post-crime

Senator Arlen Spector has proposed a bill that would de-illegalize (I won't use the word legalize) the President's illegal wire-taps and torture and imprisonments and the like and would essentially give him unlimited authority during "a time of war." Despite even AG Gonzales's telling him that Congress does have authority in wartime, Spector justified the bill in a Washington Post op-ed.

Here's a series of snippets from Salon:

"Specter's bill (S. 2543) is titled the National Security Surveillance Act, and it is framed as a series of amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. [...] In reality, Specter does not want to amend the mandates of FISA so much as abolish them. His bill makes it optional, rather than mandatory, for the president to subject himself to judicial oversight when eavesdropping on Americans, in effect returning the nation to the pre-FISA era. [...] Specter's bill will have three troubling consequences if it becomes law. First, it makes lawbreaking legal. When the New York Times revealed last December that the Bush administration has been eavesdropping without judicial approval for the past four years, it meant that the president has been systematically violating a law that makes such eavesdropping a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. If laws are to have any meaning, then elected officials cannot simply violate them with impunity. Specter's bill not only virtually guarantees there would be no consequences for this deliberate, ongoing criminality, but rewards and endorses the president's lawbreaking by changing the law to conform to the president's conduct. Richard Nixon infamously told David Frost in a 1977 interview that, by definition, "when the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Specter, in effect, wishes to make the Nixonian theory of presidential infallibility the law of the land. In the process, he also embraces a more modern and equally extreme theory of presidential power, and that is the second alarming implication of his bill. Specter's proposal is based on the plainly erroneous -- and truly radical -- premise that Congress has no power to regulate presidential war powers, as spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. [...] The third and worst thing that Specter's bill would do is place the president's FISA decisions beyond any kind of meaningful judicial review forever, and immunize the Bush administration from any real scrutiny of the legality and constitutionality of its conduct. By design, it would all but kill the various lawsuits pending around the country that allege the president and various telecommunications companies acted illegally when they intercepted the communications of Americans without the warrants required by law.




What I don't understand is this: when did the Right perfect the time machine? I mean, wouldn't a crime committed on January 1, 2006 still be a crime if the law wasn't changed until January 2, 2006? Or in this case 2010? And two: how did so many senators get out of civics class in high school?

visualizing priorities

do y'all know about newsmap?

the larger-font stories are the ones read by more people; the smaller, fewer. it's interesting to see what people are interested in and to see what's likely a snowball effect in popularity. first, people would apparently rather read about the death of a 19-year-old model than the disparate rates of judges' asylum rejections. and the fact that that model-box is bigger likely leads more people still to read it over the asylum story.

whatever else is interesting about the thing, newmap is at least perty.

the difference is the egg yolks, right?

colbert is a rock star.

safe home.

dev's flight to japan should be taxiing onto the runway as we speak.

bye-bye, sugar.

a reminder

from my old friend Alta:

so snark

the power of punctuation

and spelling.

I'm sitting here making up a schedule for the next month of work, listening to random television in the background. An ad for Special K cereal comes up touting a weight-loss benefit if you eat it as two of your daily meals for two weeks. The tagline is something like this:

"Studies show that people who eat breakfast, like Special K cereal, weigh less."

Here's what I heard:

"Studies show that people who eat breakfast like Special K cereal way less."

Ahh...homophones.

makes sense, right?

so you're getting ready to move to japan in mere days, right? so where do you have your going away dinner? why, the local sushi joint, of course! dev and stella eat there so very often, that the entire wait staff (and the chefs, too) made sure to stop by the table to say good-bye and tell dev how much they'll miss him. after all, once he jets away, the business is likely to go under. to put into perspective: once, quite innocently, dev, stella, and i stopped for an early dinner and spent almost $170 on sushi. and believe you me, 2/3 of the bill was dev's. for seriously.

and...

...don't listen to ivan. this is not funny. repeat after me: this is not cute and/or funny. cats totally are cute and funny!

just another saturday night.

oh. my. god.

so i'm hanging with agatha & ivan in the city. we're drinking pinot noir y pinot grigio. it's summer in the city, and the livin' is good.

and this is freaking great: awesome!

go one, go all. just keep clickin' on the next cat.

trust me.

a night in the movies

dev and my days lately have been filled with goodbyes and "might be the last time" dinners. last night, we ate at the local thai restaurant with rowan. the conversation should've been a movie trailer.

samples?

