Pretentious video games

Ordinarily, photoshop whimsey from Something Awful gets real old for me real fast, but these made me laugh out loud. Guess I'm pretentious.

Uncompromising

Digby sums up who's behind all the partisanship in Congress and elsewhere.

The Democratic party did everything it could to alleviate the culture war and the partisanship in the 90's by electing southern moderates to the white house and helping the Republicans pass a lot of legislation born of major compromise of Democratic principles. Nothing was good enough. The culture war raged, not on the basis of policy --- there was much in Bill Clinton's policies for a Republican to love.

Now, I've heard it said that the Democrats screwed the Republicans on bipartisanship in the '60s and '70s, and that this is payback. I'm not equipped to evaluate that claim. Whether true or not, today there appears to be no point in reaching across the aisle.

Worst Americans

A while back, Alexandra von Maltzan at All Things Beautiful proposed an interesting blogging subject. Who would you say are the ten worst Americans in history?

Interestingly, I stumbled across this via Captain's Quarters, an evidently very right-leaning blog. The Captain's Quarters list goes:

1. J. Edgar Hoover
2. John Wilkes Booth
3. Benedict Arnold
4. Nathan Bedford Forrest
5. Stephen Douglas
6. Richard Nixon
7. Joe McCarthy
8. Aaron Burr
9. John Walker, Jr.
10. Jimmy Carter

What's interesting here is not that I choke on Jimmy Carter—who turns out to be a very popular choice among right-leaning bloggers. (Jimmy Carter?!?) Rather, it's that I can get behind at least half of these choices. Nathan Bedford Forrest, yep. Benedict Arnold is a respectable choice, sure. Tricky Dick and Tailgunner Joe, oh yeah. Hoover, hell yes.

I did some surfing around, and interestingly there's a lot of overlap in folks' choices, whether they're left, right, or sideways. Hoover almost always makes the list. Maybe they go for Jefferson Davis instead of Nathan Bedford Forrest, but it's it's obvious that they both represent the same basic target. And so on.

But there's one who seems conspicuous by his absence from most folks' lists: Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb.

If you're going there, you might ask why not Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb? Oppenheimer acted out of fear that Hitler would get the Bomb first, came to regret his deadly invention, and fought the rest of his life for nuclear disarmament and sanity. Oppenheimer is a tragic figure, not a villain. And the H-Bomb really is categorically worse than the A-Bomb. The original A-Bomb is horrific, yes, but the H-Bomb literally has the power to kill the entire human species.

Teller was not only the mastermind of the development of the H-Bomb, he was a great advocate of its development. It truly might not have happened without him. He went on to advocate for countless examples of the worst arms race madness of the Cold War, from extensive nuclear testing to enormous weapons stockpiles to the Star Wars defense system. He helped destroy Oppenheimer's political influence by contributing to claims that he was a "security risk." He advocated using nuclear bombs as tools to strip-mine the American southwest. Each step of the way he played it for his own enrichment and aggrandizement, turning the original Faustian arrangement between scientists and the American military that happened at Los Alamos into a permanent fixture of American society.

He definitely makes the list.

Anniversary

19 April 1993: Waco
19 April 1995: Oklahoma City

David "Orcinus" Neiwert connects the dots with 9/11 and the war in Iraq in his excellent series of long posts "Oklahoma City, 9/11, and the Face of Terror:"

1. The Apocalyptic Asymmetry of April 19
2. Waco in Iraq
3. The Murrah Mystery

Today's quote

This may seem obvious.

A non-running computer produces fewer errors

But it's from a New Scientist article about a quantum computer in a superposition of wave states between on and off, so the one thing it ain't is "obvious."

Instructions

Neil Gaiman has instructions for you. He knows what he's talking about.

You might already know some of this stuff, if you were paying attention to the stories you were told during your childhood.

If you weren't paying attention to those stories at all, then these instructions might not do you any good.

Clive Owen

Since Bogart, Mitchum, and McQueen are no longer with us, I think I can claim that Clive Owen is the maximum supercool movie actor alive. If you've only recently discovered Mr. Owen thanks to Inside Man, or maybe Sin City, see if you can't hunt up Croupier, a little noir gem in which you get to hear his real accent. Or maybe even a highbrow movie with him, like Altman's terrific Grosford Park.

