In order to help the debate over Cindy Sheehan to move forward, I’ve agreed to moderate a debate between right-wing hack Michelle Malkin and conservative apologist Michelle Malkin. (most links via John Cole)

Michelle, we’ll start with you. What do you think of the protest by Cindy Sheehan outside of the President’s Crawford ranch? She says that she wants to know the “noble cause” for which her son died :

I can’t imagine that Casey Sheehan would approve of such behavior, conduct, and rhetoric.

Uh-oh. Michelle, you’re shaking your head over there and flipping back to your notes from last year’s Presidential debates. Would you like to respond to what Michelle said?

John Kerry stooped to the lowest of the low with the shameless, invasive line that will be played over and over again on the news in the next 24 hours. . .Um, has John Kerry talked to Dick Cheney’s daughter? Has John Edwards? Has Mary Beth Cahill, who called Mary Cheney “fair game” on Fox News Channel after tonight’s debate? If they haven’t talked to her, they should shut up.

Ouch. Tough words from Ms. Malkin.

Now going back to you, Michelle. You recently had some harsh words in response to the rumors that the New York Times was looking into the adoption records of Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts. So you think someone’s personal life is off-limits?

I think it’s the journalistic equivalent of dumpster-diving, Steve. And I think there’s no excuse for it. There’s no defense for it and the New York Times should apologize for it.

The name’s Greg, but I see your point. On the same subject, I’m going to pass this one to you Michelle. Michelle has taken a pretty firm stand against digging into personal records, but you recently printed Cindy Sheehan’s divorce records on your own site. Where do you stand on that?

Like it or not, the dispute between Cindy Sheehan and some of her family members is news.

Interesting point she’s got there. Do you have anything to add, Michelle?

What could possibly be gleamed from the adoption records of four and five year old children of a Supreme Court nominee whose professional and personal lives have been beyond reproach? This is what the New York Times has sunk to? Investigative opposition research of pre-schoolers? It’s pathetic.

Okay, so you both seem to disagree on whether digging into someone’s personal life is fair game, but to take this back to the Cindy Sheehan case, where do you think what do you think about the attacks she’s received by people on the right?

Well, I do want to emphasize what you said, Bill, which is that losing a child in any situation, whether it’s in a war, from an accident or disease, is one of the most painful of human experiences. And Mrs. Sheehan deserves compassion and sympathy.

And apparently, according to the accounts from last year when President Bush met with her, that’s exactly what she got. I don’t think that anybody should demonize her.

Well put, Michelle, even if you did get my name wrong again. Do you have anything to add to that Ms. Malkin?

Mrs. Sheehan, as they say, seems to “have issues.”

Now Michelle, you recently printed a reference to Sheehan’s supporters as “grief pimps”. Michelle, would you like to add anything to Michelle’s contention that there’s something exploitational about these activists joining grieving family members?

One of the pro-abortion Left’s favorite attacks on people of faith is that we only care about children before they’re born and not afterwards.

Perhaps this is why the mainstream media has ignored the amazing stories of pro-life activists who have been keeping vigil outside Terri Schiavo’s hospice–people like Steve and Tony Sakac, the Withey family, and the Anderson sisters who won’t ever appear on the front page of the New York Times or Washington Post.
. . .
For millions of Americans of faith of all ages, standing up for the sanctity of life is not just an empty slogan–but a deeply-held principle put into action daily. The MSM had ample opportunity to tell the stories of some of the inspiring people who have stood vigil outside Terri Schiavo’s hospice. Instead, as they have done throughout this ordeal, they looked the other way.

And we’ll have to end it there ladies. I want to thank you both for joining us and though you didn’t seem to agree on much, I hope this debate has helped inform our readership by presenting both sides of what’s happening down there in Crawford.

I love it when Roger Ebert hates a movie. This review of Deuce Bigalow is especially great :

The movie created a spot of controversy last February. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year’s Best Picture Nominees and wrote that they were “ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that … bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to ‘Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,’ a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic.”

Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: “Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind … Maybe you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers.”

Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can’t take it. Then I found he’s not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists’ Guild award for lifetime achievement.
. . .
But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo” while passing on the opportunity to participate in “Million Dollar Baby,” “Ray,” “The Aviator,” “Sideways” and “Finding Neverland.” As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

Apparently this Gannon-esque sequel is so horrible, it prompted Ebert’s editor to compile a list of his best negative reviews. I also love this one for Freddy Got Fingered :

This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

Many years ago, when surrealism was new, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made “Un Chien Andalou,” a film so shocking that Bunuel filled his pockets with stones to throw at the audience if it attacked him. Green, whose film is in the surrealist tradition, may want to consider the same tactic. The day may come when “Freddy Got Fingered” is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny.

I also reccommend the reviews for Baby Geniuses and Battlefield Earth (a movie so bad that it literally gave me a stomach ache).

It should be noted that the search for answers regarding the Iraq war goes well beyond a grieving mother camping outside the President’s posh ranch. For example, during the press conference for last year’s Senate report on pre-war intelligence, committee chairman Sen. Pat Roberts promised that the follow-up investigation on the use of Iraqi intelligence by senior policy-makers was “one of my top priorities”. Well, it’s been more than a year later and phase two isn’t on anyone’s radar, except for a few tenacious lawmakers like Sen. Dianne Feinstein :

I am increasingly dismayed by the delay in completing the Committee’s ‘Phase II’ investigation into intelligence prior to the Iraq War. As you know, the Committee voted unanimously on February 12, 2004 to investigate five questions on pre-war intelligence, including use of intelligence by policymakers. Nearly eighteen months later, much work remains before these questions will be satisfactorily answered.

In addition to the terms set out early last year, the Committee should address the significant issues raised by the so-called ‘Downing Street Memo’ – whether the ‘intelligence and facts were being fixed’ to support the policy of using military force against Iraq. This claim raises serious questions about the use of intelligence, and whether intelligence resources were unduly focused away from other priorities in order to provide additional – and as we have found, flawed – intelligence on Iraq.

It would also be my preference to include in Phase II any new revelations concerning the CURVEBALL case since the Committee’s first Iraq report.

It is important that the Committee complete its study of these questions, both to fulfill our oversight responsibilities and because there is no other body capable of doing this work. The Committee’s report assessing the intelligence on Iraq ’s WMD capabilities was of outstanding quality and demonstrated both our ability to inform the American public and uncover needs for intelligence reform. I urge you to take whatever steps are needed to complete the Phase II investigation and produce a report as comprehensive and thoughtful as the first phase of the Committee’s investigation. I stand ready to participate in this investigation in any way possible.

And that just covers the lies that led us into this war. As far as how the hell we get out of it, I’ve written in the past about the Pentagon’s foot dragging in regards to giving the American public a clear set of benchmarks by which to judge the administration’s performance. As I mentioned, getting those answers was legally required by the most recent war appropriation bill. Well, it seems that Congress got some answers a couple weeks ago, but they fell short of the mark.

Congressional critics of Bush administration Iraq policy lashed out at the Pentagon Thursday for keeping classified parts of a report that gave a detailed assessment of the readiness of Iraqi fighting forces.

Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he fears “the American people are going to be left out” of discussions about when the United States can bring troops home and the wartorn country over to Iraqi security forces.
. . .
Joining Levin, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Thursday that if Rumsfeld submits merely “a progress report on the war without standards, goals and timetables specified” he will not have satisfied the intent of Congress.

“A meaningful strategy for success must include benchmarks by which the American people can better ask how the war in Iraq is going and when our troops can come home,” she said.

A few days after those remarks, the Democrats were rebuffed again, this time by the Republicans in the House :

Iraq benchmarks: Voting 203 for and 227 against, members on Wednesday rejected a Democratic request that President Bush set public benchmarks for measuring U.S. progress in Iraq in areas such as defeating the insurgency, establishing democratic institutions and bringing U.S. troops home. This occurred during debate on a bill authorizing State Department activities and other foreign operations in fiscal 2006.

Rep. Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, urged benchmarks “so we know exactly what we need to do to achieve success in Iraq. Up to this point, Congress has abdicated its responsibility on Iraq. The Republican leadership has provided the administration with a blank check when it comes to Iraq.”

