Where's Rumsfeld?

Washington Times
January 25, 2007

Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has left the Pentagon, but not the Defense Department.

On Jan. 4, Mr. Rumsfeld opened a government-provided transition office in Arlington and has seven Pentagon-paid staffers working for him, a Pentagon official said. The Pentagon lists Mr. Rumsfeld as a "nonpaid consultant," a status he needs in order to review secret and top-secret documents, the official said.

The Pentagon official said former secretaries are entitled to a transition office to sort papers, some of which can be taken with them for a library, for archives or to write a book.

The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Some question the size of the staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men. They also ask why the sorting could not have been done from the time Mr. Rumsfeld resigned Nov. 8 to when he left the building Dec. 18.

Sexy ... But Not Kosher

The producer of an all-Israeli porn flick is under attack from rabbis who say his use of a food-certification symbol ain't kosher.

Yesterday, Tight Fit Productions of Van Nuys, California, the purveyors of "Assraelis," which was shot entirely in Israel with all-local talent, received a cease-and-desist order letter from a lawyer representing Rabbi Yehuda Rosenbaum of KOF-K Kosher Certification, a New Jersey company that puts its stamp of approval on Kosher goods. Tight Fit's DVD cover (see above) claim of Israeli authenticity is accompanied by a Hebrew letter normally reserved for rabbi-ordained meats, grains, and other foodstuffs.

KOF-K's lawyer says that Tight Fit is using the symbol "illegally" in violation of State and Federal Law, and plans to sue "if the situation is not rectified as quickly as possible." Oren Cohen, the owner of Tight Fit, finds the action "funny," but will modify the cover art before the film's release next week -- to satisfy what he calls the "very nice" rabbis.

50 Most Loathsome People in America of 2006

Our friends at the Buffafo Beast have published their list of the fifty most loathsome people in America. Each entry is described, supported by (at least) one reason for being put on the list and a recommended punishment is given. Lots of great caricatures too! Fun stuff!

FedEx Flips Out

This late breaking news just in from our friends at putative.typepad.com...

This, I think, is rich: I just got back from the FedEx on Queen Anne, where I had been trying to ship a box of products from Greenwood Space Travel Supply to a potential client, just as samples of my packaging work.

I had them in a paper bag, mostly a collection of metal pint cans and a couple of brown apothecary jars. I was worried about how to pack them so they wouldn't break, so I went up to the FedEx guy with the bag and asked him what kind of box I should use. He immediately pulled out—I think just by chance—the bottle of "Rocket Fuel," which has a label that looks like this:



FedEx guy: Is this really what this is? Rocket fuel?

Me [laughing, used to this reaction from being at the space-travel supply store]: Oh, no, no, no. Of course not. It's... made-up. Kind of a joke. It's actually full of sugar, which I just put in to give it some weight, but that's all it is.

FedEx guy: You can't ship this.

Me: But... it's just sugar! What, uh, what if I empty it out? It doesn't really need to have sugar in it.

FedEx guy: No. They would still x-ray it, and then you'd get a call when it was en route. I don't think it would make it.

Me: Hmmm. I really need to get this out... but I guess I don't have to ship the "Rocket Fuel" can. What about the rest?

The FedEx guy then grabs cans of nitrogen (N2) and neon (Ne), with their store-advertised "purity" of 78.084% and 0.0018% respectively (which was our way of being clever about selling cans of normal air, since that's their percentage in the atmosphere—which, of course, was our way of making more money for 826 Seattle by selling products that cost almost nothing to produce). Here's what the atmospheric gas cans look like on the shelf:



FedEx guy: Nope. You can't ship these either.

Me: But... they're empty! It's just air. And... nitrogen? It's, like, almost 80% of the atmosphere. There's nothing dangerous about nitrogen, even if it were pure.

FedEx guy: They look too much like bomb-making materials.

Me [going into dumbfounded mode]: Bomb... Neon? What? Is there anything here I can legally ship? How about this bottle of tap water?

I hand him a bottle of Certainty (tagline, "For when it's preferable to think you know more"), which looks like this:



FedEx guy: Nope. It still looks too suspicious, too much like bomb-making materials.