"Wait ... his real accent?" you ask. Yeah, Clive Owen is a Brit. (His name is Clive, for goodness' sake.) I'd say he has the best-ever American accent by a British film actor, too, were it not for the immortal Bob Hoskins.

Nuclear Iran

Via Yglasias, I note that James Fallows has a fascinating article about wargaming a confrontation with Iran about their development of nuclear weapons.

The experts disagreed on some details but were nearly unanimous on one crucial point: what might seem America's ace in the hole—the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear installations in a pre-emptive air strike—was a fantasy. When exposed to "What then?" analysis, this plan (or a variant in which the United States looked the other way while Israel did the job) held more dangers than rewards for the United States. How could this be, given America's crushing strength and wealth relative to Iran's?
....
At best, it would slow Iranian nuclear projects by a few years. But the cost of buying that time would likely be a redoubling of Iran’s determination to get a bomb—and an increase in its bitterness toward the United States.

Yglasias reminds us that Fallows has some crediblity, by virtue of being prescient about Iraq.

Easter

In honour of the holiday, I offer you my favourite scene in Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods. The character Shadow is accompanying Wednesday—the American incarnation of Odin—in visiting the goddess Easter in my own San Francisco ...

---

They reached a sidewalk coffeehouse, went inside, sat down. There was only one waitress, who wore her eyebrow ring as a mark of caste, and a woman making coffee behind the counter. The waitress advanced upon them, smiling automatically, sat them down, took their orders.

Easter put her slim hand on the back of Wednesday's square gray hand. “I'm telling you,” she said, “I'm doing fine. On my festival days they still feast on eggs and rabbits, on candy and on flesh, to represent rebirth and copulation. They wear flowers in their bonnets and they give each other flowers. They do it in my name. More and more of them every year. In my name, old wolf.”

“And you wax fat and affluent on their worship and their love?” he said, drily.

“Don't be an asshole.” Suddenly she sounded very tired. She sipped her mochaccino.

“Serious question, m’dear. Certainly I would agree that millions upon millions of them give each other tokens in your name, and that they still practice all the rites of your festival, even down to hunting for hidden eggs. But how many of them know who you are? Eh? Excuse me, miss?” This to their waitress.

She said, “You need another espresso?”

“No, my dear. I was just wondering if you could solve a little argument we were having over here. My friend and I were disagreeing over what the word ‘Easter’ means. Would you happen to know?”

The girl stared at him as if green toads had begun to push their way between his lips. Then she said, “I don't know about any of that Christian stuff. I'm a pagan.”

The woman behind the counter said, “I think it's like Latin or something for ‘Christ has risen,’ maybe.”

“Really?” said Wednesday.

“Yeah, sure,” said the woman. “Easter. Just like the sun rises in the east, you know.”

“The risen son. Of course—a most logical supposition.” The woman smiled and returned to her coffee grinder. Wednesday looked up at their waitress. “I think I shall have another espresso, if you do not mind. And tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?”

“Worship?”

“That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide-open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray at dawn and dusk?”

Her lips described several shapes without saying anything before she said, “The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know?”

“Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?”

“She's the goddess within us all," said the girl with the eyebrow ring, color rising to her cheek. “She doesn't need a name.”

“Ah,” said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, “so do you have nightly bacchanals in her honor? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon while scarlet candles burn in silver candleholders? Do you step naked into the seafoam, chanting ecstatically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards?”

“You're making fun of me," she said. “We don't do any of that stuff you were saying.” She took a deep breath. Shadow suspected she was counting to ten. “Any more coffees here? Another mochaccino for you, ma'am?” Her smile was a lot like the one she had greeted them with when they had entered.

They shook their heads, and the waitress turned to greet another customer.

