well, you're the duke

From Cash to Yachts, Convicted Congressman Set Bribery Rates (via Drudge)

Ignoring the obvious infuriating aspects of this whole mess, I'd just like to point out the following:

"Prosecutors will ask federal Judge Larry Burns to impose the statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison [for Randy "Duke" Cunningham].... His lawyers say he has cooperated fully [since pleading guilty]... and they will ask the judge to go outside the sentencing guidelines and impose a lighter sentence than 10 years." Meanwhile: "One of the defense contractors, Mitchell Wade, pleaded guilty Friday to... four corruption charges [that] carry a maximum sentence of 20 years."

So, the guy that offers bribes could get 20 years, while the guy who took them, and also took bribes from a bunch of other people, abusing his power as a Congressman on the defense appropriations committee, gets at most 10.

Wikipedia says, "Because he pled guilty, Cunningham faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Had he tried to fight the charges, he risked spending the rest of his life in prison. Cunningham's attorney, Mark Holscher, later said that the government's evidence was so overwhelming that he had no choice but to recommend a guilty plea." And also, the article mentions that Cunningham has cancer and could very well die in prison. Will it be a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison? My magic 8-ball says: doubtful.

michael richard stoops

one more reason to pay attention to news about africa: as of next saturday, mrs2006, aka stoops, will be serving in the peace corps somewhere to be determined in uganda. so, i'm going to try to pay special attention and post stories of interest. to start off: recent presidential election results have been challenged.

hopefully some happy stories will get posted too.

good luck mike! do good things!

and be safe!

and take lots of pictures!

and don't eat chicken!

and write! often!

we'll miss you, kiddo.

terrible and yet hilarious

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.

reflexive secrecy

eric umansky on the recently-leaked photos of torture at abu ghraib:

"Who possibily could be surprised that the photos eventually leaked. The fact that the adminitration has tried to hold them back is yet another example of its winning strategy of Reflexive Secrecy. It's the double-whammy: Wrong on principle and wrong on efficacy. Cheney's little incident this weekend, the photos, tendency toward secrecy keeps boomeranging. It's not just an offensive anti-democratic habit, it's a dumb one."

this was my reaction, too, when i heard about the cheney-shooting thing. so stupid! why, dear god, why would you bother keeping that secret? because secret-keeping is what this administration does. and, as has been proven over and over again, they're very bad at it.


i've thought about linking to the abu ghraib pictures. maybe i should. but they are so disturbing, so infuriating, and so incredibly sad that i can't bear it.

civil war beginning?

idiots. morons. terrible, terrible people.

i can't post pictures for some reason, so just go here:

before

after

protest

in the midst of all this, i can't help but notice that everyone, every person in every picture i've seen, is male. where are the women? don't they have opinions?

abortion news

"Lawmakers are preparing to vote on a bill that would outlaw nearly all abortions in South Dakota, a measure that could become the most sweeping ban approved by any state in more than a decade, those on both sides of the abortion debate say.... Since 2005, bans similar to the bill have been proposed in at least five states, but those on both sides of the abortion debate say this effort has the strongest chance of succeeding.... The proposed legislation, which states that "life begins at the time of conception," would prohibit abortion except in cases where the pregnant woman's life was at risk."

Also.

"The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to decide whether a 2003 federal ban on the procedure that critics call "partial birth" abortion is constitutional, setting the stage for its most significant ruling on abortion rights in almost 15 years. Without comment or recorded dissent, the court granted the Bush administration's request to review a lower court's ruling striking down the law, which passed Congress overwhelmingly but has yet to be enforced."


The WP article (2nd one) has a great historical summary of the "partial birth" abortion voting controversy. It's also worth noting that neither Today's Papers nor The Morning News mentioned the South Dakota vote.


UPDATE (2/23): "After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, the [South Dakota] senators rejected pleas to add exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of the pregnant woman and instead voted, 23 to 12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save the woman's life. They also rejected an effort to allow South Dakotans to decide the question in a referendum and an effort to prevent state tax dollars from financing what is certain to be a long and expensive court battle."

