MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE THE PRESIDENT CAN'T PRONOUNCE "NUCLEAR"?: Proof that the term "constitutional option" is of very recent vintage. And that the term "nuclear option" enjoyed bipartisan support for quite a while. These stupid word games annoy me more than they probably should.

ONE MORE BATTLE IN THE EVOLUTION WARS: This here Panda's Thumb thread, wherein a bunch of PT regulars take on somebody who isn't defending intelligent design, just the consitutionality of teaching it as science in schools, is very much worth going through. I can't believe I read the whole thing (except for the parts I blooped over.)

GOT A PH.D. IN HATING DUKE: Certainly the longest anti-Duke screed ever. Via the Frog.

BOLTON STUFF: I love the Bolton situation--it's such great political theater, as epitomized by Sen. Voinovich's completely out-of-nowhere turn on Bolton. I also love this analysis of how Bolton and the social security and Delay debacles fit into what may be the final crash and burn of the White House:

A command-control system like the White House-led Republican congressional system can be absolutely formidable for a certain period of time. But when it breaks down, it breaks down completely. The collapse is sudden, and total. Signals get crossed, backs get stabbed, the suddenly leaderless pawns in the system start acting for themselves, with no system or structure to coordinate their individual impulses.

Is this happening? I don't know, but it's getting close. I thought I'd seen it before, but each time they've pulled it back together. This time, I think there's too much happening at once.

The irony of all this for conservatives is that if they actually read Hayek and got anything out of it other than "government sucks," they would know this. Hayek's libertarianism was very pragmatic. Centrally controlled systems are flawed above all because they have no mechanism to correct their own errors, unlike distributed, self-organized systems. The Democrats in the Clinton years always operated in chaos, no one followed the party line, and there was a cost to that, but in the chaos and improvisation they found ways to get out of the holes that they had dug for themselves. The Rove/DeLay/Frist system doesn't have any means for correcting its mistakes -- look at the blank, lost looks on the faces of Senators Lugar and Chafee yesterday when they just had no idea what to do with a nomination that had fallen apart and couldn't fulfill their promises.

The Republicans accomplished unimaginable feats through the centralization of power. Three tax cuts, a prescription drug plan that will make Americans hate government, an insane war. But if the goal was long-term power, it is a strategy they will come to regret, if not today, someday.

Via Obsidian hilzoy.

PARITY LEAGUE > 72-WIN JORDAN LEAGUE: I could also have written this as "FULLY COMPETITIVE NBA > SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT NBA," but feared some would not understand my meaning.

Anyway--the current NBA just set the all-time attendance mark. I believe this has something to do with the fact is more wide-open than it has been in years, both in terms of who can win it all and in the style of the games (the new rules opening things up.) As a Jordan hater, I am glad the league is putting more butts in the seats right now (by putting out a better product) than they were when they were relying on an enormous marketing campaign built around a single player.

THANK YOU, CITY OF CAMDEN: For not taking the portable DVD player in the bag out of my car, when I had left the window open on this beautiful evening and parked one of your streets not located on school property (though very close.) Thank you for showing mercy.

24 TONIGHT: Remember in Warrior of The Lost World when at the very end Fred Williamson was revealed to have been in Donald Pleasence's pocket the whole time? And Crow T. Robot said, in his most sincere tone, "Boy, what a great plot twist"? His words echoed in my head when the lawyer from Not Amnesty International showed up, at 12:30 in the morning and twenty minutes after they captured their suspect, to tell them to stop holding him illegally. And only Jack could figure out that their suspect had no, in fact, called anybody on his way to CTU.

But--note that torture finally worked as Jack extracted the info from the terrorist-abettor via multiple finger fractures. This after he quit CTU because apparently its legal for a private citizen to torture somebody or somesuch. The lesson is torture only works when it is not administered by the United States government--which means extraordinary rendition works! Thank you, 24.

