Nobody's Business

Smoking's Slippery (Ski) Slope

I'm not a smoker, but I play one on TV. OK, not really, but I'd like to — just to piss off the sanctimonious neo-prohibitionists who get all hot and bothered at the mere sight of a lit cigar or cigarette.

The anti-smoking lobby has come a long way, baby. It all started innocently enough some twenty-five years ago, with the demand that airplanes get designated non-smoking sections. Fine, no problem. Then there was to be no smoking on planes at all. Sure, if it makes you happy. Then airports became smoke-free zones. Annoying, but let's just show our most conciliatory side and give in. Then office buildings and restaurants and pubs no longer accommodated any smokers. Yeah, that's alarming, but thank heavens, people can still smoke outside.

Not so fast.

Per the New York Times:

>> When [Maine's] Black Mountain opened for the season on Dec. 10, it became the first ski resort in the nation where tobacco use was banned everywhere, including the lodge, the alpine and cross-country trails, and the lifts, state and industry officials said. But it probably will not be the last. <<

What, pray tell, is the rationale for the ban? The usual, of course: it's for the children.

>> "I've had one person say they're going to drive by the mountain and blow smoke out the window," [general manager Terrie Anne] Bennett said. "If they feel that way, fine. We have nothing against smokers or tobacco products. We just want to have a safe environment for children to recreate." <<

Got that? You can drive your smoke-belching Hummer halfway up the mountain if the mood strikes, but when you're in the great outdoors and hold a match to a cigarette, you're launching an assault on innocent children's lungs.

All right, but people can still light up in their own homes, no?

You pitiable naïf. Your employer will be the judge of that. If you smoke at home, or anywhere for that matter, you could get fired — just like these people.

Looking for Porn in All the Wrong Places

Please, people, when choosing a name for your site or even just a good e-mail address, be careful with letters and words you smush together, would you?

I mean, when 'Who represents,' a service that tells you which agents represent which actors, became a web venture, they set up shop at whorepresents.com. A little ambiguous, perhaps?

And when Experts Exchange, a career site for IT professionals, went online, they did so at expertsexchange.com. Later, the founders inserted a hyphen between the 's' and the 'e' for some reason.

And of course, there's the infamous purveyor of writing implements, Pen Island, which...well, you get the picture.

Admittedly, the last one is a hoax. The other two are genuine.

I thought about all this because I learned today that Blanche Love, a nice woman in her late fifties or early sixties whom I vaguely know, has a memorable e-mail address: bjlove@somedomain.com. Yes: bjlove. For real. I wonder who'll have the heart to tell her.

Death Wish, Derailed, Now Back on Track

— "Please hit me," said the masochist.
— "I don't think so," the sadist replied.

I was reminded of that old joke when I read about Juan Alvarez, the man allegedly responsible for causing a massive train wreck that left 11 dead and almost 200 injured after he abandoned his SUV on a commuter track. Alvarez, who'd cut and stabbed himself in an apparent attempt to snuff out his own life just prior to leaving the car, is considered suicidal (duh). And what's the punishment the DA comes up with?

The death penalty.

Lovely irony, that.

Pretty Words vs Reality — the Sequel

Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria deftly lays out the disconnect between Bush's feelgood inauguration address and how the President practices his professed belief in liberty-for-all:

"When democratic Taiwan stood up to communist China last year, Bush publicly admonished it, siding with Beijing. When brave dissidents in Saudi Arabia were jailed for proposing the possibility of a constitutional monarchy in that country, the administration barely mentioned it. Crown Prince Abdullah, who rules one of the eight most repressive countries in the world (according to Freedom House), is one of a handful of leaders to have been invited to the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. (The elected leaders of, say, India, France, Turkey and Indonesia have never been accorded this courtesy.) The president has met with and given aid to Islam Karimov, the dictator of Uzbekistan, who presides over one of the nastiest regimes in the world today, far more repressive than Iran’s, to take just one example."

That's what journalists call the nut graf. That's really the whole piece right there.

But of course, this being Newsweek, the criticism has to be padded with pleasant fluff so as to not make it seem the magazine is actually calling Bush a hypocrite. So we're also treated to the cooing, customary claptrap that makes you suspect it was added later, by Zakaria's editors, for 'balance.' To wit: that the Bush speech was "written for the ages"; that it contained "style and substance" (Really? Substance?); and that Bush's presidency aims to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" (Yes. Nowhere more so than at home, where the comfortable are surely feeling mighty threatened by continuing tax breaks for the wealthy, record bonuses on Wall Street, and boatloads of beluga and bubbly at Bush's $40 million inaugural bash).

