Month: November 2010

Tracie Egan Morrissey investigates the rigging of DWTS's voting system:

While Bristol Palin denies any Tea Party conspiracy theories, there's no denying that conservatives have been pushing for votes for Bristol, using blogs and Twitter to start a movement. But what isn't widely known is the evidence—via message board comments on some conservative sites—that this mobilization involves fixing this (albeit meaningless) election through a technical snafu on ABC's website, which allows Palin's supporters to cast an infinite number of email votes

Money quote from a commenter:

Lord have mercy, I voted for 3 hours online! I got 300 in.

Why does this story even matter? Just look at all of the free ad time her mother's presidential campaign is getting on America's top-rated program – 20 million viewers just last week.

(Video via Palingates. Nice touch to include April Morlock, sister of sadistic war criminal Jeremy Morlock.)

Noah Shachtman says that the new scanners aren't keeping us safe. He follows up at his blog:

New TSA chief John Pistole says the agency has to shift from a threat-driven outfit into an “intelligence-driven” organization. There are some signs that such a move may be afoot.

On the night in late October that Saudi intelligence tipped the American government off to a late plot to blow up planes using explosives packed in printer cartridges, Pistole got a call from White House counterrrorism czar John Brennan. The TSA was then able to give new marching orders to everyone from air marshals to cargo inspectors. An agency team was even dispatched to Yemen, where the bombs originated. It all seemed shockingly logical for an agency that’s generally appears to be anything but. The quick response to intelligence and targeted security measures could provide a partial template for future action. The next step would be questioning passengers and employing high-sensors when travelers’ behavior or specific threats warrant — instead of making us all get digitally nude.

Hitchens gives a long interview to Andrew Anthony. A taste:

His only major regret, as far as remaining silent goes, is what he didn't say about Robert Mugabe. "That makes me wince. More than wince. I'd met him a couple of times and I knew that he had in him a terrible capacity for fanaticism, absolutism, and I didn't say as much about that as I could have done. If I asked myself about why I didn't, I'm sure the answer is because I didn't want to give ammunition to the other side."

A reader writes:

I realize this article is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but as a fellow advocate for sensible drug policies, I feel obligated to respond to the attack on qat/khat.  Qat, like marijuana, is a totally natural drug. 

The plant is cut in the mornings and rushed into town in order to be sold after lunch.  You simply chew the leaves.  I spent a summer in Yemen several years ago, a place where more than 75% of the adult male population chews qat daily.  I spent 5-8 hours daily chewing qat, every day of the week, for about 10 weeks.  I did not suffer any negative withdrawal symptoms.  I also did not get "stoned." The effect of qat is much closer to an intense consumption of caffeine than anything else, with a little bit of narcotic to take off the edge. It really is a wonderful drug, and ranks slightly above marijuana for me, with the added bonus that qat actually enhances my ability to perform certain tasks (like learning and speaking Arabic). 

American journalism on qat is a sad joke to anyone who has actually spent time in Yemen.  NYT travel writers can't help opining about a nation of stoned terrorists getting "high" on qat.  On the other hand, I can't really take issue with the article's advice to keep a safe distance from qat deprived pirates.  I don't doubt that habitual users suffer serious withdrawal effects (probably much closer to caffeine withdrawal than nicotine withdrawal).  Yemenis are notoriously grouchy in the mornings, but could not be more gregarious and friendly once the chewing starts after lunch.

(Photo: A Yemeni boy takes a whiff of his father's newly-purchased qat, a popular narcotic drug, at a market in Sanaa 20 September 1999. More than 80 percent of Yemenis spend some 30 percent of their salaries on qat. By Rabih Moghrabi/AFP/Getty Images)

Dick Morris shows how it's done:

Fox turned out to be a perfect fit for Morris. He could make the sort of wildly off-base claims he was famous for as a consultant, only no one would remember if, say, he predicted, on the eve of the 2000 election, that Hillary Clinton would lose her Senate race (she did not) or claimed that Arkansas was “leaning Obama” in 2008 (the state went for McCain by 20 points). A few months into Obama’s presidency, however, Morris branched out from wrongheaded prognostications and into the outlandish conspiracy theories that were then fueling the nascent Tea Party movement. On Fox, he declared that “those crazies in Montana who say, ‘We’re going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.’s going to take over’—well, they’re beginning to have a case.” He pushed the rumor that House Democrat Eric Massa, who was under investigation for sexual harassment, was being targeted as retaliation for voting against health care reform.

Before long, Morris had mastered the art of being a Tea Party celebrity. 

Weigel piles on.

The Feds are closing in on the alcoholic energy drink Four Loko:

Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, who has pushed the Obama administration to ban the beverages, said Tuesday the Food and Drug Administration is expected to find that caffeine is an unsafe food additive to alcoholic drinks, essentially banning them.

Jacob Sullum has been tracking the trend nationwide:

[On Sunday] New York joined the Four Loko Four, the states (Michigan, Oklahoma, Washington, and Utah) that have banned caffeinated malt beverages. Sort of.

