Memnison Journal

This is why politicization of the US Attorneys is bad.   Op-ed written by one of the fired US Attorneys.

The bigger picture on this is slowly coming out, and it’s not a pretty one.  It’s still unclear as to whether some of the US Attorneys were dumped for a specific desire to choke certain investigations against Republicans in office or their pals, what what is pretty clear at this point is that the whole thing was handled in an amazingly horrible manner by a bunch of amateurs, idiots and partisans.

I don’t know where to start on this for the amateurs and idiots part.  Gonzales is an empty suit, a creature who does the bidding of his masssters.  His staff was picked largely on the basis of partisanship and loyalty, and was tossing experienced pros off the jobs because - well, someone had the idea that so-and-so was Just Not Doing What We Wanted. No real support to any of the decisions aside of a idea someone had in their brain or a complaint from the political end of things that ‘we need someone more partisan in those places’, ostensibly so as to screw over the Other Side.  The guy who testified the other day admitted that nobody did any real research to back up any of the ‘firing offenses’ against them.  No letters out suggesting performance problems, but the guy testifying was clear that in his mind there wasn’t much difference between ‘poor performance’ and ‘not figuring out what the party line for the GOP was or needed and furthering that exclusive to anything else.’

Then you have Karl Rove hot to place his lead opposition research assistant in as the US Attorney for Arkansas, and - hey, isn’t that where Hillary Clinton has been from?  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could find something on her and go after her for it during the campaign?

Add in the FBI stuff, GSA stuff,  Walter Reed stuff, the FDA stuff, the Fish and Wildlife stuff, Katrina and everything else, and the picture becomes pretty clear.   These twits have been hiring ferocious dolts in who are nasty in-fighters and very partisan and loyal, and none of them have any idea as to how to actually run things.  But they sure know how to use the government as a club to obtain power, create situations to maintain it through trickery, and assume that the authoritarian powers that be in Bushco and their supporters are supposed to be the perpetual guys on top, and that anything to further that is Approved.  They’ll offer, when caught, to fix things and do things the right way, and have zero interest in actually doing so.  They’re not interested in running things, just controlling them.

If Gonzales goes, I can’t imagine who Bush could get past the Senate that he’d want in there.  And Rove will be the absolute last to go.

Susan passed over to me some stuff on CLL and autoimmune stuff that she’d ran into on a email list, and it seems to link up my energy problems, the demise of my thyroid and so on into a neat bow. Lovely. Wel, I was looking for answers, but I was hoping that they would be a whole lot less icky.

I’ve also had some severe testosterone problems in the same period of time, and the urologist is passing me on to a endocrinaologist to work up my pituitary. Great. What now, the damned disease is blowing out my endocrine system?

Mere was going on tonight about how she wants to buy her grandmother a rocker for Mere’s front porch in 20 years when she has her own house. What about me and mom? Oh, you’ll be living with me in the house, she replied. She assumes that Mom and Dad will be around in 20 years, which I very much doubt in Dad’s case.

Meredith also shut up her grandmother, who likes to sing all sorts of old songs, when she was doing one about Alabama, and I wondered why, so I started to sing Sweet Home Alabama, and was also told to shaddap. I asked her the obvious question - was it the material (reminding her of Sissy)? Yep.

This is really annoying, but…Susan and I are looking at the situation here, and it’s obvious that we’ll have to get a new computer in the near future.  Mere’s computer is just not cutting it, and we have two real options; have me clean off mine and give it to her and get me a new one, or get her the new one.

My problem is that the nomenclature on the newer models of PCs is really confusing, and I dig dual-core and quad-core, but the numerous models of these chip setups is boggling.  Not to mention the whole issue of which video card is what….

For her, we need something with guts enough to handle her games.  For me, I need something that will handle mild video editing, lots of graphics editing, and so on.  My system right now is probably adequate for her: P4, 2.4 Ghz, 1 gig of ram and a NVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra.

Suggestions welcome.

Especially for Gretchen Roper: PEEPS ON THE MARCH! Yes, it’s that time of year when sugar animal surrogates attempt to kill us all from our lust for marshmallow, sugar and red dye number #40.

This is for all those people who had their testosterone jumped up by watching the 300 Spartans movie.

The best review of the coming confrontation between Congress and the White House is at Firedoglake; I agree pretty much with what they have to say.  They have gotten by in the past with bluster and bluff, and a total toss of the dice over their manhood being challenged, not to mention the absolutist policy of presidential power.  So far, they make a bold statement, and people blow over.  Say it’s partisan, and the other side is put on the defensive.

If the Congress gives in on this one, Bush clears the tables.  If they force the issue, we have a situation where they are not going to give in, because to open up the gates is against their philosophy, and because of all those skeletons in the Bushco closet.

My guess is that you have to watch how quickly the Congress pushes this one, and how long Gonzales can hold out.  Bush has a dual problem with Gonzales; he likes a pliant creature doing his bidding at Justice, he likes Gonzales, and would have a hard time replacing him with someone as ‘effective’ for the Bushco Way.  If Gonzales goes, and someone truly willing to clean house gets in, he or she could turn the White House inside out with investigations.