“There,” said Wednesday, “is one who ‘does not have the faith and will not have the fun,’ Chesterton. Pagan indeed. So. Shall we go out onto the street, Easter my dear, and repeat the exercise? Find out how many passersby know that their Easter festival takes its name from Eostre of the Dawn? Let's see—I have it. We shall ask a hundered people. For every one that knows the truth, you may cut off one of my fingers, and when I run out of them, toes; for every twenty who don't know, you spend a night making love to me. And the odds are certainly in your favor here—this is San Francisco, after all. There are heathens and pagans and Wiccans aplenty on these precipitous streets.”

Her green eyes looked at Wednesday. They were, Shadow decided, the exact same color as a leaf in spring with the sun shining through it. She said nothing.

“We could try it," continued Wednesday. “But I would end up with ten fingers, ten toes, and five nights in your bed. So don't tell me they worship you and keep your festival day. They mouth your name, but it has no meaning to them. Nothing at all.”

Tears stood out in her eyes. “I know that,” she said quietly. “I'm not a fool.”

“No,” said Wednesday. “You're not.”

Patrick Califia

Patrick Califia's essay Whoring in Utopia is in the running for the most powerful cocktail of serious, thoughtful, wry, dirty, and truly radical writing I've ever read.

Even people who are supportive of sex workers' rights often assume that prostitution would somehow wither away if women achieved equality with men or industrial capitalism fell on its blemished, bloated face. Whoring, like other deviant and thus "problematic" sexual behavior, is assumed to be an artifact of sexism, American imperialism, racism, insane narcotics laws, Christianity, or whatever institutionalized inequity has the pontificator's knickers in a twist. While large and sweeping social change would probably alter the nature of sex work, the demographics of sex workers, and the wage scale, along with every other kind of human intimacy, I doubt very much that a just society would (or could) eliminate paying for pleasure.

It's my favourite bit of his writing. But he's done plenty more worth reading if you're serious about thinking seriously about sex. A friend of mine once bravely confessed to me that she was discovering some things about her desires that she found troubling. My first word of advice to her was read all of the Califia you can get your hands on.

I bring this up because I learn via Christa Faust that Mr Califia has suffered a heart attack, and could thus use both love and money. I'm guessing that at least a few of my readers know his work well enough to want to spare a bit of both: follow that link for details about where you can send a cheque, or even just a card.

And if you don't know his work that well, but you could use a new smart, dirty, challenging book—and really, who couldn't?—I cannot recommend highly enough putting a few shekels in his pocket the old fashioned way by buying one of his books.

Aw, shucks

One of the cultural divides between Red and Blue America is that here in Blue America, we tend to be suspicious of anyone who talks entirely without irony, while in Red America folks respect a certain kind of direct sincerity. I confess to being deeply Blue in this regard, but I know that it's really mainly a cultural style thing, as both attitudes have their own pitfalls.

Putting on my ill-fitting Red America glasses for a minute, I couldn't help but be charmed by these life lessons from Scott Cranford, the Official Superman of Metropolis, Illinois.

(Warning to my mother: his spelling is not so super. Don't blame me.)

Here are a few tips I like to remember when portraying the Man of Steel. I find they work pretty well in every day life, too.

• Stand up strait. Shoulders back!
• Always be positive. No matter what the situation, find the good in it and concentrate on solutions.
• Never raise your voice. Calm sets a tone and relaxes people.
• Treat everyone as equals and expect the same.
• Believe in the potential of my fellow person and genuinely wish great things for them.

That's from an article where Mr. Cranford describes going on a Goodwill Tour visiting kids on military bases, many of whom have parents in Iraq. On another day, I might be unable to overcome being creeped out by the pro-war boosterism inherent in the project, but my sympathy for those parents' dedication and those kids' troubles trumps that.

And Cranford is a stand up guy for taking on what must be a very, very tough gig. He seems to be up to the job, though: when kids ask him for a demonstration of his superpowers, he has a pretty crafty answer.

I thought back to George Reeves. Unlike other actors who portrayed Superman, he actually made public appearances and met with children first hand as the Man of Steel. He knew the impact the character had and felt a responsibility to find something unique in every child to make them feel special. From him I'd learned that even if I'd met hundreds of children that day, the child in front of me was meeting me for the first time. That lesson kept me going.