"The bill was designed to challenge the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe , which in 1973 recognized a right of women to terminate pregnancies. Its sponsors want to force a reexamination of the ruling by the court, which now includes two justices appointed by President Bush."

It's clear to me that, if the intent of this law is to provide a significant challenge to Roe v. Wade, it has failed miserably. I can't believe the Supreme Court would let stand an abortion law that didn't include exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. So, in effect, the South Dakota anti-abortion zealots have shot themselves in the foot. Regardless, while the court battles drag on and on, women in South Dakota won't have access to safe abortion, and may not have the resources to travel to states where abortion is legal.

Do not talk to me about abortion today, because I may either explode or resort to violence.

i might be repeating myself

a while ago, i remember having a lot of fun with googlism. i found it again today, and again it made me happy.

sai is everywhere
sai is me
sai is ever pouring into the hearts of those who strive with him
sai is beyond globe
sai is the avathar of our time
sai is one example
sai is appointed by parliament and government
sai is wearing a spacesuit
sai is excited to extend the powerful capabilities of dvd
sai is just a sai
sai is definitely a guy
sai is righteous and treasures friendships
sai is not liable for any damage caused by such dangers
sai is an autonomous legal entity
sai is large
sai is a weapon
sai is sisterhood
sai is thinking while he's eating breakfast and is not doing a good job of eating
sai is listening in on this
sai is the only action
sai is a quite refined character
sai is an equal opportunity employer
sai is established
sai is a fork
sai is well equipped and ready to meet your every need
sai is a major contender in deathmatch
sai is universal and so is his message
sai is not a new character though
sai is divided into three modes of operation
sai is open to all women pursuing a major or minor in any area of music who have completed at least one semester of study
sai is now complete
sai is limitless; it manifests for ever
sai is the universal divine mother
sai is preparing to demonstrate its unique design through a 25kw prototype
sai is ever full of joy

le simple life

back from a weekend away, and happy to be home. i've been distracted recently. hopefully it'll fix itself.

it's 11pm, and i'm so tired that it's taking effort to write in complete sentences. i think i'm going to go to bed, sans shower (disgusting, i know), and try to get up and get to work very early. it should be a tougher week than i've been having, with a lot going on at work, and i am woefully unprepared.

things to look forward to in the near future:
1. dinner with mike (and shabu?) on tuesday
2. dinner with mara and vix on wednesday
3. volleyball game of sorts on thursday
4. dave coming back from sunny CA on friday
5. soon-to-be-cousin reza coming in for the weekend
6. georgetown decision by the 28th (or so they say)
7. seeing austin in march for the first time in over a year
8. going home for a weekend (and pawn shop!)
9. getting my tax refund direct-deposited
10. having 10 things to think about and smile.

in other news: i think this space will soon see a redesign (or, at the very least, a thorough content edit). watch for updates.

the full-contact method

"Spotsylvania County's practice of allowing detectives to receive sexual services in prostitution cases has exploded across the nation... [Sheriff] Smith and the county's chief prosecutor, Commonwealth's Attorney William F. Neely, defended the tactic. They said detectives needed to go beyond striking verbal deals of sex for money because the "masseuses," whom they called "illegal aliens," spoke little English and Virginia's prostitution laws require more than "mere touching" to make a case... Smith and Neely said that undercover officers often purchase illegal drugs to build cases against dealers and that the "same lawful investigative technique" was used in the prostitution cases."

soliciting and receiving sex in an investigation of sex work isn't like buying drugs... it's like buying drugs, and then shooting up with the dealer to make sure the drugs are real.

strange

rivers cuomo, 35, lives in student housing at harvard.

cool.

lots of love, kids.

obsessive-compulsive valentines.