Me: But it's "Certainty." That's not even a thing. I just made that up. [That's not strictly true. It's a scientific term/idea, and we sell it alongside bottles of "Uncertainty." But it's like having a bottle labeled "Friendship."]

FedEx guy: It's just too suspicious.

[long pause]

Me [going into post-9/11, TSA-style super-dumbfounded mode]: So what you're saying is you can't ship any sort of containers, even if they're empty? You know that we originally ordered these empty cans and jars from a company, and *they* shipped them to *us*.

FedEx guy: They must have used a different vendor ["vendor"? I can't remember, some word like that, like a "service"].

Which I imagine he said because he couldn't bring himself to say, "It's the *words* that are *on* the containers that are dangerous"—even after I had opened them all and demonstrated the utter harmlessness/emptiness of the containers themselves.

I sympathize with people who aren't making very much and are probably forced to comply with arcane corporate rules and who have to deal with weirdoes coming in with cans labeled "Rocket Fuel." I really do. But... c'mon. How much effort is involved in *not* being part of the common-sense-negating, spirit-crushing, Bush-era fear-slash-stupidity machine? The terrorists win again.

Hopefully, actual terrorists won't learn to wrap their packages at home first. Long story short, I packed them up there at the FedEx counter, with their scissors and tape and some extra bubble wrap I bought, and then I walked down the street to the U.S. Post Office and mailed them from there, all sealed up. We'll see how they fare. I hope they don't have snark-sniffing dogs.

God Told Me To Do It

A San Mateo woman is getting messages from God and painting them in five-foot-tall letters on the roof of her house.The city wants her to stop doing it. Her neighbors want her to stop doing it. But Estrella Benavides says she can't do that."If the city wants to put me in jail, what can I do?" she said. "I am God's servant." "I am going to keep going, because it is all I can do," she said. "God chose me to be His servant. There is such a thing as freedom of speech.'' Anyway, she said, the size of the roof letters are not particularly large. "The signs at Costco are a lot bigger than the ones on my roof," she said.


Ms. Benavides said she first began receiving messages from God through a statue at her church. Now, she said, she gets the special messages when she reads the Bible. Sometimes she broadcasts the messages from a loudspeaker mounted on the roof of her car.

The messages are a barely intelligible garble involving cloning, abuse, rape, the Mafia, Castro, Hitler, the Constitution, hurricane Katrina, Watergate and President Bush. Ms. Benavides, a 48-year-old woman who lives alone in her yellow house on Cottage Grove Avenue, began painting the giant messages about a year ago, about the time her husband moved out and she lost custody of her son. Last month, she had two large pins inserted through her lips, to keep her from eating as part of a religious fast. God told her to do that, too.

Not long ago, the city of San Mateo posted a sign of its own on Benavides' front door, informing her that her signs violated city rules. The city said her signs are too big, too numerous and cannot be on the roof. It scheduled a hearing before the Community Improvement Commission for January 17. If Benavides loses, she could be fined up to $10,000 a day and lose her home.

Jef Jaisun

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours with the icon/oclast Jef Jaisun this afternoon at Seattle's legendary Blue Moon. I'd been a huge fan of Jef's since 1973 or so when I first heard his Friendly Neighborhood Narco Agent. It was a whole lot of fun to hear what Jef's been up to, especially his adventures as a photographer over the past 40 years or so.

An interesting account about Jef's recording career is chronicled by Corry Arnold, an historian of the Jabberwock on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley: "At 1:45 am on June 4, 1966, twenty year old aspiring musician and photographer Jef Jaisun walked in to The Jabberwock for the first time, Perry Lederman was playing. Jaisun would go on to work for Max Scheer's Berkeley Barb and later become immortal in the Bay Area for producing the much-played and fondly remembered record Friendly Neighborhood Narco Agent. This record, independently released as an EP by Jaisun in 1969, was later picked up Dr. Demento, and the song reached an audience outside the Bay Area. Jef recalls "The entire package was patterned after Country Joe's Rag Baby EPs, right down to using Sierra Sound as the recording studio. I figured if it worked for him, well ... not to mention that people in the Bay Area, and Berkeley in particular, had become accustomed to that type of EP packaging, thanks mostly to Joe. Several other folkies released similar EPs about the same time."

