At the command of MaxSpeak, I add William Greider's website to my list of worthies to the right. The "Regular Rants" feature has the potential to metamorphosize into a blog, which would be really keen.

Tonight is the annual Vicki Zale B-day Bash at Joxer's in Culver City. It's open to the public, there will be great music and drinks, and the only present you need bring is a pleasant disposition.

Here's a cagy way out of the California budget impasse: have the State Supreme Court declare that some item (ie., education, assistance for the blind, etc.) is a fundamental right, and order that the legislature approve its funding by majority (as opposed to 2/3) vote. The state gets its budget, the GOP doesn't have to vote on a tax increase, while still getting to play its recall games, and life can go on. Not that I'm supporting such a stunt....

What's wrong with this picture? CBS reports that the White House knew that the information Bush used in the State of the Union address about Iraq buying uranium from Africa was not true (or "might not be true") before he made the speech. Bush uses that information anyway. The White House acknowledges this week that the information was bogus. To date, no one responsible has been fired, no resignations accepted, no heads have rolled, for allowing the Commander in Chief to publicly misstate the facts before the American people. Thus, there is a presumption that the President endorsed the misstatement, at least retroactively.

So why shouldn't we place the blame with the President? Whatever happened to "the buck stops here"? Professor, if I go into court and say something that is untrue, and that untruth is critical to my argument before the court, and I don't take steps to correct the record, I'm gonna get sanctioned big time by the judge, and probably by the State Bar as well (see State Bar of Arkansas v. Bill Clinton). It doesn't matter if I simply garbled my words, or made a statement that I thought to be true at the time; as an "officer of the court", I have an ethical responsibility once I know the truth to act appropriately, and not allow any misstatements I might make to sway the court. If you don't promptly correct a misstatement, you've lied.

One of the more underrated men in American history is Bob Moses, who played a critical role in organizing the voting rights movement in Mississippi forty years ago. Anyone who has ever read the histories of that period will run into his name again and again, whether it be in Taylor Branch's magisterial two-volume biographies of MLK, or Todd Gitlin's memoir, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, or anyplace else that touches on that period in American history. Moses was a reluctant warrior, whose "leadership style" often consisted of asking indigent sharecroppers what they thought their problems were, and how best they thought their problems could be solved, rather than dictating solutions from on high.

In The Nation this week, a number of writers take up the theme of "American Rebels". Included among such noted rabblerousers as Walt Whitman, I.F. Stone, Dorothy Day, and Paul Wellstone is Bob Moses. While it is gratifying to see Mr. Moses get his due, the tone of the article, written by Tom Hayden, as well as the company in which he is kept (the other nine people profiled are dead), is funereal. Far from eulogizing someone who is still amongst the living, and refighting ancient battles from the 1964 Democratic Convention, Mr. Hayden should have spent more time discussing Moses' latest endeavor, The Algebra Project, which attempts to give low-income students the necessary math skills to succeed in the 21st Century. Not every progressive battle need be viewed in the past tense.

A great thing about reading Bill James is that you develop a resistance to the moronic statistical analysis laid out in this Slate article, about the 2003 All-Star Game. Listen, dude, batting average is a cricket stat; don't use it to analyze Troy Glaus, Brian Giles, and Scott Rolen.

The difficulties of fighting terrorism: Newsweek profiles the "Jihad" soccer team, which for a time was both the best team in Hebron and one of the most terrifying collection of suicide bombers in the Middle East.

Requiem for a Sycophant: a devasting "obituary" of Mr. Samgrass, by a former protege. The money quote:

D.C. has finally gotten to him. That must be the main explanation. Yes, there are other factors to consider, but the D.C. Beast frames and distorts the thinking. Few on the Beltway's A List fret about crushing other countries. They enjoy it. They like the view from atop the growing pile of bodies. Always have. You can't live among these types for 20-plus years without some of their madness infecting your brain. And I'm afraid this madness, and the verbiage that covers it, is becoming more evident in Christopher.