I love you. Wait. That didn't feel right. Let me try it again. I love you. Don't think about disease. Don't think about disease. Don't think about disease. I love you. There.

snow sunday

26.9 inches!!!

read more here.

initially i'd been planning to spend today in my pajamas, reading, unpacking, and recovering from jet lag. when i woke up at 11, though, i got really excited at how much snow had accumulated on the street outside. after cooking and eating a ginormous breakfast with my roommates (minus tao), i got decked out in makeshift snow gear and walked to the supermarket. after putting away groceries, i went and played in the snow with my friend/neighbor evan in central park. i made my first ever snow angel. and we walked up a large hill--and by walked, i mean i kept getting stuck and evan had to drag me up. we decided that the top of the hill looked like the forest lucy first sees in narnia--everything was covered with snow and untouched. after about 20 minutes i got very cold and stiff, so we retired to his apartment to have hot chocolate. i still haven't unpacked, but i think having a productive day was worth the delay. once evan figures out how to get pictures off his new camera, i'll post them here.

i'm starting to get very sleepy again. hopefully i'll put everything away before collapsing again.

geneva, istanbul, and wireless sucks.

my internet connection here sucks. i wrote a ranting post (i know you guys love those) about the idiotic riots by complete morons in beirut and damascus (and now tehran, i guess?), but i couldn't save or send because my connection went out, and i lost my post. and now i don't have the energy to write it again, so i'll just connect you to background and commentary that are comprehensive and, for that reason, infuriating. i was raging yesterday, you should have seen it.

my last day in geneva was lovely. it was sunny and warmer and i walked along the river and saw swans napping (napping!) in the river. and they had the fountain on, which was very pretty, and all the boats were sitting in the harbor, and you could see the mountains that surround geneva for the first time, and it was like a postcard, glorious.

so i'm in istanbul, and it's snowing. it's the first time in my life that i think i've seen snow on mosques. kind of a contradiction in some ways--i think of mosques as desert places, always surrounded by red and heat. it's new to me to be here in the winter, since the last two times were in may and september, both very hot months. the snow has made me lazy, and on my first day i only went out to go to the gym. i'll hopefully have some time to check out the bazaar, shop, and hit up a turkish bath on friday, when the program folks will be in one-on-one meetings that don't concern me and don't require minute-taking. i've got some souvenirs to find, and as always i'm in the market for a new pair of earrings (or seven).

on my first day here, i had the TV on while getting dressed for dinner, and i watched the last 10 minutes of that new-ish MTV dating show about dating daughters. the premise is that a dude goes on "dates" with three moms, and the mothers basically try to sell him their daughters by bragging about their modeling careers, violin skills, or vibrator collection. based on this interaction, the dude picks which daughter to date. the episode i saw was RIDICULOUS. the mtv dating drama machine, perfected on "dismissed," is totally in overdrive on this show. the girl who won walks up to the dude, gives him a hug, and her (short) dress flies up, and the camera has to blur out her butt because she's not wearing any underwear. mind you, this is in front of her mother!! and then they start making out! IN FRONT OF HER MOTHER!!1@!! clearly i can't expect those mothers to really care about shit like that, but still. i guess i expected slightly better from MTV. obviously i was a naive little fool.

tonight i went out to dinner with heather and mary (osi staff) and martin (board member and very, very accomplished public health doctor and advocate) instead of going to the "group dinner" with the rest of the fray. that turned out to be a perfect decision--good food, good company, very good conversation (from osi gossip to the war in iraq to martin's upcoming trip to israel), and a nice break from the tedium of the meeting. i feel like this is why i travel, to make these connections and really enjoy spending time with people i like. makes having to type 120 wpm for 8 hours all worthwhile.