Cindy Sheehan is sitting in the dirt outside the President’s ranch hoping to find out what the “noble cause” is that took her son’s life. In seeking those answers, the American public deserves to know what the practical cause is for the Iraq war as well. Administration justifications about WMD’s, ties to 9/11, spreading democracy, and “rape rooms” have been proven to be either lies or hypocritical posturing. Rhetoric about troop levels, training of Iraqi security forces, and the strength of the insurgency has been shown to be equally hollow. Two and a half years into this nightmare, we still don’t know the real reason why we went there and how it’s all going to end.

In the past, I’ve suggested that readers help in the search for those answers by contacting their representatives, but I’ve lost all hope that this would do any good. Clearly one side of the aisle is concerned with getting answers and the other side it concerned with covering the President’s ass. At this point, if you want to get involved, contact the media and ask why they aren’t concerned with the same questions. Why hasn’t Wolf Blitzer shown as much interest in “phase two” as he has in patting himself on the back for interviewing Bill Clinton? Why aren’t local papers covering the anti-troop voting records of their Congressional representatives? I dunno, but I sure hope that Cindy Sheehan’s crusade will prompt the media to finally seek the answers we deserve.

Gosh, Dig-Dug sure is getting big. Here’s our little guy the day I brought him home :

And here’s a more dignified recent photo :



We’ve also decided that if we ever get a brother or sister for Diggy, he/she will be named Frogger. But we’ve gotta make sure our second bunny is the same gender or we’ll end up with a Q-Bert, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Mr. Do!

TBogg notes that 44 Americans have been killed in Iraq since George W. Bush started his annual month-long vacation at his Crawford ranch. Maybe if they stick a feeding tube in one of the wounded, the most powerful man in the world will get his ass back to work.

Since I’m the last liberal blogger writer to chime in on the whole Cindy Sheehan thing, lemme just say that the only thing that’s surprised me in the past few days is that the media is paying attention. The fact that they’re actually taking this woman seriously is mind-blowing. It must be a slow news week or something.

As far as the right-wing noise machine seeking to destroy this woman for daring to question the President, have you all forgotten Kristen Breitweiser? The right has worked so hard to smear this woman that “9/11 widow” in some circles means “money-grubbing liberal bitch”. It’s sickening, but it’s business as usual for these scumbags.

In researching an earlier post, I found Wikipedia’s great entry on the Ten Commandments. The most interesting part is the quoted portion of the Qur’an that slightly mirrors the various versions of the commandments. If conservatives weren’t so insistent upon using the wheels of government to spread their particular brand of Christianity, then I’d suggest theocrats like Roy Moore hang up the Islamic version instead. Among the highlights for the righties :

You shall not approach lewd behavior whether open or in secret,

Yeah, an anti-porn commandment for the Dobsonites.

And you shall not approach the property of the orphan, except to improve it, until he attains the age of maturity.

Or as I like to call it, the “God hates estate taxes too” commandment. And my favorite…

You shall not take life, which God has made sacred, except by way of justice and law.

Even the most devout of Christians should be able to see the improvement here. Gone are the days where bloodthirsty leaders like Bush have to reconcile “thou shalt not kill” with their desire to execute the retarded and “shock and awe” brown people. Now that there’s a loophole, they can kill anybody they want and God’s cool with it.

A few months ago, I wrote about the USDA’s horrible design for the new food pyramid.

Personally, I don’t understand how people are supposed to get the message about balancing an active lifestyle with a well-balanced diet by seeing Xiao Xiao on a staircase next to a vertical-striped triangle that begs the question “Why is this a pyramid again?”.

For those of you wondering how the hell they settled on this design, the USDA has published a report (PDF) on the decision-making process that led to the infamous “MyPyramid”. To be fair, the report does point out some important problems with the original design :

Many participants indicated that they were familiar with the Food Guide Pyramid…In addition, many participants mentioned some of the nutrition messages the Pyramid was designed to convey, including the importance of eating a variety of foods (foods from every level of the Pyramid), moderation, and proportionality (eat more from the base and less from the tip).

Despite this familiarity with the Pyramid and recognition of some of its nutrition messages, participants had difficulty recalling more specific information about the tool and did not always understand this information correctly. Less than one-fifth of participants were able to place all food groups in the Pyramid on their correct tiers,2 and one-in-eight could not place a single food group on its correct tier. More than half of the participants, however, placed the fats, oils, and sweets group correctly atop the Pyramid.