THE KENNEWICK CONTROVERSY: Just getting the word out. Strange group of people getting the word out too, actually, if you click on that link there. This is the thing that allows any human remains found by archeologists on Federal Land to be claimed by Native American tribes, even if the human remains belonged to people who got here before Native Americans. And since Native Americans tend to destroy their dead, this means the loss of irreplaceable representatives of early humankind.

It's not something a ton of people are going to get exorcised about, but it is a pretty blatant coopting of scientific research on strictly political grounds. And so I will get the word out.

I RESPECTFULLY DECLINE: To celebrate 50 years of McDonald's. Look--just because anti-globalization types have chosen McDonald's as their symbol of all that's unholy, it doesn't mean that we who are not anti-globalization types have to celebrate the walking bloated corpse of a company with awful food and milquetoastesque advertising. Hell--just cut them loose. Let them destroy each other. I'd rather see Taco Bells and Carl's Jr.'s opening up across the former Third World then the franchise producing America's shittiest fast food.

IF AN NBA FRANCHISE IMPLODES AND NO ONE HEARS IT--HAS IT MADE A SOUND?: When the Blazers were good you couldn't walk three steps without tripping over a "Rasheed Wallace--Threat or Menace?" bit of handwringing. Now that they stink, but are still sociopathic, nobody cares. Luckily the Sports Frog cares. Darius Miles left the court last night a couple times--once after they substituted Ha Seung Jin for him--and claimed afterward it was a bathroom break. I'm just amazed that Ha Seung Jin got into the game, putting up a Milicicesque 0 points in 4 minutes.

JOURNEY INTO LOATHESOMENESS ALMOST COMPLETE: President set to sign bankruptcy bill tomorrow. Look--if they were trying to make it harder for everybody to declare bankruptcy that would be one thing. But then you read things like this and yes it's a MoveOn.Org press release but still:

The legislation Congress will vote on is more than 500 pages long, all in highly technical language. But the Republican leadership and corporate lobbyists are in such a rush to push it through that the text is full of misspellings and repeated phrases. Representatives might not even be allowed to make amendments. But the overall thrust is pretty clear:

* Make families pay more to creditors, both in bankruptcy and after bankruptcy, so that instead of offering a clean start, a bankruptcy filing will leave families burdened by credit card debt, car loans, and continued payments to banks or to payday lenders.

* Make it more expensive to file for bankruptcy by driving up fees so that the people in the most trouble can't afford to file.

* Make it trickier to get through a bankruptcy so that more people will get pushed out of bankruptcy with no debt relief.

* Make it harder to repay debts by increasing the minimum payments in repayment plans.

* Preserve at all costs the millionaires' loopholes—special privileges that allow the super-rich to escape their debts by hiding their money in special exemptions and trusts.

--You realize it's all a big kick in your unwealthy pants. Even legendary Democratic Presidential ticket deadweight John Edwards is against it. And the President's going to sign it because he has no concept of anything outside his narrow interests. It's all depressing.

BACKED INTO A CORNER: If you wanted to beat up the GOP in terms of their own hypocrisy, this--from Jonathan Rauch--would be the article you'd have to worry about, and wonder, "Well--what can else can I say about this?" It is the summit of articles that attempt to trip Republicans with their own rhetoric.

FROM THE HALL OF UNEXPECTED OBITUARIES: Frum mourns Dworkin. Via alicublog via pandagon.

THE MYSTERIANS ON DVD: I've always been intrigued by The Mysterians, a film I've never seen but was spoken of fondly in an old DVD Savant review. Apparently it got released on DVD fairly recently and the reviews on Amazon have a similiar quality to the DVD Savant's: slightly apologetic but sincerely appreciative, acknowledging that yes, this probably is a flawed film, but it has something to it, and if you were there at the time you know what we're talking about. And I was not there at the time but the reviews lead me to believe that if I had been there I would have liked it too. It's like I'm intercepting somebody else's nostalgia, and maybe--when I do watch it--I'll get more out of it knowing a lot of people really do cherish it, despite its faults.