1015pm and i'm exhausted. time to curl up in my comfortable, but slightly hard, bed. i've got some stuff to look forward to: back on saturday to birthday dinner and engagement party; sunday completely off (maybe with some winter league, depending on the weather); a relatively easy week with bosses traveling; a weekend away in maine. really, life is good, and i can't complain a damn bit.

geneva, v.2

it feels like i've been here for two days rather than two weeks. i'm sure part of that is due to jet-lag, and also from having a packed day today. in between meetings and hitting the gym and eating, i haven't had any time at all to tourist around the city. i really should have gone outside instead of napping (read: sleeping for 6 hours) yesterday after arriving. if only my wake-up call had come! if only i'd gotten more sleep on the plane! etc etc. nothing to be done now. since i don't have to leave for the airport until noon tomorrow, i'm going to do my best to get up at a reasonable hour (say, 9am) and finally check out the church next door. at least then i'll feel like i've seen something.

last night i went to a peruvian co-op restaurant with mark and his microfinance grantees. good food, neat place, complete with music videos playing against the wall. i think 15 languages were represented at our dinner table, with strange overlaps: i spoke with the couple in front of me in my broken spanish and their broken english. i learned that the swiss say "nonant" instead of "catre-van-dis" to mean 90 (or however you spell it in french). i also learned that while "bombilla" means straw in bolivia, it means lightbulb in spain; in mexico, by contrast, you'd say "popote" for straw. i learned how to say "mop" in four different languages--which i promptly forgot. so, dinner was a pretty good time, as is any time that involves hanging out with mark. the trip home was full of adventure too, as we hopped on a tram without tickets and then realized we were on the wrong line and had to follow a strange lady to the bus stop and talk to her the whole way home. jet lag caught up with me last night and kept me from sleeping, so i'm very tired now even though it's not yet 11pm.

i have a lot of music on my ipod that i haven't yet listened to--mostly things i've gotten off people's playlists at work. while packing for my trip on thursday night, i finally listened to "the bends" by radiohead, and i just can't say enough good things about it. i'm starting now to understand why people are obsessed with this band. i've listened to it in its entirety every single day since thursday; it's one of the greatest albums i've heard in a long, long time.

i could probably write more, but my brain is slowly turning into mush, so i think i'll call it a night. tomorrow afternoon i'm off to istanbul until saturday morning and should have less sleep disruption and more free time to sightsee, shop, and get bathed by old, fat turkish ladies.

until we meet again, adieu, ma cherie.

geneva!

the battery on this laptop lasts less than an hour when it's fully charged. i thought of all kinds of things to write about on the plane today (yesterday?), but i had no where to put them. hopefully i'll remember now.

i always look for lights on transatlantic flights. usually i can't sleep, and they turn off the lights a couple of hours into the flight--perfect for star-watching and boat-spotting. for the first ten minutes i get all excited every time i see a boat or a new star pops up as the city lights fade. i wish i could stay entertained by that for the whole time--it would make staying awake much less painful.

i was surrounded by sick people today. the woman sitting directly in front of me had a terrible cough; she was sputtering for the entire trip. i felt kind of bad for her at first, but the more she coughed, the more angry i got at her, for no real reason. maybe i'm a little jittery and claustrophobic, and it manifests itself in general directionless rage when i have to sit still in a small seat for seven hours. at least i'm little enough to curl up into the seat and take cat naps. i don't know how you tall people do it.

the sun was rising just as we got over france. i could see it out the window--it looked like a really fat rainbow starting with red on the horizon and going all the way up the spectrum to violet in the middle of the sky. [tangent: i heard that they removed "indigo" from the light spectrum. weird.] i could see all the colors, even the greens, which are usually the least visible. pretty neat.

europe looked like it was napping, tucked under a blanket. there was a thick mass of low clouds way under us from the english channel inward. i couldn't tell if we were over land or sea. when we got near switzerland, i could see the alps popping their little heads up out of the clouds, saying hello. from that far up, the mountains looked tiny, like ant hills.

geneva is very european. i forget how much smaller everything is here--cars, toilets, streets. it's grey and cold and foggy, but it smells clean. i think i'm staying in the hotel district; at least, four of the five buildings across the street from my window are hotels. right next door is a lovely church that looks about 300 years old. maybe i'll start my walking tour there this afternoon.

