalia's most agreeable opinions). But, just this week, the Court ruled 9-0 to allow a church to continue to use a hallucenogenic tea in their services, as it was a key tenet/aspect.

Will the Catholic Church decide that discriminating against gay parents in the adoption process is part of their core beliefs? The cases that hit the nexus of speech (like in Dale) and religion usually end in 5-4 decisions, and that fifth vote used to be O'Connor. I wonder if Kennedy will step up his own pragmatism.

It's too bad that the Catholic Church has never* been discriminated against, one has to wonder if that would change their perspective.

(*Not counting: 16th Century England, 17th Century England, the early United States, the American South up until about three decades ago, Northern Ireland, or the Roman Empire before Constantine.)

Culture: Arrested Development back?

The rumor is that negotiations are going better and that a one-season pick-up on Showtime is now "50/50."

George Michael: Well, I’ve been thinking. You know, I mean, every society has their own rules about this stuff. For instance, in some states, it’s legal to marry your own cousin. California’s blocked it twice, but that’s only because they tacked it onto an estate law thing that wasn’t gonna pass. We had the signatures...

Culture: Taiwan authorizes America to give it the Reach Around

Brokeback Mountain sets good example, Chen says

Perhaps in a new strategy for a foreign country, Taiwan seems to be encouraging us to forcefully fuck it, lead it on for 20 years about how we feel, and then come to our senses only after they are totally gone (or in this case, part of China).

You'd think that a film by Ang Lee would be blunt enough as to not confuse anyone about the difference between love and American foreign policy.

Taipei Times

News: "people don't need to worry about security" -- W.

U.S. President George W. Bush sought Thursday to calm an uproar over a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates taking over significant operations at six major American ports, saying "people don't need to worry about security." (Feb. 23, 2006)

"The United States faces a ruthless enemy, and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in."
--Karl Rove, Jan. 19, 2006.

So, be afraid, be very afraid, or don't be!

News: Beaversaurus

If Only!

Jurassic Beaver turns theory on its tail

Is CNN paying Anderson Cooper so much money that they had to hire 13-year-olds to write headlines for their website?

News: Lynn Swann is Making a Terrible Mistake

Like Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, and former Pittsburgh Steeler, Lynn Swann is running unopposed for his party's nomination. He's a political neophyte, and just picked a political party in 2004 when he was asked to help round up black votes for the Bush reelection bid. That's really a great example of how much respect the Bushies have for black voters. Swann's inexperience is probably the least of his problems:

Pennsylvania has a special little rule that pairs up governor and lieutenant governor candidates on a single ticket, despite having them run in their own primaries. The current governor, Ed Rendell, was paired with a blabbermouth who upended his preferred choice in the 2002 primary. There is only one man running for the Lt. Gov. spot on the Republican side: Jim Matthews, brother of Hardball hardhead Chris Matthews.

If Jim is half the blowhard, know-it-all, turnoff that his brother is, then Swann should start working on his concession speech.

Then again...

In the week since he forced out his only primary opposition, Swann mistakenly commented that overturning Roewould lead to the immediate outlawing of abortion, and showed just how much he cares about democracy and his home state by revealing a voting record that missed 20 of the last 36 statewide elections (over a span of 18 years). His excuse was that he was travelling. But, Lynn, we all know that college football games are played on Saturday.

He might be better off with Matthews brother. Or even Matthews. Someone, please, don't let Swanny get a word in. Is Terry Bradshaw available to jump in?

Sports: Holding Vitale's Ball

Duke had a tough, come-from-behind win over Georgia Tech. tonight. Unfortunately, the game was called by Dick Vitale. Great ambassador for the game of college basketball, sure. But his war on the held ball rule has to end.

Every game that Vitale does he has a fit whenever a held ball is called and the possession is rewarded back to the team on offense. Vitale would prefer that the ball actually be thrown up in the air and rewarded to whoever tips it to their teammate. He insists that such a system would be more fair than alternating the possession arrow.

The problem with Vitale, err, this problem with Vitale, is that he does not ever make the same complaint about when the defense is awarded the ball because of the possession arrow. Hence, he only is complaining about 50 percent of the held ball situations; the possession arrow gives it to the team that Vitale thinks deserves it 50 percent of the time. What Vitale really wants is a defense gets the ball rule. We used one of those when I was in elementary school beacuse we couldn't afford possession arrows. It's not a fair rule at all, and when there is a true floorfight for a loose ball, who is to say who is on defense?

Even so, if Vitale's notion of defense deserving the ball is more fair, throwing the ball up in the air for a held ball does not guarantee 50 percent. It could work out to be much less, and woe to any scrappy guards who tangle up with a center. Also, when you win a held ball and you were the team on offense, you lose the next held ball even if you were on defense and caused it, and you don't get any time back on the shot clock -- two major negatives that more than make up for the mythical unfairness that Vitale complains about.

Why and How

Why? Because I'm pretty sure everyone else is tired of me commenting on their blogs but not opening myself up to the same level of abuse.

How? Internets.