“Lives Of Noisy And Ostentatious Desperation”

Robert Samuelson on the explosion of what he terms the ExhibitioNet. The internet as exhibitionist heaven. Blogs, Myspace, Facebook and YouTube. All ways for people to flaunt themselves and whatever they want to reveal about themselves (and more) to the world.

Call it the ExhibitioNet. It turns out that the Internet has unleashed the greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history. Everyone may not be entitled, as Andy Warhol once suggested, to 15 minutes of fame. But everyone is entitled to strive for 15 minutes — or 30, 90 or much more. We have blogs, "social networking" sites (MySpace.com, Facebook), YouTube and all their rivals. Everything about these sites is a scream for attention. Look at me. Listen to me. Laugh with me — or at me.

This is no longer fringe behavior. MySpace has 56 million American "members." Facebook — which started as a site for college students and has expanded to high school students and others — has 9 million members. (For the unsavvy: MySpace and Facebook allow members to post personal pages with pictures and text.) About 12 million American adults (8 percent of Internet users) blog, estimates the Pew Internet & American Life Project. YouTube — a site where anyone can post home videos — says 100 million videos are watched daily.

Exhibitionism is now a big business. In 2005 Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought MySpace for a reported $580 million. All these sites aim to make money, mainly through ads and fees. What's interesting culturally and politically is that their popularity contradicts the belief that people fear the Internet will violate their right to privacy. In reality, millions of Americans are gleefully discarding — or at least cheerfully compromising — their right to privacy. They're posting personal and intimate stuff in places where thousands or millions can see it.

The entire world as "content" for advertising. I guess I came late to the blogosphere. I missed the boat. Dang. Read the whole thing, it is actually a very interesting article. Exhibitionistly speaking.

Does this blog make me look fat?

This Is Amusing

I was thinking a bit about some developments today, like the jump in Bush's poll numbers (which I don't really think are all that important, as I explained earlier). But that brought to mind some earlier posts I had made about a whiff of nervousness I was beginning to detect. Then I looked at this post. That led me here, which in turn led me over here. (Confused yet? Welcome to my world.)

So, when I read Daniel DiRito's words in that last linked post, I noticed he hit exactly the point I have had in my mind for a while now. The netroots are causing some serious damage to the Democrats.

Thought Theater has long argued that the singular strategy of opposing the war in Iraq may well be insufficient to carry the Democrats to victory in November. Although the Democrats have positions on other issues that voters are concerned about, the recent attention given to the Connecticut Senate race, where anti-war Democrats sought and succeeded in unseating Joe Lieberman, may have given voters the impression that the Democrats are myopic in their anger with the war in Iraq…a position voters may well see as weak on terror given the President's success in connecting Iraq to the war on terror.

The very first - and to date ONLY - scalp the netroots have earned was from a sitting Democratic Senator who was reliably Democrat on almost every issue of real importance to the party except Iraq. But the sideshow they have created may damn well cost the Democrats the election. It is not just me that is seeing it. I have no clue what DiRito's politics are overall, but he sees much the same trap.

If Lamont wins but the Democrats do not take either house, the netroots will have succeeded in marginalizing themselves. If Lamont loses, the netroots have shot themselves in the head. Not the foot. The head. They better hope the Dems can pull out at least one house, or they will have effectively eliminated themselves from politics.

A Defense And A Warning

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey of Clifton, has come out with a speech strongly supporting Pope Benedict XVI over the ruckus that remarks the Pope made in a speech in Germany. There is also a bizarre warning in the article, the first mention of this I have heard.

THE former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey of Clifton has issued his own challenge to “violent” Islam in a lecture in which he defends the Pope’s “extraordinarily effective and lucid” speech.

Lord Carey said that Muslims must address “with great urgency” their religion’s association with violence. He made it clear that he believed the “clash of civilisations” endangering the world was not between Islamist extremists and the West, but with Islam as a whole.

“We are living in dangerous and potentially cataclysmic times,” he said. “There will be no significant material and economic progress [in Muslim communities] until the Muslim mind is allowed to challenge the status quo of Muslim conventions and even their most cherished shibboleths.”