Another organisation of note, The Blues Foundation, gives considerable detail in recounting Jef's accomplishments as a Blues Photographer and also his humanitarian work: "Jef Jaisun has been actively photographing the Blues for over 30 years. Whether he’s working the Jazz Fest main stage or hanging out at the Back Porch in Chicago, or sitting in your favorite Blues joint, Jef can always be found where the music is. He is staff photographer for Blue Suede News and Blues ToDo Monthly, two long time Northwest music publications. Since 1980, his work has been featured in every major American Blues magazine and on the covers of numerous CDs. In 2004, he donated more than 250 photos to the Blues Music Archives at the Chicago Public Library. His rare 1985 photo of B.B. King embracing Luther Allison at Switzerland’s Nyon Festival was a highlight of 2006’s KBA-winning book, The B.B. King Treasures. Since Hurricane Katrina, Jaisun has worked closely with the New Orleans Musicians Clinic and other organizations, both as photographer and fund-raiser."

It was an honor to actually sit down and spend some time with Jef. He's a great guy and I admire his vision in photographing blues and rock & roll artists. I hope the readers of this will encourage him to publish a photo book some day soon. The world would be enriched by such a project.

Why Mommy Is A Democrat

I ran across this kid's book while surfing the web and thought it was really funny. It has inestimable kitsch value and the price is only $10. You can even use PayPal to buy it. Here follows the publisher's description of the book:

Why Mommy Is A Democrat brings to life the core values of the Democratic party in ways that young children will easily understand and thoroughly enjoy. Using plain and non-judgmental language, along with warm and whimsical illustrations, this colorful 28-page paperback depicts the Democratic principles of fairness, tolerance, peace, and concern for the well-being of others. It's a great way for parents to gently communicate their commitment to these principles and explain their support for the party.

Why Mommy Is A Democrat may look like a traditional children's book, but it isn't just for children. With numerous subtle (and not-so-subtle) satirical swipes at the Bush administration and the Republican party, Why Mommy Is A Democrat will appeal to Democrats of all ages! Finally, a portion of the profits will be donated to Democratic candidates and party organizations, so your purchase will help make an immediate difference!

Israel Plans Nuclear War on Iran

Times Online
January 7, 2007

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear "bunker-busters", according to several Israeli military sources.

The attack would be the first with nuclear weapons since 1945, when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open "tunnels" into the targets. "Mini-nukes" would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

"As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished," said one of the sources.

The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.

Israeli and American officials have met several times to consider military action. Military analysts said the disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on Tehran to halt enrichment, cajole America into action or soften up world opinion in advance of an Israeli attack.

Some analysts warned that Iranian retaliation for such a strike could range from disruption of oil supplies to the West to terrorist attacks against Jewish targets around the world.

Israel has identified three prime targets south of Tehran which are believed to be involved in Iran's nuclear programme:

Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges are being installed for uranium enrichment

A uranium conversion facility near Isfahan where, according to a statement by an Iranian vice-president last week, 250 tons of gas for the enrichment process have been stored in tunnels

A heavy water reactor at Arak, which may in future produce enough plutonium for a bomb

Israeli officials believe that destroying all three sites would delay Iran's nuclear programme indefinitely and prevent them from having to live in fear of a "Second Holocaust".

Suicide Cult Waiting to Happen

Washington Post
January 4, 2007

Parishioners of the The Falls Church and neighboring Truro Church -- which in Colonial times belonged to a single parish -- say it happens quietly, unobtrusively: As the sick make their way to the altar, some worshipers begin speaking in tongues. Occasionally, one is "arrested in the spirit," falling unconscious into the arms of a fellow congregant.

Dean Miller, pastor of the young adult ministry at The Falls Church, said some members also have "visions of the Lord" during healing services. "I don't. I'm not gifted that way. But there are people in the community who do," he said.

