the downside of globalization

OK, I know that globalization has some very real negative consequences on some people who can ill-afford to suffer them. But let me just point out another downside of globalization: all that damn flopping in the NBA. Anyone who watched last year's World Cup soccer match will recognize Manu Ginobili's technique, for example -- BAM, as if taking a close-range shotgun blast. All that's lacking are the stretchers.

Worse, blue-blooded American boys have recognized the incentive to play along and are doing the same thing, with no apparent pride whatsoever.

Give us back our game.

marijuana can't kill you

That's more or less the message from this post by Sully, which includes this terrifically informative chart:

Damn hippies must have known a thing or two.

"enhanced interrogation"

Sully is really onto something here. Jeebus, even the damn Nazis had to memo this stuff, indicating that it was close to the edge even for them. And we surely have gone way beyond it.

Two seemingly obvious points, but maybe worth committing some pixels to.

1) how we act should reflect our values, not theirs.

2) how will we react when others start treating ours the way we have treated theirs? We have zero moral authority on this issue now.

Update: Farls has more, or related, anyway. Smart, as usual.

Makes Sense to Me

This analysis by a TPM reader of what could possibly have motivated the administration to do what it has done in Iraq (especially) makes great sense to me.

And, I have to say that it's not an altogether terrible idea, if one assumes that fossil fuel dependence would continue unabated or even grow in the future. Of course, I'd rather see us switch away from fossil fuels, but that's another story.

follow the bouncing body bags, but only certain ones

I had recalled seeing this from somewhere else before, but kos reminds me that the Chimperor himself said on May 10th that

The level of sectarian violence is an important indicator of whether or not the strategy that we have implemented is working.

So American and Iraqi soldier deaths don't matter, but sectarian conflict does.

Even buying that, things are not going well. A report in today's WaPo by Sudarsan Raghavan shows that sectarian killings in Iraq are higher now than they were pre-surge.

Beneath the Underdog

Finished it a week or so ago. Feh. Didn't really get what people see in it. That it's nonlinear and therefore somehow jazzy? I thought it was self-indulgent crap. I need to look up some info (maybe read a real biography of Mingus) to find out when it was written. It wouldn't surprise if it was ca. 1970, when what CM was playing doesn't move me much, either. But what do I know.

I just wish there were some actual discussion of, ummm, music.

Also read Theodore Roszek's The Making of a Counterculture, which I enjoyed a lot. A little heavy-handed at places, and the author seems to be trying too hard to sound profound, but his analysis, that the counterculture represented an attempted to rediscover magic and rescue life from the technocracy, made good sense to me.

"Warriors ... come out and play-y-ay!"

Great basketball games during the Warriors-Mavs series. Fun to watch, great storylines, and a great outcome! Let's see how far they can get as banged up as they are.

Nowitzki definitely has the monkey on his back.

Might as well get straight to "Swordguy"

Kid #2 desperately wanted us to name kid #3 "Swordguy". The Chimperor may want to consider that one next, after this beaut:

I'm the commander guy.

Anyone else ever get the feeling that this guy is play-acting, like Reagan but with less intelligence and skill? His whole codpiece moment on 5/1/2003 ("mission accomplished") had him looking very much like a G.I. Joe action figure I used to have. "Commander guy", indeed.

What a moron.

HT: Atrios.