Lord Carey’s address came as the man who shot and wounded the last Pope wrote to Pope Benedict XVI to warn him that he was in danger. Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who tried to murder John Paul II in 1981 and is now in prison in Turkey, urged the Pope not to visit the country in November.

“I write as one who knows about these matters very well,” Agca said. “Your life is in danger. Don’t come to Turkey — absolutely not!”

Frankly, I think the Pope should not go to Turkey, but I rather fear he will anyway. It really bothers me that the press continues to pimp this ruckus, even the Times of London which is usually at least less like a tabloid than other media these days. The quoted text of the Pope's speech keeps getting shortened. It is down to:

Since the Pope quoted a Byzantine emperor as saying that the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad were “evil and inhuman”, a nun has been shot dead, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda has vowed to kill the Pope, churches in Palestinian areas have been attacked and security at churches and mosques in London and elsewhere has been stepped up.

Pope Benedict, of course, said a great deal more than those three quoted words, and the thrust of what he said was not in those words at all.

Ahmadinejad Lies Like A (Persian) Rug To UN

Iranian president and whack-job-in-chief Stood up in front of the entire UN today and flat out lied his butt off to the assembly. Even the UN cannot possibly be this freaking stupid. The IAEA has reported that Iran is most definitely not cooperating with inspections.

Iran's nuclear activities are "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eye" of United Nations inspectors, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

Taking the world stage at the U.N. General Assembly hours after President Bush, he also some permanent members of the Security Council _ an apparent reference to the United States _ of using the powerful body as a tool of "threat and coercion."

He reiterated his nation's commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as it faces accusations that it is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

His speech was sharply critical of the United States and Britain, and focused in large part on what he said was their abuse of the Security Council, on which they are both permanent members with veto power.

"The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom, who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the U.N. organs can take them into account," he said.

"If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council and as claimants, arrogate to themselves simultaneously the roes of prosecutor, judge and executioner," he added said. "Is this a just order?"

This is such a bald-faced lie, it's stunning. He is literally urinating on the UN in their own hall and daring them to do anything about it.

Just A Better Class Of Criminal

Wow, who knew the the state of New Hampshire has such high-class criminals? I mean in most places, when some robber knocks over a store, they're a fairly scruffy lot. Not in Brentwood, New Hampshire, though. Nope. Up there the robbers wear tuxedos. With purple shirts.

Police in Brentwood said a gunman in a purple shirt and a tuxedo robbed a store in their town around 9 a.m., then jumped into a Cadillac and led police on a 100-mph chase. Police said the robber, still armed, ran into the woods after crashing his car in Kingston shortly before 10 a.m.

Schools were locked down as police with dogs and a helicopter searched the woods off Route 125 and the area of the Kingston Fairgrounds.

Police said they captured Eugene Fitzgerald, 36, Monday afternoon.

Officers said they found Fitzgerald, an unemployed welder, strolling through the intersection of Mill and Coach roads at 1:45 p.m.

"The guy was wearing shorts, walking down the street, drinking an iced tea," Rockingham County Sheriff Dan Linehan said.

Oh well, of course they had to catch him after that faux pas of his. One should only wear the green shirt with the tuxedo when knocking over a store. The purple one is for banks.

A Report From Thailand

I have heard from my blog buddy Agam in Thailand; he is safe. There has been no violence at all so far.He has just posted about the events over there.

t may be too early to know whether tonight's coup d'etat has been successful, but it's looking that way. No violence has been reported so far, and BBC reports of an impending clash between factions seems to have been premature. That was my main worry after the announcement of the new regime last night at about 10:30. What we don't need is fighting in the streets tonight, and it seems that Taksin doesn't have the necessary support for that to happen.

So the city is calm (the heavy rain over the last few hours probably helped), and not "in chaos" as CNN put it with their website headline. All national networks have been running the same tv-pool feed — music and pictures relating to His Majesty the King, with occasional brief announcements from the "Council for Administrative Reform." The broadcasts of CNN and BBC were yanked off the cable provider around midnight. But not before BBC ran a screen flash that "President of Thailand declares emergency" (!), and the reporter on the phone with CNN was just making up things on the fly. Not impressed with that at all.