For more than 30 years, Truro and The Falls Church have been part of a "charismatic revival" within mainline Protestantism, said the Rev. Robert W. Prichard, professor of Christianity in America at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

Charismatic, in this case, refers to an ecstatic style of worship that includes speaking in tongues, a stream of unintelligible syllables signifying that the Holy Spirit has entered the worshiper. It is a hallmark of the fast-growing Pentecostal movement but unusual for Episcopalians, who are so thoroughly associated with solemnity and tradition that they are sometimes referred to teasingly as "the frozen chosen."

The Falls Church are two of the Washington area's most wealthy, historic and prestigious congregations. Their pews are studded on Sunday mornings with such regulars as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and former CIA director Porter J. Goss.

Evangelist Predicts "Mass Killing"

New York Times
January 2, 2007

In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in "mass killing" late in 2007. "I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network. "The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that." Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

Robertson said God also told him that the U.S. only feigns friendship with Israel and that U.S. policies are pushing Israel toward "national suicide."

Robertson suggested in January 2006 that God punished then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians.

The broadcaster predicted in January 2004 that President Bush would easily win re-election. Bush won 51 percent of the vote that fall, beating Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006. Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

Constitutional Crisis!

John G. Roberts Jr. & President George W. Bush
New York Times
January 1, 2007

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. made judicial pay the sole topic of his second annual report, issued on Sunday, declaring that the failure by Congress to raise federal judges’ salaries in recent years has become a “constitutional crisis” that puts the future of the federal courts in jeopardy.

By statute, federal district judges receive the same salaries as members of Congress, now $165,200 a year. Judges on the federal appeals courts receive $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court, $203,000; and the chief justice $212,100. The linkage of district judges’ and Congressional salaries means that judges pay the price when members of Congress discern that it would be politically unpopular to raise their own pay.

My God! I don't know how they can afford to live on these wages! $165,000.00 a year works out to $82.60 an hour, assuming they work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. And $212,100 per annum works out to $106.05 per hour. No wonder the food banks are constantly having shortages.

UFO Sighting at O'Hare Airport

Chicago Tribune
January 1, 2007

A flying saucer-like object hovered low over O'Hare International Airport for several minutes before bolting through thick clouds with such intense energy that it left an eerie hole in overcast skies, said some United Airlines employees who observed the phenomenon. Was it an alien spaceship? A weather balloon lost in the airspace over the world's second-busiest airport? A top-secret military craft? Or simply a reflection from lights that played a trick on the eyes?

Officials at United professed no knowledge of the Nov. 7 event--which was reported to the airline by as many as a dozen of its own workers--when the Tribune started asking questions recently. But the Federal Aviation Administration said its air traffic control tower at O'Hare did receive a call from a United supervisor asking if controllers had spotted a mysterious elliptical-shaped craft sitting motionless over Concourse C of the United terminal.

Some of the witnesses, interviewed by the Tribune, said they are upset that neither the government nor the airline is probing the incident. Whatever the object was, it could have interfered with O'Hare's radar and other equipment, and even created a collision risk, they said.

The Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (the term that extraterrestrial-watchers nowadays prefer over Unidentified Flying Object) was first seen by a United ramp worker who was directing back a United plane at Gate C17, according to an account the worker provided to the National UFO Reporting Center.

The sighting occurred during daylight, about 4:30 p.m., just before sunset.

All the witnesses said the object was dark gray and well defined in the overcast skies. They said the craft, estimated by different accounts to be 6 feet to 24 feet in diameter, did not display any lights. Some said it looked like a rotating Frisbee, while others said it did not appear to be spinning. All agreed the object made no noise and it was at a fixed position in the sky, just below the 1,900-foot cloud deck, until shooting off into the clouds.

"I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," said a United mechanic who was in the cockpit of a Boeing 777 that he was taxiing to a maintenance hangar when he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17. "But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft," the mechanic said.

One United employee appeared emotionally shaken by the sighting and "experienced some religious issues" over it, one co-worker said.