1. rowan, between sips of hot tea, says, "you know, they're doing some really good things with carob these days."

2. rowan again, on whether stella should get a perm that would let her have the sort of afro-ish hair her mother had in the late 1970s: "if you do that, i will fucking spit."

more than this to follow, but dev's getting antsy about my getting the truck for packing.

space-man, oh, space-man

dev's leaving the country, and he wants to take his pillow. i would too, honestly, if the pillow options in my new home were as bad as they sound in japan. the problem: how to get a pillow into the limited packing space available? the solution: spacebag!

a troubling development

our house is blessed with some of the most adorable pets on the planet. as i type, mootz is chasing the reflected light from the back of my laptop around the room as if it were a torturous, fluttering bug. you've already read of the exploits of rye -- window-jumping, foot-gnawing, and all the rest. you've seen vivian's photo. cuteness personified.

until. UNTIL. we've seen a troubling development arise.

rye. or vivian. has. been. pooping. in. the basement. ech.

note consequence #1: scene - tuesday, 7:30 am. inga and stella meet in the kitchen and decide to w-a-l-k the dogs. first, inga says, we must venture to the basement to turn on the dehumidifier, which may have the slightest inkling of a chance to keep the basement from turning into the most viable rain forest this side of costa rica. inga goes. from the basement moments later, a scream. a dog had pooped in the basement. ergh. not to be deterred, we all head out for the w-a-l-k and return just in time to make a quick run to a local bagel place for a bite before work.

a block away from the house, inga comments on the nasty smell that's following us everywhere. i lament that the entire town of xxxx is rotting. a block later, i groan that the place smells like...say it with me now...poop. inga and i exchange a oh-no-it-isn't glance, and i lift my shoe.

poop. everywhere. on my shoe. on the floormats. everywhere.

we pull up for bagels, and while inga goes in, i do the shoe-smearing dance on the grassy knoll next to the railroad tracks. finally, i resort to the grade school poop-from-shoe-extraction method of thin-stick-as-lever. i'm grossed out. then, as if that wasn't bad enough, i have to use the thinnest paper towels ever to scrub it out of the floormats. task completed, we head to work.

where we tell the story immediately. so immediately that i am still holding the paper bag containing our tightly wrapped, super-tasty lunch of berries, cheese and crackers, and yogurt. mmm. so. inga narrates. i shake my head for emphasis. and i set the lunch bag onto a table. when inga glances at the bag as i set it onto the table, a look of horror washes over her face as she raises her arm to point at the lunch bag. i look. she's right. there IS poop smeared on the side of the bag containing the most wonderful lunch we could scrap together from our meager, neglected refrigerator.

we order lunch delivered.

consequence #2: scene - wednesday, mid-morning. the dogs have been in the back yard for hours this morning while inga surfs the internet and stella tries to convince herself to get out of bed. stella comes downstairs, finally dressed and lets the dogs back into the house, and (after a moment's kitchen-chatting) inga recommends the obligatory w-a-l-k. first, as yesterday, a trek downstairs for the dehumidifier. she goes again. moments later, a scream again. this time, she stomps upstairs and, exaspirated, snatches several plastic bag. "somebody pooped in the basement again."

i ask whether she's sure its one of the dogs. i mean, they were just outside for hours. would they have been holding it out there so that they could come back in to go to the basement? surely not. inga, however, is sure that it is a dog's, and she challenges me to come for a look-see. eventually, i go. the scene is horrifying.

first, that it was dog poop is no longer in doubt. second, we no longer need to worry who is doing the pooping because it now seems as if both of them have taken the basement as their personal litter boxes.

we are now keeping the basement door closed.

notes from a city.

so i'm in the big bad city this weekend visiting friends. it's good to get away from the mundaneness and annoyance of living in a town like x. and, hey, you think the city would provide all sorts of awesome and sophisticated interludes.

or not.

overheard:

While waiting for Agatha to get off work, I settled into a table at a local corporate coffee chain. One employee was discussing with her co-workers about the previous evening’s episode of Project Runway. “That blonde girl’s dress? It was the most worst dress ever.”