Participants also expressed a great deal of confusion regarding serving sizes. They were not able to effectively recall the serving size recommendations for each food group, nor were they able to compare how their typical meals correspond to the recommendations.

I’ll leave it up to you guys to decide whether you think the new design actually solves any of those problems.

The rest of the report is standard focus group crap, but I did like this bit :

Participants also compared the staircases in each concept. They noted that they preferred the stairs in Concept J5 to those in Concept D because there are fewer of them and thus, “would be easier to climb.” A few other participants commented that the lighter shading of the stairs (in Concept J5) makes it seem easier to reach the top, and this factor, coupled with the boldness of the figure places the emphasis on the person, not on the climb.

Yes, they chose the design that made it look “easier” to be active. I suppose it’s a good thing that they didn’t have a design that showed the figure sitting on the couch playing Mario Kart.

The nitpicking over the staircase, however, was near the end of the focus group testing. Before they had settled on the idea of a stick figure climbing a triangle, they tried out some pretty abysmal designs :

Yawn. I don’t really have much more to add than “Focus groups suck”. More important than their general suckiness, focus groups also aren’t very reliable for three important reasons :

The people who hold focus groups are rarely agnostic about the results they’d like to see. As a result, they’ll often do everything they can to get the results they desire, often without even realizing it. Reading through the USDA report, it seemed pretty obvious that the researchers were in love with one or two designs and did what they could to make those designs the favorites.

Focus groups are a horrible way to determine how something will be received in the “real world”. Looking over these designs, the focus group respondents were likely led to their answers with questions about which design best suggested exercise and nutrition was the key to a healthy lifestyle. Those of us seeing these designs without being observed behind a one-way mirror would probably have a first reaction more like “Why is that stick figure on a staircase?”

Consumer research is really, really hard work. Just ask Ross, who worked at a research company for a few years, and he can tell you all about how difficult it is to get accurate results. I worked at the same place for a week and it was the most miserable job I’ve ever had. In order to get a handful of people to participate in a survey, you have to approach hundreds of people who would rather punch you in the face than answer a brief questionnaire. The people who actually do agree to join in the group rarely give you useful information. The dirty little secret of the survey business is that in the end, the results that are sent back to the customer are often embellished to fit the demographic requirements, exaggerate the number of people questioned, or reach conclusions that are deemed productive. Shhhh…don’t tell anyone.

Of course, the researchers behind the food pyramid survey were well aware of how unreliable their testing was, which is why they inserted this little caveat in the opening section of the report :

Recruiting techniques and small sample size, however, mean that results are not statistically representative of a larger population. Consequently, all findings were considered descriptive and directional.

If we could only convince movie studios and record companies to be this honest…..

In honor of the ultra-bloated Energy and Transportation bills that became law this week, I’d like to highlight something George Bush said three years ago :

I can assure you I will work with Congress to control excessive federal spending. One reason they give the President the veto power is to make sure the Congress doesn’t over-spend. Over-spending could serve as an anchor on economic vitality and growth.

Well, we’re still waiting for your first veto, Mr. President.

UPDATE : Oliver’s thinking the same thing. Aren’t fiscally responsible Presidents supposed to balance the budget?

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve made a few template changes to the site in the last month or so. The most obvious is the changed graphic at the top that links to This Modern World, but I’ve also overhauled the blogroll and changed the archives pulldown to only list the last 12 months of archives. If you see any glaring omissions from my blogroll or have any suggestions for further improvements to the site, let me know.

Oh. My. God. (via Joystiq)

Yes, that’s Electronic Arts’ new Madden football game and the guy behind the helmet is….Jeb Bush. Click on the screenshots for details.

Okay, this might be the weirdest reaction I’ve ever gotten my two and a half years of blogging and month and a half of online publishing. In response to my post “Jesus Hates Democrats”, reader Phil Lewis has created a sort of minimalist electro-dance song also called “Jesus Hates Democrats”. I get a feeling he was more inspired by the title, than by the actual content of the post, but it’s a fun, strange little mp3. It sorta reminds of a certain song by the Dead Milkmen…

For those of you whose musical tastes are more…um..analog, Buzz Skyline emailed this folk tune he calls “The Ballad of Judy Miller”. Also worth noting is an anthology of humorous progressive songs by The Sons of Emperor Norton. I’ve only heard clips, but their band name is hilarious enough on its own.

