Republican corruption watch, #271828

The past couple days have had a couple of great examples of Republican corruption, well-timed to be lost in coverage of Katrina and the Waves.

First, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, the senior civilian procurement official in the Army Corps of Engineers, was demoted Saturday. She is being punished for whistleblowing. She objected to long-term, no-bid contracts for Iraq reconstruction. The contracts with KBR (part of Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old firm) wasted billions. This continues the Bushite tradition of punishing the honest and rewarding the incompetent.

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Another cover-up may be even more symptomatic of Republican ethics. Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher is facing a hiring scandal involving senior members of his administration (something that's utterly unfamiliar to us Chicagoans). He has a unique way of dealing with the investigation. Yesterday, as Josh Marshall puts it, he "basically pardoned everybody". Then he said he will refuse to testify before the grand jury (presumably by taking the Fifth).

The AP story explains the wide scope of the mass pardons

The governor's decree pardons the nine people already charged as well as anyone else [my bold] who might be accused by the grand jury of violating any section of the penal code [mine again], not just the personnel laws. The pardon extends to crimes that may have been committed up to Monday.

Mark Kleiman notes

This matters outside the borders of Kentucky; Fletcher's "amnesty" could be a test-run for pardons in the Plame/Rove/Libby scandal.

I hope Bush follows Fletcher's brilliant strategy. Fletcher's underlings can now be compelled to testify, because the pardons remove their defense against self-incrimination. And Kentucky legislators are already talking impeachment on multiple grounds. (BluegrassReport.org has great coverage of the scandal.)

As they say, "It's not the crime. It's the cover-up."

I'll have to try harder.

Dr. E. Scientist, phD. was kind enough to add me to his blogroll, even though I fall short of his exacting standards. I'm categorized as "[n]ot very evil". Pirate Lass will be disappointed.

Maybe I'll be worthy if I try some of the Republican tactics in the next post.

Joust: doused, oust? groused! espoused.

It's a great formula for a story. A popular pastime nearly dies out, a casualty of changing times. Then it comes charging back, and even makes it onto national TV. The Washington Post has a good article about the resurgence of Maryland's official state sport, jousting. After some hard times, jousting will be featured on ESPN this weekend.

Almost any story about a subculture will mention a feud — it's practically mandatory. It is best that the dispute be ancient, acrimonious, and, to outsiders, petty:

The long-standing rivalry between jousting and lacrosse fans in Maryland has grown increasingly bitter.

Here's how it happened: jousting's flame dimmed and almost died, while lacrosse's shone brighter. Lacrosse fans wanted the state to honor their sport in an official way, by naming lacrosse the state sport, thereby ousting jousting. Jousting fans resisted. Last year the legislature reached a compromise which satisfied none of the disputants: jousting stays Maryland's official state sport, and lacrosse is now the official state team sport. Today's story has lots of snippy quotes from both sides.

Back in the tournament ring: I thought Maryland jousters would armor up and try to spit each other on their lances. But they do not. They don't even get medieval on lacrosse players. Instead, the Post explains,

The object is simple: Spear three rings, hanging from arches set up on an 80-yard course, with a lance while on horseback. Accomplishing that is no easy feat. The rings range from 1¾ inches to a quarter of an inch across (about the size of a LifeSavers candy), and the rider must complete the course within nine seconds.

That sounds a lot more difficult than spearing each other, and less fun to watch. But I can understand why jousting became less violent. It had to change, because the old way was cruel to the ponies. Water polo changed for the same reason.

A splendid sentence

I just had to share a striking sentence from John McPhee's "A Forager", a profile of Euell Gibbons collected in A Roomful of Hovings.

Some background: McPhee and Gibbons are canoeing on the Susquehanna River. After explaining that the once-mighty Appalachians are now worn down to stubs, McPhee writes:

The remnants, the forested mountains of central Pennsylvania, with their flat ridgelines, looked as soft as Scottish wool — their trees gray and bare against a background of fallen leaves on rising ground — and the implied mountains of Pennsylvania, miles high between the actual ones, cast a kind of shadow that was colder than the wind on the river.

Damn. That's quite a sentence.