Another employee, after a man with an Eastern European accent, orders an iced coffee. “Here’s your water.”
Man: “I did not order water.”
Girl: “Are you sure?”
Man: “Yes. I’m sure. I order iced coffee.”
Girl: “Not water?”
Man: “No.”
Silence.
Girl: “Oh, well, I thought you said iced water.”
Man: “No. Iced coffee.” Pause. “Are you going to make me one?”
Girl: “An iced coffee?”
Man: “Yes. Please.”


And finally, some advice to you guys who want to hang out in corporate coffee houses. Don’t wear baggy shorts, your sunglasses on top of your head, and Velcro-strapped sandals and sit with your legs spread wide open. Chances are you are middle-aged and unattractive. And chances are you’re flashing your junk to poor innocents who are there to get some work done, not lose their lunch. Flash your lady friend in the ill-fitting Capri pants. She’s likely familiar with your junk. She likely has that dour look on her face because not only is she familiar with your junk, but she’s resigned herself to be stuck with your junk for the rest of her miserable life. Haven’t you harmed enough people for one millennium?

file under tickled pink

Anne Coulter is a douche -- and not even a draw to her own.

the things dev puts up with.

Oonagh came to visit last night. It's been a busy week, what with Dev flying off to Japan in a week and all. He's been busy packing and Stella has been busy fretting over whether or not he'll actually get packed and moved in time. So yesterday was a big push for Dev to clear out his apartment so new tenant can move in and he can come and stay with us til he leaves.

So Oonagh came by in a van from work, bringing along a dresser for me she used in a xxxx shoot. We park van mid-point in the driveway. Then we commence to sit on the porch with Stella, who has taken a break from the Dev-packing, and commence to the wine drinking. A short time later Dev drives up, his car laden with boxes. He commences to unloading the car, box by box, walking past the van, depositing items in the garage, and then repeating the exercise. We commence to drinking more wine. And talking about totally important things (my Italian-translation student who is sucking the life out of the classroom, the awesome sale at Garnett Hill, Stella's booking a hotel for her and Dev pre-Japan-flight). We drink more wine. We giggle, I'm sure. Then, as Dev passes us by on the porch once again, Stella inquiries, "Sugar, need any help?"

To which Dev replies, "Well, now that the car's empty? Uh, no."

Silence, except for his car door closing as he drives off to pick up yet another load of boxes. At this exact moment, the three of us realize, in quick succession,

1. we suck
2. not only is Oonagh's work van parked in the driveway, it's in the middle of the driveway, causing Dev to have to walk around it with every box
3. the van would have been perfect for, say, loading up all of Dev's stuff and bringing it over in, oh, what? one trip
4. Stella is a terrible girlfriend

So, we did the only reasonable thing we could: we opened another bottle of wine.

I mean, Dev can't really be that surprised, can he?

he said bang-cock.

...goes the weasel.

Watch this one twice: once letting your eyes fall where they will. a second time focusing on the owl.



I think he's seen one or two of those Bugs Bunny cartoons during which a major character hides behind a too-thin tree.

the dixie chick of france

but for a whole different reason:

"Brigitte Bardot 'Ashamed to Be French'" from salon.com. (You'll need to watch the ad or log in.)

What sort of government doesn't watch out for its furs. I mean "minks"?

Seriously, though, good for her for taking a stand. Word.

monday night bartender.

so last night dev and stella and i went out for some celebratory drinks to celebrate, of course, stella's leaving. oh, yeah, and to start celebrating dev's ever closer departure to japan.

we went to the pseudo-irish pub in town, paddy's. it's less worse than giovanni's, which of course isn't saying much. it's about on par with the pseudo-mexican restaurant, jesus's. the ambiance of paddy's is at least more pleasing that at the greek place, athena's. but i digress.

so we're at the pub, stella and i, waiting for dev to show up. we're sitting at the bar. the bartender, who looks like a nice enough fella, comes over to help us. and then we realized, with horror, who he was.

the monday night bartender.

let's take a look-see at why this fella is relegated to monday nights behind the bar.

1. stella orders a highball, but this particular place serves them in martini glasses (don't ask). she asks for it in a short glass. "oh," says fella. ten minutes later comes back and asks, "uh, do you want it on the rocks?"