I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he's now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war.

In several pieces, including an incredibly condescending blast against Nelson Mandela, Hitch went on and on about WMD, chided readers with "Just you wait!" and other taunts, fully confident that once the U.S. took control of Iraq, tons of bio/chem weapons and labs would be all over the cable news nets--with him dancing a victory jig in the foreground. Now he says WMD were never a real concern, and that he'd always said so. It's amazing that he'd dare state this while his earlier pieces can be read at his website. But then, when you side with massive state power and the cynical fucks who serve it, you can say pretty much anything and the People Who Matter won't care.

[link via Atrios]
More pathetic, though, is the fact that Hitchens doesn't seem to care that the quality of his work has slipped, even though it effects his credibility not only on what he writes now, but what he wrote in the past. Anyone who dowdifies (or is it sullivanates)Paul Begala, here, or, even more recently, is unable to distinguish between John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer calls into question whether he was as careless fact-checking when his subject was Henry Kissinger or Mother Theresa. Or maybe the booze caught up with him.

This doesn't mean much, but according to this test, my ideal Presidential candidate is a tie between John Kerry and Dennis Kucinich, with John Edwards right behind.

I don't think this story deserves much comment until prosecutors decide whether to proceed, but here is the LA Times story on the arrest of Kobe Bryant.

Her legion of devoted fans will no doubt be overjoyed at this news: English character actress Phoebe Nicholls will be returning to American TV screens later this year, in Prime Suspect 6. Phoe-Nix and Helen Mirren, together at last: what a time to be alive !!!

Some thoughts on the 4th:

... Independence Day was designed by the first state propaganda agency, Woodrow Wilson's Committee on Public Information (CPI), created during World War I to whip a pacifist country into anti-German frenzy and, incidentally, to beat down the threat of labor....
-Noam Chomsky

Discuss.

After a six hour drive, I can now begin a long weekend in the Bay Area. The holiday is tomorrow, and my sister's baby shower is the day after. Other then that, the weekend is open....

As matters stand entering tonight's action, the Dodgers are 4 1/2 games behind in the NL West, and a game and a half back in the wild card, but you could hardly tell that if you live here. The contempt for the team locally is almost palpable, especially after getting swept by the Angels last weekend, scoring only two runs in the process. The Dodgers not only reek in comparison with the defending champions, but also their hated rivals from the north, the Giants, and this year's media darling, the Oakland A's.

The team has remained in contention entirely because of its formidable pitching staff; if Gagne, Perez, and Nomo were to pull up lame, the Dodgers would be as bad as the Padres. Outside of LoDuca (and maybe Jordan, who's now on the DL), the everyday lineup is atrocious, while former scapegoat Gary Sheffield compiles MVP numbers in Atlanta.

The problem starts at the front office. News Corp. originally purchased the Dodgers for all the wrong reasons, but principally to corner the local sports cable TV market. It succeeded, but Rupert the Mad has done little, if anything, to correct the atrophy that began in the front office with the death of Walter O'Malley in 1979. The team took pride in the fact that its players played baseball "the Dodger way", but failed to take account of the changing nature of the sport.

Dan Evans, therefore, is merely the latest in a series of incompetent general managers, going back to the 1980's. It started during the tenure of Al Campanis, who, for all the controversy later associated with his name, actually provided the tools for the long-term growth of the team in the '70's. However, beginning in 1982, he made a series of colossally stupid trades (Sutcliffe for Orta, Dave Stewart for Rick Hunnycutt, Sid Fernandez for Bob Bailor), and had he not put his foot in his mouth on Nightline in April, 1987 (Quickie Trivia: Name the other historic sporting event held that same night--winner gets the usual night on the town, compliments of me), he would have been fired in a year or two anyway. Fred Claire did make a couple decent moves to help the team win the '88 Series, and he pretty much forced Lasorda to play the products of the farm system after the '92 season, but otherwise failed spectacularly, and his tenure will forever be linked to the Piazza trade (which, ironically, he didn't have anything to do with). Kevin Malone actually seemed to know what he was doing, rebuilding the farm system, trading for Shawn Green, and sending a message to the rest of the baseball by signing Kevin Brown, but never survived his boast about being the "new sheriff in town", and ultimately was bullied out of town by the local media.