When asked to use my superpowers, I'd say, “I promised the Army I wouldn't and when you make a promise you have to keep it.”;

Sounds like he's worthy of wearing the cape, no?

Nuclear Iran

Billmon at Whisky Bar talks about about the possibility of a nuclear attack on Iran.

Even by the corrupt and debased standards of our times, this is a remarkable thing. The U.S. government is planning aggressive nuclear war (the neocons can give it whatever doublespeak name they like, but it is what it is); those plans have been described in some detail in a major magazine and on the front page of the Washington Post; the most the President of the United States is willing to say about it is that the reports are "speculative" (which is not a synonym for "untrue") and yet as I write these words the lead story on the CNN web site is:

ABC pushes online TV envelope
ABC is going to offer online streams of some of its most popular television shows, including Desperate Housewives and Lost, for free the day after they first air on broadcast TV.

It appears our long national journey towards complete idiocy is over. We've arrived.

Billmon's post is long, brilliant, and depressing. Check it out if you like that sort of thing.

Neutrinos

Bloody hell. It seems it's a lock now. The neutrino does have mass.

This means that the Standard Model is well and truly hosed, which we kind of already knew. More importantly, the poetry of a massless particle is lost to us forever.

Fire in the desert

Via Wil Wheaton, I learn of Dark Miracle, a long web essay about a pilgrimage to Los Alamos to figure out why the scientists made the Bomb.

In a surreal town, the Black Hole is the most surreal spot. A sign outside reads BLACK HOLE MUSEUM OF NUCLEAR WASTE. The parking lot is full of old desks, rackmounts for electronic equipment, filing cabinets, chairs, even a (presumably decommissioned) missile or three. A small display shows Ed's plans for a 'Doomsday Monument' of two obelisks, commemorating all the deaths from atomic power over the years.

To go inside the Black Hole, you pass through an old military security gate, and you are greeted by the ticking sound of a Geiger counter, marking off the background radiation. This may prepare you for what you see.
...
Ed is getting up in years and is rather hard-of-hearing; he has a posse of cronies who help him organize and run the Black Hole on a volunteer basis. They sit outside the place and talk about the sort of things that old men talk about: the weather, local politics, thermonuclear war and its discontents, the tensile strength of various metal alloys.

He doesn't quite get the answer to his question, but it's a good piece of work nonetheless.

Judas

Most of the lost Gnostic text the Gospel of Judas has been recently recovered by the National Geographic Society, and they are just now making it available. There are maddening gaps in the text, but what survives is astonishing: full of mystical imagery ... and a defense of Judas.

Jesus ... said to him, “... you will grieve much when you see the kingdom and all its generation.”

When he heard this, Judas said to him, “What good is it that I have received it? For you have set me apart for that generation.”

Jesus answered and said, “You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy [generation].”

Jesus also tells Judas:

.... you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.

Whoa.

In a synchronicity, I was reading a little bit of poet Elinor Wylie a few days back. She was hugely popular in the 1920s and has since been almost forgotten; it's possible that I may be the last person living to have some of her poems by heart. All of her poems have vivid imagery, and several wrestle with theological questions. Reading her earlier this week, I transcribed one of those to publish here, perhaps as a provocation on Œster. But in honour of this new document from the Gnostics, I'll put it up now.

---

Peter and John

Twelve good friends
Walked under the leaves,
Binding the ends
Of the barley sheaves.

Peter and John
Lay down to sleep
Pillowed upon
A haymaker's heap.

John and Peter
Lay down to dream.
The air was sweeter
Than honey and cream.

Peter was bred
In the salty cold:
His hair was red
And his eyes were gold.

John had a mouth
Like a wing bent down:
His brow was smooth
Ahd his eyes were brown.

Peter to slumber
Sank like a stone,
Of all of their number
The bravest one.

John more slowly
Composed himself,
Young and holy
Among the Twelve.

John as he slept
Cried out in grief,
Turned and wept
On the golden leaf:

“Peter, Peter,
Stretch me your hand
Across the glitter
Of the harvest land!