2. i order a cosmo. as i watch him mix i remark to stella that his grand marnier pour is a bit heavy. the drink comes. it's red like a ruby. stella wince. i sip. the worst cosmo ever. sickeningly sweet. heavy on the cranberry, light on the vodka. we call him over. much too sweet, i say. he looks confused. "oh, uh, do you want me to take it back?" please. i order a different martini. it's better.

3. mid-drinking, stella switches over to gin and tonic with some rose's lime. she sips. she winces, but declares it all right.

4. mid-drinking, i switch to chardonnay (don't ask). the glass arrives with a fresh lipstick mark (not mine). we call him over again.

5. dev orders a bloody mary. asks fella if they have absolut peppar. fella says, "what's that?" dev explains, patiently, that it's absolut vodka flavored with...pepper. in a bottle with red lettering. fella holds up a reddish bottle. "well, we got this flavor." the bottle is clearly marked ruby red. as in grapefruity.

during the drinking, the televisions are on, because of course paddy's likes to think of itself as sports bar-ish. espn, sadly, is on the tv facing us. a story about barbaro comes on. we're curious as to whether or not he's going to be put on. stella asks fella to turn on closed captioning. "oh, gosh," he says, "i don't think we've got that." he fiddles around. he turns off the tv. he looks shocked the button he pressed, on/off, turned the tv off.

but we have to give him credit. he never actually asked if stell and i wanted to share a drink.

not headline news

i've been watching bunches of crap movies lately. so there.

here's my scale: argh=awful; ech=bad; eh=so-so; hmm=alright; yay=yay!

the davinci code - argh. poorly told story; horrible casting; predictable and laughable (i've refused to read the book after the didactic mess that is the rest of brown); not even worth renting.

beowulf and grendel - eh. rather boring; seems to have been released prematurely (just like inga!); good casting (except for sarah polley), cinematography, costumes (on the humans), story-telling goals; bad-bad-bad editing, special effects, and casting of sarah polley; so-so script. stella is wishing that they'd held onto the film until it was finished.

pirates of the caribbean - ech. truly disappointing. redundant scenes; no resolution (i don't want to hear anything about its being act two of a trilogy and comparisons to "empire strikes back" -- i want at least one storyline resolved at least a little bit. "empire" stands alone and leaves us hoping for, not requiring, another outcome. i also don't want to hear anything about the differences between italics and quotation marks.) sucktastic.

a prairie home companion - eh. shining portions are dulled by the angel business and by keillor's singing. by the way, i sort of hate the radio show. not so much the unbiased viewer.

an inconvenient truth - hmmm-to-yay. watches like one of those videos you watched in the gym during elementary school, but that's an effective style; shocking, terrifying, but hopeful. worth a watch. or two. or six. with a new viewer each time.

ah, yes...news

Stella has a new job! She is moving out of her long-time home state to start a new job in less metropolitan area. She is excited about the job. She is less excited about moving out of driving distance from one of the largest cities in the hemisphere. Oh blah di.

W. T. F. ?!?

Princess: a Danish animated film

stella continues to be a jezebel with a capital b...

so stella, vixen you are, don't you have some news to share???

stella is a jezebel with a capital b.

given that dev leaves for japan in mere weeks and that he's currently running a chemistry conference in xxx, a delightful resort town, and that he's been put up at a swank hotel, stella opted to take a few days off to join him. and why not? there are spa services, a pool (even though stella doesn't swim recreationally), awesome restaurants, a lake, and boat rides; basically all the trappings of a fabulous little vacation.

sweet. a great opportunity to spend some quality time with dev.

or so you'd think.

stella sent me an email today that reads: "enjoying room service and the chemists." given her linguistic background and penchant for saying what she means, i fear the truth is out. stella has been entertaining the chemists and sharing room service with them.

poor dev! so in his face so near to his departure! who knew stella was so callous?

must be small scoops (not to be confused with lady lumps).

so, while admittedly a bit bored at work today (and while stella played who wants to be a millionaire online), i came across this in a community events bulletin:

Join the Society of xxx for an afternoon of ice cream from 2:30 to 3p.m. xxx, July xx, in the Lucinda Lounge.

mmm...isn't an afternoon technically longer than a half hour?

a tall drink o' water ... or mojito

We have a friend, Guy, who is 14 inches taller than Inga. When they stand next to each other, we all laugh and point, including Inga. And Guy. Tired of taking crap for her short stature, Inga goaded me into visiting that size-matching website again to check on Guy's height relative to others.