What could have been a spiffy and inarguably truthful little essay is then further castrated to the point of incomprehension, thanks to this sissified excuse for an ending:

"The United States is right to push [international freedom] forward. The president is wise to articulate the path ahead. But we should also note the trends toward chaos, plague and poverty, which consume the attentions of much of the world. These are also great evils, and we should propose ways to lead the world in tackling them. That, too, would make for an interesting and important speech."

WTF? "Plague and poverty"? Do Newsweek editors know what a non sequitur is? Because, you know, it'd also be "interesting" if Bush spoke movingly about the plight of people with peanut allergies. Or if, I dunno, he started spending Sunday afternoons playing nerfball with Dick Cheney on the White House lawn. But that's not what we were talking about here, is it? The issue was whether we can trust a President who says one thing and does another.

Advice to Newsweek staff: Grow a spine. When you know the truth, speak it. When you have a point to make, make it — and let the chips fall where they may.

Free Wristband! Proceeds Go to Charity!

As I explained here, the blogging service I use lets me see how visitors came to my site — which web page referred them. The best part is seeing the stuff people type into search engines such as Google, only to end up here (often with horny and sadly mistaken assumptions).

Today's don't-know-if-this-is-funny-or-sad moment came when I discovered that I'd received a Googler who, like hundreds of others, was trolling for information on those fantastically annoying charity wristbands. In this case the search string was — I kid you not — "free poverty wristband."

Gaypants Haters Charge Olbermann

Hell hath no fury like a homophobe scorned. Now if they could only learn how to use a computer.

After Keith Olbermann made light of self-appointed moral guardian James Dobson, who'd attacked Spongebob Squarepants for possibly gay-efying America's youth, the MSNBC host heard from Dobson's fans. A lot of them. Some, Olbermann says,

"...referred to Dr. Dobson as Dr. Dobsin, Dr. Dobsen, or Mr. Dobbins. Many were cut-and-paste repetitions of one another, and about 20 percent were from false e-mail addresses."

But it gets better.

"The spam e-mails began coming in Tuesday night. They were pretty routine, damning me to eternal fires and reminding me what they “did” to Dan Rather and how I’d be next. But they were generated from Dobson’s own website, which of course negates their impact, and as a result a lot of them were downright hilarious. Something approaching 20 percent of them were simply blank. Others began with, or consisted entirely of, the preamble '(Please delete these words and type your own message here.)' "

The Left's Jackboots

Part agent provocateur, part free-speech hero, part nya-nya-ing fratboy, Gil Kobrin is an interesting character. Two years ago, the pro-Bush New York student joined a group called ProtestWarrior and became one of its "operations leaders." He and his compadres join leftist demonstrations to provide a bit of counterweight with signs that say sarcastic things like "Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism, and communism, war has never solved anything." And "Saddam only killed his own people — it's none of our business!"

Whether or not you agree with the ProtestWarrior members, their signs are a helluva lot more thought-provoking than yet another anti-Bush placard featuring Dubya with a Hitler mustache.

Anyway, on inauguration day, Kobrin found himself in Washington DC, signs and all. With him were twelve fellow ProtestWarriorrs. It wasn't long before some anti-Bush protesters took the bait and angrily demanded that Kobrin and his group leave the demonstration. When the ProtestWarriors rightly refused, about "twenty self-described anarchists" ripped the offending signs down and trampled them. An objection from Kobrin was seen as further provocation, and he got knocked to the ground and kicked in the back. His twelve fellow demonstrators received shoves and blows too.

That's some peace protest.

Did the ProtestWarrior group at any point physically provoke the fisticuffs? No way, Kobrin e-mailed me after I contacted him. "We were silently holding signs, with the permission of DAWN rally organizers — that's the DC Anti-War Network, the group who organized the rally. We were making our way along the side of the park. We didn't obstruct the path of any protester, or otherwise prevent them from protesting."

None of the other ProtestWarriors were hurt, Kobrin says, and he describes his own injuries as "not too bad." That isn't to say he wasn't shaken, or that he wouldn't press charges if he could. "We attempted to, but the DC police were uncooperative," Kobrin insists. "I was unable to even give a statement."