Under pressure from Gov. David Paterson and the New York State Liquor Authority, Four Loko's Chicago-based manufacturer, Phusion Products, has "agreed" to stop shipping the drink to New York. Meanwhile, the New York State Beer Wholesalers Association is urging its members to stop distributing Four Loko and similar products. "We have an obligation to keep products that are potentially hazardous off the shelves," said Dennis Rosen, the liquor authority's chairman, "and there is simply not enough research to show that these products are safe."

Every alcoholic beverage is "potentially hazardous," and none will ever be proven "safe," if by that Rosen means risk-free. But there's no question that a can of Four Loko, which has less alcohol than a bottle of wine and about as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, can be consumed without serious adverse effects. If every alcoholic beverage had to pass the reckless college student test, they all would be banned.

Bainbridge notes the bans' absurdity:

Get a hold of a beer. Get a hold of an energy drink. Mix in your preferred ratio. Voila.

Jason Kuznicki is on the same page:

Four Loko’s got nothing much on rum & Coke. That drink brings another risk factor, because you never know quite how much alcohol you’re getting if someone else mixes it for you. Why don’t we ban that, too?

Erik Maza rounds up a series of local news reports reminiscent of Reefer Madness. Dan Okrent discusses the history of banned drinks.

(Photo via Buzzfeed)

"We know that Obama wasn’t vetted through the campaign, and now, you know, some things are coming home to roost, if you will, which is inexperience, his associations, and that ultimately harms our republic when a candidate isn’t — isn’t vetted by the media, that cornerstone of our democracy," – Sarah Palin, who then tweeted the quote.

The Star-Ledger argues that insurance companies should be mandated to cover birth control:

Publicly funded contraception saves taxpayers about $4 for every $1 spent, by preventing nearly 2 million pregnancies and more than 800,000 abortions every year, according to the institute’s 2009 report. The cost of the pill — maybe $10 to $50 a month — is middling when compared with the many thousands of dollars spent on prenatal and pediatric care for an unintended pregnancy.

Lisa Hymas rallies environmentalists:

It should be obvious why climate hawks need to care about making birth control widely accessible: fewer unwanted pregnancies will mean fewer unwanted births (not to mention fewer abortions), and, ultimately, fewer greenhouse gases. 

Today on the Dish, Andrew responded to Glenn Greenwald on defending Awlaki's free speech. On Simpson-Bowles, Douthat defended its lukewarm reception on the right, but Andrew begged to differ. Andrew scoffed at the record of Republican presidents on debt, and Charlie Cook wrote the speech Obama should give endorsing it. Unemployment benefits soon to expire could expose the ultimate cynicism of the right, and Frum wanted to reform campaign finance law to empower moderates. DADT protestors were arrested at the White House, and Paul Suderman weighed the GOP advantages of a tweak versus a repeal of the healthcare reforms. A GOP freshman didn't understand Obamacare but still asked for it, and Limbaugh painted an unapologetically racist portrait of the president.

Bernstein discounted Palin and Romney, and the 2012 tea leaves kept coming. The old Palin was itching for glamour and culture, but the current one still can't fish. Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell's WaPo's article on a one-term Obama was demolished, and Andrew longed for a way to support Ezra Klein without the WaPo. Johann Hari mastered the art of handling Fox propaganda, and Rangel toppled on 11 of 13 charges.  Balko raged against cops who arrest those who videotape cops, Yglesias skewered universities and their presidents, and New York needed innovators. Andrew gave mad props to Clinton on owning the peace process, Steinglass asked why we keep throwing money at Afghanistan, and Bill Gates approved of China's energy advances. Cantor committed his own treason and called it patriotism, readers rebutted the practice of eating dogs, and Goldblog advised America to freeball it for the TSA.

We plumbed the record of DEA director nominee Michele Leonhart, and readers regaled us with more stories of the bathtub gin of cannabis, including an all-natural alternative. Sophistication didn't make for good dinner party guests, President Obama could order flowers over the phone more easily than Lady Gaga, and Timothy Lee praised Apple's design method. Men fake orgasms, and our vintage transsexual could just be breeching. Chart of the day here, MHB here, FOTD here, VFYW here, and VFYW contest winner #24 here.

–Z.P.

 

Douthat peers into the future:

The lure of unseating Obama in 2012 will almost certainly prove more appealing than the prospect of negotiating a complicated deal on deficit reduction with the White House. The only way this calculus might change is if Obama’s re-election starts to look more and more inevitable, and (as Mickey Kaus put it recently, drawing an analogy to the welfare reform deal of 1996) Republican legislators “realize that it’s in their individual interests, if they want to be reelected, to actually accomplish something, even if that means boosting Obama at the expense of whoever gets the G.O.P. presidential nomination.” But the more likely scenario for a bipartisan deal involves Obama winning re-election in 2012 while the Republicans hold the House of Representatives — in which case the knowledge that they’ll be stuck with one another for another four years might propel the parties toward a Simpson-Bowles-like bargain.