My writing already gives me enough trouble. But after reading something like this, everything I write is as awkward and unsatisfying as sex on a unicycle.

Check these out

The wonders of technology make it easier to check out interesting things. Like these additions to the blogroll:

All Points Blog
Balkinization
Banana Stew
Bloodless Coup
Carol's Chaotic Collection
a Commonplace Book
Defense Tech
Dependable Renegade
The Esoteric Science Resource Center
GEEK/WONK
Happy Hour
Head Butler
Ideopolis: Moving Ideas..
In the Pipeline
marccooper
Night Light
Old Hag
the Opinion Mill
Opinions You Should Have
Pen and Sword
a Perfectly Cromulent Blog
phronesisaical
Plep
Sirotablog
the Slumbering Lungfish
the Speculist
Tenser, said the Tensor
the Watley Review
westerblog
Where's the Ka-boom?

There's a lot of meat on the long tail

Tastes like chicken.

The long tail is the idea that less-popular items, in the aggregate, constitute a large fraction of what we buy. And that the web and other digital technologies make it easier for us to find niche stuff, and cheaper for sellers to make, market, and distribute it.

These pieces can combine in interesting ways.

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Charles Platt mentions (in passing, the article is about the inventor of the neutron bomb) the main problem at the skinny end of the long tail.

He told me that I was the only reader who had bothered to write to him about his book, which did not surprise me, since print-on-demand publishing means precisely what it says. It prints copies only if there's a demand, but it never creates a demand, and therefore it is unlikely to print many copies.

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Tom Bozzo describes how several long tail elements — digital creativity, empowered customers, mass customization — combine to realize the coolest frickin' idea in the world.

Turning the corner

turning another corner ...

We've turned the corner in Iraq. The new Iraqi Constitution means we're making progress in building a strong, stable society. The Iraqi government feels free to put off American demands for a constitution. And that's a good thing. It means they're feeling strong because we're making progress building a stable society. Yep, we've turned the corner.

Transportation insecurity

Here's some good news: The Transportation Security Administration is going to get a little more sensible about airport searches. They're looking at new regulations that will allow passengers to carry nail scissors and pocket knives. And they won't make everybody take off their shoes.

The reduced hassle will be good. And it should mean that resources are deployed more efficiently. Right now, security standards are wildly inconsistent. Major airports vary by over 2800% in how likely they are to fine passengers for carrying forbidden items. Better rules can give us less "security theater" (as Bruce Schneier has dubbed it) — and more real security.

But, this is the Shrub administration, and they'll screw it up somehow. They already have a good start. The Washington Post points out:

The proposal also would allow ice picks, throwing stars and bows and arrows on flights.

Since shuriken are illegal in many states, Trotskyites aren't the only ones who will find this a bad idea. Some toys should just stay home.

Why do they hate America?

The Trib reports that Lake County, IL is attempting to enforce an ordinance prohibiting lap dances in strip clubs.

This sounds like a restriction of free speech, since it presumably also bans lap dances in churches and government offices.

Even worse, Lake County officials are failing to support the troops, since

Baby Dolls says it will provide free lap dances for members of the military with active-duty identification cards.

The lair switch project

Sorry I haven't posted lately. The SpouseBot™ and I have been really busy. We just bought a house.

The place is big enough for all of our books and henchpersons. The next step is the home inspection. There's a whole bunch of stuff we have to make sure of for the new lair:

• The electrical system can power both the gold smelter and the X-ray laser.

• The ventilation ducts are too small to crawl through.

• All deathtraps have only one way in or out.

• The place is secure against zombie attack.

Nifty news

Here are some nifty news items, painfully shoehorned cleverly placed into an astronomical theme.

A new planet: Astronomers may have found a tenth planet. At the very least, they found a big old chunk of rock and ice — bigger than Pluto — beyond Pluto's orbit. If it doesn't count as a planet, it's because Pluto's not one either. And there's a little bonus: the object, 2003 UB313 (but nicknamed "Xena"), was found by a telescope at the Palomar Observatory. I thought that Palomar was falling behind: that it had been surpassed by newer, bigger, shinier telescopes; and that light pollution from creeping urban sprawl had hurt the seeing at Palomar, the way it did at Mount Wilson.