Now it's Dan Evans' turn. One would be hard-pressed to find a sensible trade or personnel move since he took over. Although he's only been in charge for two years, he has the misfortune of being the exact opposite of Billy Beane the same year MoneyBall gets published. Beane is famous for signing players almost exclusively based on their ability to get on base; the Dodgers don't seem to know what OBP means. Beane makes a virtue out of necessity by ignoring the conventional wisdom, and drafting players according to their potential to do some very elementary things, like draw walks; the Dodgers draft high school pitchers in the first round. The A's value their farm system; the Dodgers use it to acquire Terry Mulholland at mid-season for the pennant drive.

As a fan of the team for what is now going on thirty-two years, I would almost be relieved if they were to fall out of contention in the next few weeks. At the very least, it would speed up the time table for Fox to sell the club. But most importantly, it would alleviate any pressure on Dan Evans to make a quick-fix trade. Better just to wait til the end of the season to blow the whole dang thing up.

Thanks to the oft-overruled progressive Ninth Circuit, it looks like I can update my blogroll, as this post is no longer operative.

As long as we're talking about bigots, check out this diatribe. If I were a Palestinian, and I thought that most Israelis shared this writer's racist sentiments, I would join Hamas tomorrow. Non-violent political action is worthwhile only if the other side is willing to acknowledge your humanity. [link via Michael Totten]

The reviews are in: NaziPundit's latest screed is, shall we say, a little short in the fact department. Incidentally, a thought experiment for those who believe that the above nickname is unfair: simply replace the word "liberal" (or any variation of same) with the word "Jew", and don't tell me that the quoted passages don't read like something out of Mein Kampf.

Although I have supported, and will continue to support, his inevitable promotion to the Supreme Court, I have to say that Prof. Volokh uses a very imperfect analogy in defending Clarence Thomas against the attack that he has used race to get to where he is, only to "pull up the ladder" once he got there. The issue isn't whether Thomas' opposition to affirmative action is based on principle, on how he reads the Constitution. While contrasting that stand with his personal history (I think it's safe to say that he was not the most qualified person for nomination to the high court back in 1991) is amusing, it's no more so than noting Hugo Black's membership in the KKK in light of his subsequent liberalism on civil rights. One can argue that it is a sign of growth that someone can look at the advantages one has received and question their fairness. In any event, as far as I can tell no one is demanding that he vote to preserve affirmative action solely because he has benefitted from it.

What is at issue with Justice Thomas is his recurring use of race (and racism) to defend himself. He can't have it both ways: denouncing affirmative action as little more than "racial aesthetics", while making semi-annual pronouncements of his victimization for not "toeing the line" on the lib'ral civil rights agenda, is going to piss a lot of people off. I, for one, will start taking his opinions as seriously as I take Scalia's the moment he cans the self-pity.

And he apologizes to Anita Hill.

Jesse Taylor of Pandagon has happened accross a blog posting that may well challenge Andrew Sullivan's infamous attempt to parody a Maureen Down column as the dumbest thing ever published over the Internet. George Santayana was right.

Rumor has it that the Charlie's Angels sequel just out this week leaves a lot to be desired in the plot area, which for me makes it an ideal moviegoing experience. Films that are more substance than style can be viewed more comfortably (and cheaply) in the privacy of one's home, whereas a movie like this (or last week's example, The Hulk) needs to be viewed on a big screen to be wholly appreciated.

BTW, it's only been out a day, and I'm already tired of the hype about Demi Moore. Of course she looks great--she's Demi Freaking Moore. And if I could spend $400k on plastic surgery and a makeover, I bet I'd also look damn good in a pair of Speedos.