Go read the whole thing. It looks like it is a bloodless coup. This situation has been building up for a while.

UPDATE: Enormous roundup of news at Pajamas Media.

We Continue Lending A Hand

We have been bringing you incredibly detailed information on things you really, really need to know about ever since we opened the Crabitat. And we do try hard to keep everyone updated on developments. So it is that we return to the heartwarming story of Freddy, the severed hand.

Faithful readers may recall (even if they don't really actually want to) that Freddy was kept in a jar of formaldehyde on a dresser in the bedroom of one Linda Kay. Ms. Kay, an exotic dancer, also had a collection of human skulls kicking about the old homestead. Police were not particularly amused and arrested Ms. Kay. The story she told was that the hand (Freddy) was a gift from an admirer at the club she worked at. Said admirer was said to be a medical student.

Well, it seems they managed to get their hands on the guy with the hand.

Ahmed Rashed, a 2005 graduate of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, was charged Monday after voluntarily returning from Los Angeles, where he is in a residency program, said his lawyer, Hassen Abdellah.

Rashed, 26, is free on $1,000 bail.

The dancer, Linda Kay, kept the hand in a jar of formaldehyde in her bedroom. Friends have said she called the hand "Freddy."

Police discovered the hand, along with six human skulls, at Kay's home in July, after being called there on a report that a roommate was suicidal. The roommate was not home, but Kay was.

Kay, 31, has pleaded not guilty to unlawful disposal of human remains. Her mother has said she believed the skulls were bought from a mail order catalog.

The left hand was taken in May or June 2002, according to an investigation by the school and South Plainfield police, said Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Judson Hamlin.

Dr. Rashed faces ten years in prison if he is convicted. Doesn't this heartwarming tale play on your heartstrings. Or it might be nausea.

Coyotes Get Fast Food

Or rather, not fast enough food. A woman walking across a parking lot toward a McDonald's restaurant at a rest stop on I-95 was bitten by a coyote. The animal sneaked up behind her and bit her on the back of the knee. When fire department personnel responded, the coyote started advancing on them.

The bite victim, Maria Gicana, a nurse from Queens, said she was driving home from Cape Cod with her boyfriend Sunday night when they stopped at the rest area. She was walking toward the restaurant when the animal attacked her from behind, biting her on the back of her knee.

"I looked around. I thought it was my boyfriend playing tricks on me," she told the New Haven Register. "So I turned around and saw this coyote. Actually, I thought it was a dog."

Fire Department Deputy Chief Mike Klarman said the animal also advanced on him after he responded to the incident Sunday night.

"The coyote got down into what I'd say was a stalking position," he said. "As I began to retreat, it actually stood up and began to walk toward me, and I began to run back to my car."

A state trooper drove her cruiser between Klarman and the animal and it ran into the woods, he said.

Paul Rego, a wildlife biologist at the state Department of Environmental Protection, said coyotes have been known to attack dogs and cats, but attacks on humans are rare.

The woman is receiving rabies shots. Connecticut is getting to be a dangerous place these days. Now, how are you going to keep the critters away now that they've tried fast food? Or slow food, as the case may be.

Shuttle Landing Postponed

After some sort of unidentified object was seen floating away from the shuttle. NASA engineers are not sure what the object was, or even how big it was.

Space agency officials wanted extra time to establish whether the object was a vital piece of the shuttle — such as the tiles that protect it from the blowtorch heat of re-entry — and whether it damaged the spacecraft when it fell away.

"The question is: What is it? Is it something benign? … Or is it something more critical we should pay attention to?" said Wayne Hale, space shuttle program manager. "We want to make sure we're safe to land before we commit to that rather incredible journey through the Earth's atmosphere."

The shuttle has enough supplies to stay in space until Saturday while engineers on the ground figure out whether the shuttle can safely make the journey home.

Before the postponement, Atlantis had been scheduled to touch down just before daybreak Wednesday, when the weather forecast wasn't favorable for landing for anyway.

The incident came near the end of what had been a nearly flawless mission devoted to restarting construction of the international space station for the first time since the Columbia tragedy 3 1/2 years ago.

Mission Control spotted the baffling object — the size of which was not immediately determined — with a video camera in the shuttle's cargo bay. The object probably came out of the cargo bay early Tuesday, officials said.