He might still find a way to pursue the matter: the ProtestWarriors claim to have video footage of their protest, presumably including the scuffle. The video will be released on his group's website in about a week and a half, Kobrin says. It could be powerful stuff — the Web's next meme. In the perception of centrists and fence-sitters, the criminal behavior of twenty black-clad thugs may very well taint a broad swath of the left. Kobrin probably won't mind.

Fox Weathermen Lose it On-Camera

Unforgettable footage here, and here [more kudos to BoingBoing]. You can understand why Murdoch's meteorologists would go bonkers: The terrible thing about the weather is, for once you can't blame it on the liberals.

No Shit

Persistent diarrhea may signal disease.

Pretty Words vs Reality

I've had some more occasion to reflect on Bush's stirring inauguration speech. Wasn't it a wonderful evocation of America's highest ideals? A reminder that we are a beacon to an anxious world, a bringer of justice, a messenger of liberty? Or was it just a string of pretty words that bear only a tenuous relation to how Mr. Bush and his cabinet have actually spread freedom in the past four years? Here are examples of how our country has been dispensing law and justice in Iraq so far.

• The President:
"Every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth."
• Reality:
"There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood. The 372nd’s abuse of prisoners seemed almost routine — a fact of Army life that the soldiers felt no need to hide."

• The President:
"Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law."
• Reality:
"[U.S. investigator Major General Antonio] Taguba’s report [on Abu Ghraib] listed some of the wrongdoing: Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; ... sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick."

• The President:
"Our goal ... is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way."
• Reality:
"...the Pentagon acknowledged that, according to an autopsy report, Mowhoush died of “asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression” showing 'evidence of blunt force trauma to the chest and legs' and said that a homicide investigation was underway. Reportedly, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer and another officer slid a sleeping bag over Mowhoush’s head and rolled him over and over while asking questions. Welshofer is accused of sitting on Mowhoush’s chest and placing his hands over his mouth."

• The President:
"America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies."
• Reality:
"[T]he photos and videos so far unreleased by the Pentagon show American soldiers 'having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner', and a secret report by General Antonio Taguba into the scandal confirms that US guards videotaped and photographed naked female prisoners and that 'a male MP [military police] guard' is shown 'having sex with a female detainee'. Yesterday Prof. Shaker, who began researching the subject this year for Amnesty International, said she believed the woman involved had been killed."

• The President:
"We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people."
• Reality:
"The documents released yesterday portray a series of abuse cases stretching beyond the Abu Ghraib prison where photos surfaced this year of US troops forcing prisoners — often naked — to pose in humiliating positions. The files document a crush of abuse allegations."

• The President:
"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals."
• Reality:
"Military records state that [prisoner Nagm Saddoon Hatab] was asphyxiated when a Marine guard grabbed his throat in an attempt to move him, accidentally breaking a bone that cut off his air supply. Another Marine is charged with kicking Hatab in the chest in the hours before his death — several of his ribs were broken. Hatab was also covered with feces and left under the sun for hours."

• The President:
"The United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."
• Reality: "U.S. Navy documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal that abuse and even torture of detainees by U.S. Marines in Iraq was widespread. One Navy criminal investigator sent an e-mail in June 2004 describing his Iraq caseload "exploding" with "high visibility cases."

• The President:
"In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty."
• Reality:
"Substantiated incidents of torture and abuse by U.S. Marines [include] severely burning a detainee’s hands by covering them in alcohol and igniting them (Al Mumudiyah, August 2003), and shocking a detainee with an electric transformer, causing the detainee to 'dance' as he was shocked (Al Mumudiyah, April 2004)."

• The President:
"In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character, on integrity and tolerance toward others and the rule of conscience in our own lives."
• Reality:
"Sexual and physical abuse of Iraqi prisoners continued at least three months after the Abu Ghraib scandal was revealed, according to accounts by alleged victims published in the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine. In a report on 60 hours of interviews Vanity Fair writer Donovan Webster conducted with 10 former detainees, he quoted several accounts of mistreatment that included Iraqi prisoners being sexually assaulted by American soldiers or being hooded, beaten, subjected to electric shock and kept in cages or crates."

• The President:
" The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know to serve your people, you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side."
• Reality:
"...[I]t's hard to avoid concluding that responsibility for the Abu Ghraib atrocities goes straight to the top, both in the Pentagon and the White House, and that varying degrees of blame can be ascribed to officials up and down the chain of command."