The results? Guy is one full foot shorter than Manute Bol. He's a full inch shorter than economist John Kenneth Galbraith! He's the same height as Joey Ramone and Krist Novoselic. He is, however, taller than Sebastian Bach of Poison or whatever it was (whom the website calls a "classical composer"), Herman Munster, Dolph Lundgren, Charlemagne, and Superman.

Does this help Inga's case? Chat amongst yourselves.

not that she's lazy, but...

vivian can't be bothered to stand while eating. really, though, who can?

sportsmanship my foot

And he still wins best player.

that's a what the *uck moment

inga and i are watching the world cup final, and we both just had a wtf moment along with the rest of the soccer world -- french team captain zidane just got thrown out for headbutting an italian player in the chest. and the game, for about two minutes, got really, really dirty. wierd.

says inga: "we are totally reading the french newspapers tomorrow." word.

UPDATE: Here's a clip.

scenes from a public pool.

so after battling an awful summer cold, i decided to go swim some laps this morning. note to savvy readers: bad chest cold & lap swimming do not mix. after four lengths, i gave up, put on my spf and settled myself into a chaise and commenced to the second best thing to do at the pool after laps ~ people watching.

1. the lifeguards
should lifeguards really be wearing two pieces that resemble bikinis? call inga old, but really. lifeguards in near bikinis do not inspire a lot of confidence. i spent a fair share of my summers in college and grad school lifeguarding. we had to wear one-piece suits that covered our fronts and backs. unattractive? totally. screwed up tan lines? for sure. but we were working. we sat in our chairs with our stupid one pieces, whistles on lanyards around our necks, visors pulled down over our eyes. if we weren't in our chairs, we stood on deck with a flotation device in our arms.

at the pool today, the lifeguards wore two-piece suits and sat on the deck, not in their guard chairs, but on lounge chairs, legs stretched out languidly in front of them. suit straps pulled down so as not to cause unsightly tan lines. a pal sitting next to them, chatting. uhm...really? it just seems like a tan kind of outweighs the safety thing. i mean, don't get me wrong, inga rocks the tan, but should the lifeguards really focus on it?

2. old guys
shortly after i settled into my chaise, book in hand, a gaggle of high school girlies fluttered in and settled themselves close by. the girls were all super cute, super smooth skinned, super 'like oh my god!' - full of conversation. their bikinis? super cute. their bellies? super pierced. their conversation? super annoying. but c'mon. they're girlies. they were settling in for a day at the pool.

maybe 15 min. later, an older dude comes ambling in. he bypasses the area i'm in (granted, i purposefully sit by the old grannies & pappies who swim laps - it makes me look super tan in comparison) and chooses a chair right next to the gaggle. now, old dude is admittedly in good shape and has a rockin' tan, this is clear. but compared to the girlies? he's old. you know. upper 40s for sure. he takes his long ass time slathering on suntan oil, arranging his towel, stretching. the gaggle are gaggling, oblivous to him. he shakes out more oil, slathers it on. two of the gaggle break away and jump into the pool, careful not to muss their hair or wet their sunglasses. a third hems and haws about getting in the water, but eventually acquieces to sit on the side of the pool. as she strumps along, old dude totally eye-molests her. so obvious. so, so sad. the gaggle, it's clear, are grossed out.

3. divorcees.
as a former lifeguard and swimmer, frankly, i'm comfortable in a bikini, even if, say, i no longer look all kate moss-ish. and i've spent enough time on the costa blanca and costa del sol to have witnessed plenty of folk who shouldn't be on the beach naked, so if you are unsightly and want to wear a teeny suit, who am i to complain? okay, well i am a snarky girl, and sure, i'll make fun, but still. go ahead.

but if you do, please, please, please don't show up at the pool with your make up caked on, your hair coiffed perfectly, and your suit a wee bit too tight to show off your ample boobs. and don't talk loudly, laugh garishly, and discuss men in categories of 'single and available?' or 'married, but to that shrew.' it's unattractive, really. no one wants to hear it. your kids would be embarrassed.

hit the pool with dirty hair, sans make up. wear a suit that fits. maybe - here's an idea - swim. everyone will be much happier. and the gaggle of girlies will get the looks they justly deserve. and you'll avoid the ridicule of people like me.