Anyway--The Mysterians. It's an old Toho release involving flying saucers. Media Blasters has given it the loving full treatment, with new dubs, the full uncut version, Japanese commentary with English subtitles, and separate soundtrack tracks--so says DVD Savant. His summary analysis is:

In 1959, Daily Variety called The Mysterians "a red-blooded phantasmagoria" and that assessment still holds true. It's one of the first movies Savant saw as a kid filmgoer choosing his own fare, and nostalgia is a big factor in overlooking the film's flaws ("What flaws?"). Spread out across a big monitor, it's still a big, fun action circus of spaceships, death rays, explosions and wholesale destruction.

And that's the story of how The Mysterians ended up atop my Netlfix queue.

IT'S FUNNY: Half the time Dr. Baltar is like Stewie in Family Guy: saying stuff and nobody taking him seriously. In Stewie's case it's because he's a baby; in Baltar's case it's because he's a supergenius and is probably expected to be a little weird. But Stewie really is full of loathing for his family, and Baltar really is conspiring with the enemy. The parallels.....are striking.

Yes, I pass the night away with Galactica episodes in the background. I expect another few weeks of this before I get tired of them.

I CANNOT BEAR TO LINK--YET I CANNOT TURN AWAY: Tax days with Morrie. As penance I will never like to another Mitch Albom-related anything again.

REQUIEM FOR A BUGMAN: You would read Josh Marshall for that.

REQUIEM FOR A HUMAN SCUM: You would read Steve Clemons for that.

There you go. I mean--I am not a completely reflexive Republican hater, but it's fun to root against them.

BLACK BOLT VS. WHITE NOISE: Neilalien linked to this New York Review of Books essay by John Leonard, on Jonathan Lethem. Leonard seems to like Lethem but wished he'd put down the genre stuff at some point and reference Don Delillo sometimes. Interesting discussion ensued. Which led me to the From My Living Room To Yours blog, (as well as Radiaton Vibe,) which led me to the blog of Phoenix Suns benchwarmer Paul Shirley, who is an actual good blogger. Read it. Long, descriptive paragraphs, written in a distinctive voice. No archives though; D. Stern probably eats them, and rips them from the Google aether when he can, lest they cause embarassment.

ON THE WHOLE I'D RATHER GET SICK IN.....FRANCE: Matt Welch on the superiority of the French health care system. The comments are fun too.

It's a twofer, by the way: he also explains why Mitch Albom is insufferable.

YEAH YEAH YEAH--BUT IT'S GEORGE KARL: Memphis Bengal on The Frog points out the feel-good story that is the 2004-2005 Denver Nuggets. I'd feel a little better about them if not for their head coach, the man who brought us as a nation inglorious defeat in Indianapolis back in 2002. It's hard to get that excited about them knowing they're going to self-destruct at some point.

Luckily there are other feel-good stories this year--not that they won't end up losing in the playoffs, but at least I'm not completely sure that they will. Like the Bulls, which Bengal also points to. I would say the Celtics are, as the gamble to bring back Antoine Walker to counter Webber's arrival in Philadelphia has worked out so much better than they could have hoped. The freakin' Pacers--making a playoff run after the Palace brawl, overcoming the Pistons' rather crude attempt to get them to self-destruct. The Suns are a feel-good story, or as much a feel-good story as the team with the best record in the league can be. Plus the Wizards and the Sonics, though both appear to be going into the crapper lately. Of course, the Lakers missing the playoffs and Kobe's screwing of the Clippers completely blowing up in his face is the ultimate feel-good story.

I have not watched much NBA this year, I should admit, and so can appreciate these storylines only second-hand for the most part--my school/work schedule occupied enough of my time that I didn't bother with the League Pass this year. But the playoffs are going to be interesting, both because of the storylines and because it all seems relatively wide-open this year. There's no irresistible Laker-like force to root against.