A new star: Paul Hackett ran a great race in the special election for Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. He lost, but by a small margin, in what was supposed to be a very safe Republican seat. You can blame a poor Republican candidate (Jean Schmidt) and her distracted campaign manager (Joe "Spanky" Braun). But the Democratic candidate in 2004 lost by 44 points — which was better than average for that district! Hackett lost by just 4 points. To get that kind of a swing, you need both a motivated electorate and an inspiring candidate.

A new sun son: It's good to see that at least one other country has a brilliant ruler whose genius approaches that of our own Dear Leader.

My big asteroid: Who can resist chunky bacon ice cream? (via Economist’s View)

We now return to our regularly scheduled pessimism.

The most thankless job in the world?

There's more on the President's "intelligent design" idiocy. Monday, Bush told a group of Texas reporters "both sides ought to be properly taught." Yesterday, creationist nutjobs celebrated, while Bush's science adviser, John H. Marburger III tried to backpedal.

Mr. Marburger said in a telephone interview that "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Mr. Marburger also said that Mr. Bush's remarks should be interpreted to mean that the president believes that intelligent design should be discussed as part of the "social context" in science classes.

I didn't even know Bush has a science advisor. I've seen more news stories quoting Bush's tailor. Hell, I think I've seen more stories quoting Bush's dog.

George W. Bush's science advisor might have the most thankless job in the world.

At best, Bush's science advisor is simply ignored, like Rush Limbaugh's fact-checker or the safety chief at Chernobyl. After all, research is an inefficient way to dole out pork, since most of the dollars would end up going to blue states, or blue areas in red states.

But that's a best case. Lefty bloggers didn't come up with the phrase "reality-based community"; it was coined by Bush staffers who mocked the idea. Science advice for the Bush White House is like ethics advice for Enron, or ecumenical outreach advice for Torquemada: the whole organization is fundamentally opposed to the job's purpose.

Pollution attribution

Mooove along. Nothing to see here.

In the part of the United States with the worst air pollution, guess what the biggest source of smog is. Do you think it's cars? Or maybe trucks? How about oil refineries? Or coal-burning power plants?

Those would be good guesses, but the answer is cows. Over the last six years, California's San Joaquin Valley has been worse than either Los Angeles or Houston, especially for ozone. L.A.'s air has cleaned up dramatically over the past several decades, thanks to the Clean Air Act. Meanwhile the San Joaquin Valley has seen dramatic increases in both urbanization and factory dairy farming.

The San Joaquin Valley has about 2.5 million cows, and each one produces almost 20 pounds of "volatile organic compounds" per year. I was disappointed to find out that methane and other VOCs mostly come from "the front end of the cow" — they are mostly not from cow farts. Darn, there goes my joke about tailpipe emissions.

Family business owner dies

The leader of the world's second-largest family business has died. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia died Monday in Riyadh, the headquarters of the House of Saud. King Fahd is survived by approximately 6,000 members of the royal family. A half-brother, Prince Abdullah, succeeded him as monarch and CEO.

Last fiscal year, Saudi Arabia was surpassed in gross revenue by another family-controlled concern, Wal-Mart ($285.2 billion for WMT, but only $284.9 billion for SA). The two companies may seem very different: Saudi Arabia specializes in one product, while Wal-Mart sells over 100,000 items; Ibn Saud's heirs control everything in their kingdom, but Sam Walton's heirs own about half the shares of theirs. But the similarities outweigh the differences. By way of promoting traditional, conservative values, both firms:

• vigilantly monitor immoral magazines like Cosmo and Redbook, while remaining tolerant of hate literature;
• stay close to the Bush family;
• prohibit unions;
• mistreat immigrants;
• discriminate against women.

If oil stays at $60 a barrel, Saudi Arabia will retake the lead, for a few years.

Fortunately for Fahd's heirs, there is no estate tax in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately for those who would encourage hardworking entrepreneurs like the Sauds, the US Senate has delayed eliminating America's tax on large estates.