MediaMatters:

After lying about death panels, the Bridge to Nowhere, aerial hunting, and pretty much everything else she's known for, it should come as no surprise that half-term governor turned Fox News analyst Sarah Palin would lie about the mantra that came to define her ill-fated run for the vice presidency: "Drill, baby, drill!"

Sarah Palin is the ultimate post-modern politician: not only does the truth of any matter depend on how she, the Sarah Palin Of The Moment, can position herself around it, in time, space and ideology, but Sarah Palin herself is a dynamic and imponderable object, which exists in our universe only in ways which appear to defy the normal laws of political reality. She is much more than a politician.

For Sarah Palin, a creature of the present, the past is mutable. It is what she says it is. The past never was; it only is. This is what makes focusing on her past statements and actions irrelevant. When you think back to a past encounter with Sarah Palin, you will not see the real Sarah Palin there; you will only see a hypothetical Palin - a Palin as unreal as if you were imagining an encounter with her in the future. The real Sarah Palin only exists in the present and can choose to inhabit the past you recall, or not. She decides, according to processes we, not being of her kind, cannot begin to understand.

As time is irrelevant to Palin, so is ideology. To Sarah Palin, ideology is merely a compass which she uses to keep her opponent positioned at a fixed angle from whatever she thinks. What you think, Mr. Opponent, is 180 degrees from what she thinks, always. You may see this as her reacting to your position, but that would be self-centered of you. In reality, she has defined you as her opposite, and you can only react to your new position. "But I have not moved!", you protest. And then you try to explain and describe your plight to anyone who will listen. But Sarah Palin will have moved on; she is no longer in the past where you are waging your battle; She has left you with your provisional memories and your confusion.

And so, unencumbered by traditional notions of truth and ideology, Sarah Palin is able to move in four-dimensional circles around her opponents. She can appear on all sides of all issues simultaneously, and yet is always in opposition to whatever her opponent thinks. She is for what she is against but is against you, no matter what you are for.

This puzzles us. We do not understand. But it's not our fault. Our political senses are simply too primitive, and we are unable to behold Sarah Palin in her full manifestation. She moves through dimensions we cannot reach and intersects our universe in ways we cannot comprehend. She is a beautiful and wily sphere, toying with us, mere insensate Flatlanders. Our intellects, such as they are, fail to grasp the totality of Sarah Palin. And so we impotently flail at our own ignorance, but we mistakenly think we rage against her. She confuses even our emotions.

Perhaps it is best to ignore her and hope she bores with us.

The "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" (Office of Strategic Services, 1944) describes many amusing ways a saboteur can wreak havoc upon an unsuspecting enemy. In addition to describing many ways you can break electronics and foul mechanical systems (pour sand into machines! jam a pencil into air filters!), it has a large section on how to use the enemy's bureaucracy against him.

From the "General Interference with Organizations and Production" section:

1. Organizations and Conferences
   1. Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
   2. Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.
   3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
   4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
   5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
   6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
   7. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
   8. Be worried about the propriety of any decision - raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
2. Managers and Supervisors
   1. Demand written orders.
   2. "Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions of engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
   3. Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready.
   4. Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.
   5. Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.
3. Office Workers
   1. Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses.
   2. Prolong correspondence with government bureaus.
   3. Misfile essential documents.
   4. In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done.

It goes on and on.

And here's a bit from the "General Devices For Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion" section:

1. Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.
2. Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police.
3. Act stupid.
4. Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.
5. Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.

Good to know that office life in the 40's was essentially identical to office life today.

Spot the IT consultant

The Gates of Hell Just Opened In Guatemala

We were in Wilmington NC this weekend, doing an overeating / overdrinking marathon. Good times.

By coincidence, Wilmington is the town where they filmed a lot of David Lynch's "Blue Velvet", in which Dennis Hopper plays the crazed and evil Frank Booth. And, of course, Dennis Hopper died this weekend. So, we did a quick tour of the places which show up in the movie (and which are still around).

This is the building used for the exterior of the apartment where Isabella Rossellini's character lived.

This is a great little bar called the "Barbary Coast" which was used as the exterior of a nightclub/brothel. Word is that there are interior scenes from here in the outtakes on the DVD.

The police station was used in the movie, but was recently demolished - so recently that it's still on Google maps. And there's a coffee shop which was a diner in the movie.

Anyway, that's probably as close as I'll ever get to the late great Dennis Hopper.

Newcastle? Fuck That Shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!
(from Lula's, a basement, backalley pub)

The Credit Card Concierge Experiment

Man dies of uterine cancer

Short answer: there is no short answer. There's too many possibilities for a short answer. But there's a long answer over at the Weather Underground.

Here is a pretty good wrap-up of the whole Lost arc. Apparently it was written by a writer from the show.

Spoilers below!
Continue reading →