i checked in to the hotel in time for breakfast, and i remembered how much i love cheese in the morning. do you remember those cow cheeses, that came in little foil cubes and had a picture of a cow on them? they were really creamy and tasty. i used to beg my mom to buy them when i was little and we went to the supermarket together. they had them in the breakfast room (except these are shaped like triangles, and come in different flavors). i got so excited! i brought one back to my room for a snack later. yum.

i'm realizing that i have a hotel ritual. when i get to my room, i have to unpack, completely, even if i'm just staying for two nights (like now). i've put the do-not-disturb tag on the door, hung clothes up in the closet, spread my toiletries out on the bathroom counter, and set my desk to "organized chaos." i can't imagine letting someone in to fiddle with this and that. having to use the same towel twice is a small sacrifice for making the space mine.

it's 10:50am now. i slept maybe an hour on the plane, and i'm starting to fade. thankfully, my normal weekend sleeping schedule doesn't see me out of bed before 1pm, so it makes sense to take a nap now for a couple hours. i'm going to meet mark and his microfinance friends later for dinner, and i should really get some more work done before then (now that i can't use a dead battery as an excuse). the hotel has flat-rate wireless internet--lovely. wireless internet really should be a public utility, like heat, or water. why else do we live in the developed world?

and with that, goodnight.

[UPDATE: there is a bottle opener in the wall of the bathroom, right next to the toilet... brilliant!]

after reading mara's post recounting her IM conversations, i was inspired to look back through my own quotes file. wow. i've been out of the IM world for long enough--and these quotes are old enough--that i can't remember the context at all. but it brought back a lot of memories, especially since many of them were from people i barely (or never) talk to anymore. here are a few of the choicest bits:

scorp1014: who addresses themself as self ?
scorp1014: that's hilarious
scorp1014: because that's always what i preface my sentences with when i talk to myself
scorp1014: self, stop throwing it away
scorp1014: self, time to do homework
scorp1014: you know, self, this beer really isn't that good
LiteAngel: i'm going to quote you
scorp1014: hehe
scorp1014: you, self, are on a roll

LiteAngel: i guess i'll have to wait and see it
LiteAngel: your art, not your johnson.
duuuuk: haha
duuuuk: ha
duuuuk: haha
duuuuk: wooooo
duuuuk: that was good
duuuuk: really
duuuuk: I'm really laughing
duuuuk: I'm not being sarcastic
duuuuk: damn
duuuuk: the more I say that
duuuuk: the more sarcastic I sound, huh?

LiteAngel: what happened to all your resolutions?
teknohype: i ate em. they tasted oddly of bull feces.

and, of course, mara gets her own section. who is mara? the world may never know.

who is mara: you wish you were as cool as da masta
LiteAngel: i don't need to leave letters off my words to be cool
LiteAngel: yo.
who is mara: aight dogg
who is mara: i see how its gonna be
LiteAngel: it's! it's!
who is mara: you jus think yous da shit
who is mara: but you aint
LiteAngel: ain't! ain't!
LiteAngel: the apostrophe is your friend, masta!

LiteAngel: i'll but your mom!
who is mara: oh god
LiteAngel: sorry, couldn't resist
who is mara: your mom couldnt resist

LiteAngel: i'm always up for sush
iLiteAngel: how is it that "up for" and "down for" now mean the same thing?
LiteAngel: what if i said "i'm always sideways for sushi"?
LiteAngel: AND now i know how to punctuate that sentence!
who is mara: omg what are you talking about!?!?
who is mara: LOL
who is mara: that was the weirdest converstaion with yourself that you've ever had (on IM)

in other interesting news: i'm headed off tomorrow for geneva, then istanbul, for lots of work and hopefully also lots of fun. cool work folks are heading to istanbul with me, so it should be a good time. speaking of which, i should be packing. i always aim to avoid checking luggage, but it's wintertime now, and clothes take up so much space. we'll see if i succeed.

stay tuned for travel posts! don't you just love those?