The object floated near the shuttle in the same orbit for a while, slipping farther and farther away until it was just a dark speck in NASA video beamed down to Earth.

The object has not been located with radar, either. The NASA Shuttle Mission page is here. You can see the video of the press conference.

Bush Addresses The UN

President Bush spoke to the UN today. The Washington Post has a transcript of the full address. It is frankly very well done. I'd recommend reading the whole thing. A couple of things that stood out for me:

Some have argued that the democratic changes we're seeing in the Middle East are destabilizing the region.

BUSH: This argument rests on a false assumption: that the Middle East was stable to begin with.

The reality is that the stability we thought we saw in the Middle East was a mirage.

For decades, millions of men and women in the region had been trapped in oppression and hopelessness. And these conditions left a generation disillusioned and made this region a breeding ground for extremism.

Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government.

While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings.

BUSH: And everywhere you turn, you hear extremists who tell you that you can escape your misery and regain your dignity through violence and terror and martyrdom.

For many across the broader Middle East this is the dismal choice presented every day.

Every civilized nation, including those in the Muslim world, must support those in the region who are offering a more hopeful alternative.

That's a pretty good assessment, I think. The "stability" of the Middle East had more to do with Cold War Realpolitik than with reality. The other thing was a flat call for the UN to do something about Sudan and Darfur:

To the people of Darfur, you have suffered unspeakable violence. And my nation has called these atrocities what they are: genocide.

For the last two years, America joined with the international community to provide emergency food aid and support for an African Union peacekeeping force. Yet your suffering continues.

The world must step forward to provide additional humanitarian aid. And we must strengthen the African Union force that has done good work, but is not strong enough to protect you.

BUSH: The Security Council has approved a resolution that would transform the African Union force into a blue-helmeted force that is larger and more robust. To increase its strength and effectiveness, NATO nations should provide logistics and other support.

The regime in Khartoum is stopping the deployment of this force. If the Sudanese government does not approve this peacekeeping force quickly, the United Nations must act. Your lives and the credibility of the United Nations is at stake.

So today I'm announcing that I'm naming a presidential special envoy, former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, to lead America's efforts to resolve the outstanding disputes and help bring peace to your land.

There is quite a lot more. It boils down to a single fact: It is time to choose democracy and moderation or extremism. Bush made it quite clear which side the US is on.

UPDATE: Curt at Flopping Aces loved the speech. Mario Loyola at The Corner notes it was public diplomacy, not a policy speech. Greg Tinti, The Political Pit Bull, liked it as well. A Blog For All was also impressed with the flat out word Bush used about Darfur: genocide. Gateway Pundit was impressed with the point by point addressing of Middle Eastern countries.

South Africa Tries Appeasement

In an effort to appease the master plotters of the animal uprising, the penguins, South Africa is trying to bribe them by building the world's first penguin condo development. What's next? A mall?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African officials have built a housing development of fibreglass igloos for a colony of endangered penguins, hoping to replicate natural nesting grounds damaged by environmental degradation.

The penguin housing colony on Dyer Island near Cape Town is seen as last ditch effort to save the colony, which has dwindled to just 5,000 animals from 25,000 in the 1970s, officials said on Tuesday.

"We're trying to copy the natural system. Academics and scientists have given us input and we're monitoring success on an ongoing basis," said Lauren Waller, nature conservator for CapeNature, the provincial environmental preservation body.

Dyer Island, a bleak islet popular with shark spotting tours, was once rich in nutrient-rich guano — bird faeces — but has seen the resource stripped by commercial enterprises who sell it as fertiliser.

That proved bad news for the African penguins — formerly known as Jackass penguins — which rely on guano to nest their eggs, hide from predators and provide a rare spot of shade on an island almost devoid of trees and bushes.

Conservationists now plan to construct up to 2,000 artificial burrows on the island, hoping the fibreglass igloos will persuade more penguins to procreate.

The fools. Don't they realize that the evil flightless waterfowl are not dwindling in numbers? They are just invading other places. Like Britain. Or Rio de Janeiro. Or even Texas.

(More on the Artists Formerly Known as Jackass Penguins here.)