“Peter, Peter,
Give me a sign!
This was a bitter
Dream of mine—

“Bitter as aloes
It parched my tongue.
Upon the gallows
My life was hung.

“Sharp it seemd
As a bloody sword.
Peter, I dreamed
I was Christ the Lord!”

Peter turned
To holy Saint John:
His body burned
In the failing sun.

In the failing sun
He burned like flame:
“John, Saint John,
I have dreamed the same!

“My bones were hung
On an elder tree;
Bells were rung
Over Galilee.

“A silver penny
Sealed each of my eyes.
Many and many
A cock crew thrice.”

When Peter's word
Was spoken and done,
“Were you Christ the Lord
In your dream?” said John.

“No,” said the other,
“That I was not.
I was our brother
Iscariot.”

Patriarchy

Funny cartoon. Well, funny if you're a feminist.

Who says we don't have a sense of humour?

Nuclear Iran

Seymour Hersch at The New Yorker reports that Bush is determined to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons ... and is seriously considering nuking them to do it.

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was "absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb" if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy."

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." He added, "I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, 'What are they smoking?' "

Recall that Hersch was ahead of the curve on the Abu Ghraib story. Read the whole horrifying thing. And may Providence save us from the President's messianic certainty.

Secret chief

I swear, I've been trying to lay off the magickal mystical posts, but the Book of the Law snuck up on me. Today marks the second of the anniversary days marking the three days of the writing of the Book of the Law.

Yesterday, Yezida turned up some very lovely Star Goddess quotes for the occasion, and I knew some Thelemites who were out there reading Chapter I of the Book, toasting the Star Goddess, Nuit, and celebrating in deference to her injunction:

Be goodly therefore: dress ye all in fine apparel; eat rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam!

I myself was at an early seder for the -4th night of Passover, and chuckled as several people entirely unfamiliar with Nuit reported being in a mood to use champagne for the cups of wine. Wines that foam!

Plus, I got a surprising email from a decidedly un-mystical friend. He stumbled across the tale of Paschal Beverly Randolph as a result of a Google misfire, and passed it on to me, saying, "This seems like someone obscure enough that you probably already know about him, or if not, should know about him." I'm pleased that folks think that the obscurity of a historical figure is a reason to suspect that I know about them, but I must confess that this time I've been caught utterly in the dark.

Dig this quick bio, from the link above:

A free man of colour born in the state of Virginia in 1825, he was an orator and spokesperson for the Abolitionist cause before the Civil War. He was also a well known spiritualist and trance-medium, and a world-traveller in the best Victorian fashion, who visited England, France, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and other regions in search of esoteric wisdom. His investigations into Rosicrucianism led him to the then highly controversial field of sex-magic, and along the way he also wrote a definitive treatise of the use of hashish as an aid to trance possession (1860), and an equally important book on clairvoyant scrying with magic mirrors (1860). As a medical doctor and occultist, Randolph attempted to transcend the coercive racial stereotyping of 19th century America ....

... and also founded the oldest Rosicrucian order in the US here in my home town of San Francisco, hung out with Alexandre Dumas and Abraham Lincoln, ran a business selling New Orleans Magnetic Pillows, wrote about fifty books and pamphlets. Without quite making it to his fiftieth birthday. Zowie. Colour me fascinated by the astonishing Mr. Randolph.

A scholar named John Patrick Deveney has written a biography of him, in which he argues that Blavatsky, Reuss, and Crowley were all influenced by this guy. Pretty astonishing considering that I had never heard of him, but it's plausible, given the little bit I now know.

Which brings me to why I feel a little bit stalked by the Book of the Law. Consider this aphorism of Randolph's:

Will reigns Omnipotent; Love lieth at the Foundation

My occultist readers are undoubtedly chuckling, because the Book of the Law tells us:

Love is the law, love under will

So happy anniversary, Book of the Law, and nice to meet ya, Paschal Beverly Randolph. Good to know that the world is still full of suprising weird stuff.

The god of the Jews is a desert god

Qubitum tells a tale of religious syncreticism from Burning Man.