For those who would make excuses for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (or the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden for that matter), here’s a question : Now that we’re at “war” against terrorism, would a second 9/11-style attack on the United States be justifiable as an act of war? At what point do you draw the line between an acceptable attack on civilians and an unacceptable one? I suspect that hypothetical line is that same one that divides “us” from “them”. Is party that attacked first in a given conflict more deserving of having their civilians murdered? In situations like the one we find ourselves in now, sometimes “first” is a murky concept.

I ask these questions more to get them off my chest than anything else. Cynics may jump to the conclusion that I’m taking some sort of “blame America first” stance here, but I’m just trying to wrap my head around the uncomfortable fact that our country has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Yes, then and now aren’t totally parallel, but it’s enough to make me wonder how we’d be judged by history if we hadn’t been the ones powerful enough to write it. I suppose a lot of people might want to ignore the bruises on our country’s legacy by saying that the ends justify the means, but these days it’s hard to get a good grasp of what the “ends” are on either side of this fight.

Now, I’m sure you could write similar articles about history students who think George Washington wrote the constitution or math students who think a rhombus is a drink from Starbucks, but this is probably what we should come to expect from a political climate that insists on blurring the lines between science and religion :

While sleek crime-scene TV shows have turned students on to forensic science, an investigation of today’s high school laboratories shows that reality isn’t so flattering.

Most of the labs are of such poor quality that they don’t follow basic principles of effective science teaching, said a report released Monday by the private National Research Council, a prominent adviser to government leaders on matters of science and engineering.

The typical lab is an isolated add-on that lacks clear goals, does not engage students in discussion and fails to illustrate how science methods lead to knowledge, the report said.

Also contributing to the problem: teachers who aren’t prepared to run labs, state exams that don’t measure lab skills, wide disparities in the quality of equipment and a simple lack of consensus over what “laboratory” means in the school environment.

The study also found that the vast majority of science classes required students to bring their own Bibles from home. How are students supposed to test the salinity of Lot’s wife or the molecular transformation of water into wine without the proper materials?!

Joking aside, here’s a real example from a few days ago of sneaking a particular flavor of Christianity into public schools under the guise of Bible history :

The Texas Freedom Network, which includes clergy of several faiths, also said the course offered by the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools is full of errors and dubious research.

The producers of the Bible class dismissed the Texas Freedom Network as a “far left” organization trying to suppress study of a historical text.
. . .
Chancey’s review found that the course characterizes the Bible as inspired by God, that discussions of science are based on the biblical account of creation, that Jesus is referred to as fulfilling Old Testament prophecy, and that archaeological findings are erroneously used to support claims of the Bible’s historical accuracy.

He said the course also suggests the Bible, instead of the Constitution, be considered the nation’s founding document.

To be fair, that last part does make a lot of sense. There are ten commandments and ten amendments in the bill of rights. That can’t have anything to do with the fact that we use a decimal number system and that we’re naturally drawn to numbers divisible by ten. No way. You’d have to be a complete moron to not see the similarity between the third commandment, “Remember thou keep the Sabbath Day.”, and the third amendment, “No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law”. This country was clearly founded by people who interpret the Bible the exact same way as James Dobson, Roy Moore, and Pat Robertson.

UPDATE : Since I’ve gotten a number of emails on this post, lemme clear up a couple of things. (1) The whole bit about children having to bring Bibles from home to their science classes was a joke. (2) The commandment I identified as the third is only considered the third in Catholic and orthodox Christian traditions, but it’s considered the fourth by Protestants and Jews. Meanwhile, it sorta looks like it’ the fifth of eleven commandments on the Judge Roy Moore version. If you’re bothered by the misquote, just pretend I said “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” instead.

Here’s a clever downloadable poster from MoveOn.org :

It’s too bad the words “severely impede our ability to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists” don’t rhyme with “sink ships”. That’s the real issue here. Yes, I want Rove fired, but we all know that he’d just turn around and get a high-paying job on K-Street or something. As much as I’d love to see the President (for once) keep a promise, I’d rather see them throw Karl’s ass in jail.