If Congress pushes this to contempt of congress on figures from the White House, and tries to force the DC US Attorney to enforce it, will he?  And if they get that far, will the Supreme Court back up Bush?

This is a Test To Destruction.  If it goes forward this way, the only way it ends is with a crackup of one side or the other, and the White House is irrational enough that they’ll do something dumb in the process.    What would do the trick is a Goldwater moment.   Possible, but I don’t see it happening.  And there are way too many scandals hanging over Bushco to be able to typify it all as a ‘partisan witch hunt’ and fight them all off successfully.

Stuff below on the complex of scandals washing over Washington. You are warned. More after the cut.

I’m looking for a good place in the area (western Chicago suburbs vastly preferred) to laminate a pair of star maps. 23 by 35 inches. Nice stuff, and I don’t want it damaged. (Susan thinks I want them framed - heck, no, I’m gonna use these suckers.)
Tyge, you should check these out.

Looking forward at the 2008 ratrace for President, I’m amazed at the level of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding that I hear from the audience at the level of people running - and how early this stuff is going off towards Serious Running. More after the cut.

A friend wrote in with a couple of questions on Chinese naming convention vis-a-vis the girls, and I figured I’d pass on the relevant points for you guys.

As to the story’s massive errors: well, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is very entertaining, but the story is most certainly NOT what happened to the Von Trapp family. But a lot of people *think* it is, because that’s what they’ve heard. I could imagine the twins’ bioparents reading it and knowing what happened (notice that they gave pretty detailed when-and-where found details) to the kids - and now, they have the names and respective locations of who the adoptive parents are and could look us up someday if they wanted to.

BTW, I’m back in Chicago: sick as a dog, but I’m here. Never got very far, because I didn’t feel like any sort of travel. The airport was clogged (leaving DC) with lots of people desperate to Get The Heck out of town due to a big snowstorm; one woman had started her day at Baltimore (Flight cancelled) then to Washington Dulles (nothing open back to Chicago) and then to Nation (we’ll put you on standby and see). Her SO was *very* happy to see her at the Chicago bag pickup.

And now, for the name lesson after the cut:

Geleisi is apparently the phonetic approximation the Chinese writers were making for “Grace”, and Irene for “Ellen”. Other translations of the story in other places seem to be showing this. 

UPDATED: earlier version corrected.  See also the discussion here for a new translation of the article.

Just found this one in a local Jiangmen paper; the original in Chinese shows pictures from the adoption papers of the girls! So the reporters *had* to have spoken with the orphanage in Jiangmen!

This version is a long longer, and just as hokey as the last one.

Someone out there with better Chinese than mine can help me with this translation - I’d be grateful. We were alerted to a story in the Chinese news services about the twins, and when I was told about it, I about fell over; it was massively messed up.

The short version is that some local reporter from the town the girls are from wrote up this weird story that integrates truth and fiction is a weird Lassie-Come-Home tearful feelgood story about how Mere sold a sheep at auction to raise the money to move to be near her sister. And sold it and resold it.

Of course, we don’t have a sheep. Two dogs that only look like sheep if you’re very very astigmatic and have never seen sheep or dogs. Nothing named Dick. Total fiction, the whole O-Henry auction stuff.

The translation of the bolded and italicized parts is of highest importance to us; I assume that the ’standard flower bud si’ part is some kind of effort to phonetically say ‘Meredith’, though I have no idea about ‘the irene’ business. The Jiang Yuya and Jiang Yucai are the girls’ Chinese names, and there’s a couple of tidbits there the report had to have gotten from the orphanage that we did not know ourselves until now. Fascinating, and I’d love to see how else the was presented in the Chinese press, like that north and South thing they mention.

All translation help appreciated.

I’m in an Arlington VA hotel, and very much under the weather with a nasty cold and sinus infection; I’ve been in the hotel or next door at the EPA’s meeting area, which is brand new, and have braved the outdoors for a couple of brief trips to nearby restaurants for dinner.  No trips further afield; I’m just not up for it.

Hell to travel when you’re under the weather.  The food has been excellent; I glutted at Legal Sea Food with the Lobster that ate Georgetown on Monday night, at Bebo’s Trattoria (high-quality but very reasonable Italian joint) on Tuesday, and Kabob Palace tonight and tomorrow night.  The big binge of lobster was similar to a deal I did in Boston during the Worldcon, and was *burp* very filling, very good.

Bebos - lamb steak, baked polenta with ragu sauce, Italian wedding soup - and seriously far out baked bread at the table.  Fantastic spicing and saucing, and not that expensive.

Kabob Palace is a hole in the wall, but a nice one, and the food is really great - got their chicken, beef and lamb special, with spinach, rice and Afghan bread.

Probably the worst excuse ever: Andrew Giuliani said he would not participate in his father’s campaign, saying his devotion to becoming a professional golfer within three years allows no time for distraction.

Dear Prudence: Recently, I found out that my parents had sex on my bed. This was mortifying and horrific for me. Of all the places to do it, they thought it would be interesting to try it on my bed. I haven’t even had sex on my bed!