Seeking more on this Rebbetzin, I found an interview with her by Jay Michaelson, whom I remember fondly as one of my favorite interviees on the playa, even if it was the first step in a day of overextension and insufficient hydration that ended me up the medtent with an IV drip in my arm during the Burn. He wouldn't let tape the interview or take notes in his presence because it happened to be the Shabbas. But he would let me walk with him over to another camp where he was headed for a Vipassana meditation sit. "And there’s a data point for you right there," I remember him saying.

The Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross is speaking tomorrow night next month together with Mr. Larry Harvey in my fair city.

As if you didn't know

If you haven't seen it yet, you should know that the New York Times reports on another British government memo that reveals Bush and Blair determined to invade Iraq when we were still supposedly try to exhaust every possible diplomatic option.

The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.

The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Mr. Hussein.

Via Digby, who writes well about the layers of incompentence and mendacity which this further demonstrates.

SETI

Dr Yvan Dutil talks about sending messages to space aliens. He's neither crazy nor joking.

The only other serious attempt was the transmission from Arecibo in 1974. Many companies claim to send interstellar messages but essentially they are no better than using cell phones or CB for this job. Even the 2000 edition of the Cosmic Call from Encounter 2001 using the Mir space station is worthless.

The main drawback of the Arecibo message is its lack of resistance to the noise. Even at the time of the transmission it was known for a long time since Carl Sagan as pointed this out in the sixties. Also, the message is much too short and do not contain any redundant information. Therefore, it is impossible for the reader to cross-check his deductions.

Finally, the target chosen was very bad. The globular cluster M13 is a very unlikely place to find planets and life.

Dr Dutil has produced some very cool-looking message images. Check 'em out.

(Oh, and I cannot resist pointing out that Googling on the subject reveals that some folks would argue that the Arecibo message worked just fine, since grey aliens wrote back—in wheat!)

Jane Jacobs

The other day, I found myself ranting about Jane Jacobs to some folks who were talking about making the city better by planting more trees. I like trees as much as the next guy, but I don't see them as the key to a great city. Jane Jacobs will tell you, the key is mixed use zoning, because people like to live near where they work, they like to shop near where they live, and they like to go where there are other people.

If you don't know who Jane Jacobs is, you ought to, and the 2 Blowhards offer a a terrific introduction. And if you do know who Jane Jacobs is, then you will definitely enjoy the JJ quotes, as well as Michael Blowhard's comments.

I'm forever tinkering with, and never quite finishing, a posting about urban renewal. Major themes: what a horror it was, and how underknown it is today. I'm not entirely sure of my judgment in the matter, but I suspect that urban renewal may have been a self-inflicted American disaster on a par with the Vietnam War. Before laughing at me, consider the tally. Thousands of communities were destroyed. Millions of people were forcibly relocated. So many of these people were black that black people joked about urban renewal, bitterly calling it "Negro removal." Tens of billions of dollars were spent in an almost entirely destructive fashion. We did this to ourselves—can you imagine? Anyway, we're still living in the shadow of this gigantic mistake, just as we're still living in the shadow of Vietnam.

So either way, click the link.

Insurance

I did some work for an insurance company this year, and learned a number of interesting things. It turns out that most of the time, when patients think their insurer is trying to screw them, they aren't—it's actually that the insurer is trying to screw the doctors and other providers. When a doctor joins an insurer's network, they sign a long and complicated compensation rules package saying what they will get paid for each proceedure. The rules are deliberately obfuscated, so that the insurer can later say, "well, because that surgery is covered under both paragraph 324 section 78 subsection B and paragraph 187 section 32, you only get paid the cost of the oxygen plus $280, instead of the $1500 you thought ...." This why what's covered is so confusing.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past folks doing stuff like that to do other "cost controls." Via Ezra Klein, I learn of a lawsuit against Blue Cross for trying to screw customers.

They allege that Blue Cross scours years of medical records after expensive claims have been submitted, looking for innocent misstatements and omissions to use as pretext to rescind coverage and escape expensive bills.

The suits also accuse Blue Cross of using a vague, confusing and ambiguous medical history questionnaire in an effort to trick applicants into making mistakes that the company can use later to dump them.