Well, Thanks For Proving The Point

The eldest son of Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi has called on the Pope to convert to Islam.

Uh, sure.

Tripoli - The elder son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called on Pope Benedict XVI to convert to Islam immediately, dismissing last week's apology from the pontiff for offending Muslims.

"If this person were really someone reasonable, he would not agree to remain at his post one minute, but would convert to Islam immediately," Mohammed Gaddafi told an awards ceremony on Monday evening for an international competition to memorise the Qur'an.

"We say to the pope - whether you apologise or not is irrelevant, as apologies make no difference to us."

Gaddafi junior also hit out at "those Muslims who look for comfort in the words of a non-Muslim".

He said Muslims "should not look for charity from the infidel… but should fight Islam's enemies who attack the faith and the Prophet Muhammad".

The line about apologies making no difference is the absolute truth. It does not matter what the Pope says, everything is an excuse to work up into a foaming rage and no apologies will defuse the situation.

Military Coup In Thailand

Breaking. There appears to be a military coup underway in Thailand.

BANGKOK, Thailand - The Thai military launched a coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Tuesday, circling his offices with tanks, seizing control of television stations and declaring a provisional authority pledging loyalty to the king.

An announcement on Thai television declared that a "Council of Administrative Reform" with King Bhumibol Adulyadej as head of state had seized power in Bangkok and nearby provinces without any resistance.

At least 14 tanks surrounded Government House, Thaksin's office. Thaksin was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly and declared a state of emergency.

I'm off to email Agam.

UPDATE: More from 2Bangkok. Still no reply email from Agam in Thailand.

Reliably Wrong

One thing you can absolutely depend on in this world is that Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson will get it exactly wrong whenever he writes one of his screeds about the Bush administration. His obvious personal contempt drips out of every syllable and, quite obviously, spurs him to ever greater hyperbolic vitriol. But at least he's reliable, right? Today he pronounces judgment on the procedures that the president wants Congress to authorize for interrogation of terror suspects.

I wish I could turn to cheerier matters, but I just can't get past this torture issue — the fact that George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America, persists in demanding that Congress give him the right to torture anyone he considers a "high-value" terrorist suspect. The president of the United States. Interrogation by torture. This just can't be happening.

It's past time to stop mincing words. The Decider, or maybe we should now call him the Inquisitor, sticks to anodyne euphemisms. He speaks of "alternative" questioning techniques, and his umbrella term for the whole shop of horrors is "the program." Of course, he won't fully detail the methods that were used in the secret CIA prisons — and who knows where else? — but various sources have said they have included not just the infamous "waterboarding," which the administration apparently will reluctantly forswear, but also sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, bombardment with ear-splitting noise and other assaults that cause not just mental duress but physical agony. That is torture, and to call it anything else is a lie.

Given that the Guardian leaked the proposed procedures, which Robinson must know judging by the rest of his column, it is ridiculous the sheer number of times Robinson repeats the word "torture" in his tortured piece (I count 17). He must be a firm believer in the old propaganda technique of repeating the big lie over and over until it becomes accepted as fact. One doesn't often see someone trying to apply it all at once, however.

No, Mr. Robinson. If the list of procedures the Guardian released with it's breathless article from yesterday is correct, calling the procedures "torture" is a twisted bit of tortured reasoning. That would be the lie here.

Polls Again

I've been on the record for quite some time as not being a big fan of polls in general. Mostly, they are interesting only in the aggregate to track changes over a period of time. So I don't much care about the new Gallup poll that shows Bush's approval rating jumping except in one respect. It will be amusing to watch those who swear by poll results on the left trying to spin this one.

Bush's approval rating edged up largely on the strength of Republicans coming back to the fold with 86 percent saying they support him now, compared to 70 percent in May, USA Today said.

For the first time since December 2005, a majority of people polled did not say the war in Iraq was a mistake. The respondents were evenly split at 49 percent to 49 percent, the report said.

However, the poll finds that the Iraq war continues to be a problem for Bush. Sixty percent said he does not have a clear plan for handling Iraq and 75 percent said Iraq is in a civil war, USA Today said.

Rasmussen shows a drop, incidentally.