It's a good thing we're keeping health insurance in the efficient private sector, eh?

The price of loyalty

Andrew Sullivan, now that he's flipped a bit and decided he doesn't like W after all, says that the Bush Administration is too tired to think.

The Washington Post says Card gets up every day at 4.20am, gets to his office at 5.30am, has his first staff meeting at 7.30am and works flat out until he gets home at 9pm. He takes calls at home until 11pm. He has kept this schedule for more than five years.

Yeah, any presidential administration works hard, but nobody gets a break under Bush.

To give you a sense of his longevity, the previous two two-term presidents, Reagan and Clinton, had eight chiefs of staff between them.

Interesting.

---

---

I have a long follow-up post about how thoroughly terrible Andrew Sullivan is.

Science

Some folks are fond of pointing to some fragmentary scientific evidence that people heal better when someone prays for them. In case you havn't heard, it turns out that it just ain't so.

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.
...
Because it is the most scientifically rigorous investigation of whether prayer can heal illness, the study, begun almost a decade ago and involving more than 1,800 patients, has for years been the subject of speculation.
...
At least 10 studies of the effects of prayer have been carried out in the last six years, with mixed results. The new study was intended to overcome flaws in the earlier investigations.

Surprise, surprise.

Update: The Wild Hunt pointedly perceives problems with the protocols of this production from a polytheistic perspective.

Satire

I know I'm a couple of days late, but this little item of April Fool satire has such sharp teeth that I have to link it.

"We will be attacked on the basis of Article II Section 1, and on Amendment XXII," McIntyre writes. "Thus it is absolutely crucial that the anticipated Executive Order for a Continuity Presidency make no mention whatsoever of a 'Third Term.' This will eliminate appeals to Amendment XXII, and leave us free to focus our attack on Article II Section 1 alone. Thus, the Executive Order has got to be framed as a necessary — and Congressionally authorized — extension of the President's Second Term, so that we can base our arguments on the Joint Resolution and Article II Section 2.

"Above all," McIntyre warns, "we must emphasize that the 2001 Joint Resolution, in which Congress empowered the President to 'use all necessary and appropriate force ... to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States,' and Article II Section 2 of the United States Constitution, give the President ample authority to issue an Executive Order for a Continuity Presidency for the duration of the GWOT, to exercise fully his mandate to protect the American people from harm."

If you're following the administration closely, it's eerie how well this story fits in with other real things we've heard.

Is it a 'game,' or is it 'art'?

Via Monkeyboy's Linkblog, I learn that Penn Gillette (of Penn & Teller) once designed the computer game equivalent of Andy Warhol's notoriously dull film Empire.

Cunning

Via Monkeyboy's Linkblog, I learn of The Cure for Information Overload.

Obviously, it borrows from some ideas that have been kicking around the web for a while. But there's some subtle, sophisticated commentary about the blogosphere in it, and the little wink toward Jorge Luis Borges is priceless.

New Google solution

In case you haven't heard about elsewhere, Google has added yet another tool.

When you think about it, love is just another search problem. And we’ve thought about it. A lot. Google Romance™ is our solution.

Just what I needed today.

Teletubbies

MKB is troubled and fascinated by Teletubbies, as perhaps he should be. I respond:

Teletubbies is possibly the most daring work of science fiction ever put on film. It takes place in a utopian alien civilization, set in a surreal landscape, with no human characters. The ritualistic social mores of that civilization, and its technological and industrial underpinnings, are never directly explained or explored. It utterly breaks from the western, Aristotilian model of storytelling with its lack of obvious conflict and eerie repetitions. "Again, again!"

Yes, Un Chien Andalous abandoned narrative, but it mostly focuses on recognizable human experience. Yes, The Dark Crystal gave us a non-human world, but it stuck to a very standard quest narrative. I can think of no other work of film that abandons so many familiar signposts. The show is a work of genius, a truly unique vision.

I'm being funny, yes, but I'm not kidding. It is deeply fascinating because it is made for the human brain ... but not the adult human brain.

If you've never seen it, believe us that we do not exaggerate in our astonishment at it.