Rhinocrisy

A shocking tale of the criminal justice system gone awry.

No really, shocking. How could this happen here?

Report: 1 in 75 U.S. Men in Prison

I always knew it was pretty bad, but not THAT bad…

As usual AssKKKroft thought it was a good sign… “unprecedented safety?”

Not while your pigs roam the streets, mister…

But Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said the

report shows the success of efforts to take hard-core criminals

off the streets.

“It is no accident that violent crime is at a 30-year low while

prison population is up,” Ashcroft said. “Violent and recidivist

criminals are getting tough sentences while law-abiding Americans

are enjoying unprecedented safety.”

My full-sized picture of W and his wife, with a signature and

letter urging me to send in my contribution for his re-election

(I mean re-selection) campaign. It came with a pre-addressed,

postage-paid envelope. My advisor filled it out : $0, and returned

it in the envelope provided.

Should I follow suit? It doesn’t seem like the most vengeful thing

I could do…

Okay, these two are both 9.9 on the Weird-Shit-O-Meter.

To start off light (but bizarre), there’s this old story that I picked up thanks to the Boondocks, about an incident where Condi Rice, at a dinner with some high-ranking New York Times types, let slip the following:

Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb–” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.”

Now, I don’t seriously believe that Condi Rice and Bush are secretly married, but then again, I KIND OF DO! I mean, wouldn’t that explain a whole lot of things? Their apparent closeness? His desire to protect her from public scrutiny? The fact that no one could seriously be married to Laura Bush for so long? And when you think about it, that sort of thing is exactly what the Republicans would want to hide… I mean, what self-respecting conservative racist would tolerate a misceginating president?

But, that’s not NEARLY as weird as THIS huge bombshell:

“Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program (ICP) information to provoke the United Sates into getting rid of Saddam Hussein,” said an intelligence source who was briefed on the conclusions of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In other words, that whole Iraq War thing? That occupation? That was the IRANIANS setting us up! HOLY COW! And all this time we thought it was a neo-conservative grab for oil and power!

Growing up I remember all the furor over “killer” bees, a dangerous, aggressive breed of bee that was slowly migrating up from South America, and would soon be overrunning the United States and killing small children as they played in their backyards. These bees were also called “Africanized” bees, because they were hybrids between an African strain and a European strain.

The racial politics in all of this should be obvious: the threat of migration/invasion from the south, the danger of miscegination, the tie between “killer”, “aggressive” and “African”. It’s really pretty amusing, in a cartoonishly-racist sort of way.

That said, I give you the African clawed frog, an “aggressive” breed of frog that is going to overrun San Francisco and is threatening the ecosystem there. Honestly, there must be a back room where people plan these things.

While in general I feel that, well, johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com, his reaction to Bush’s falling off his bike was pretty good.

“Did the training wheels fall off?”

This was off the record, but reporters thought it was funny enough to pass it along anyway to the Drudge report.

This statement was made by Rep. Deborah Price of Ohio, paraphrasing President George W. Bush.

Especially ironic given the other major headline of the day, the slaughter of an Iraqi wedding party (including the bride, groom, women and children, and a famous Iraqi wedding singer) by arial bombardment and helicopter gunfire, accompanied by a complete refusal on the part of American generals to acknowledge their mistake. What must Iraq think of our arrogance? What, indeed, have we taught them, other than that we are full with the sin of pride?

“Bad things happen in wars,” said Major-General James Mattis, the U.S. Marine commander in charge of occupation forces in western Iraq. “These were more than two dozen military-age males. I don’t have to apologize for the conduct of my men.”

This is what the Greeks called “hubris”. I can only hope that there are no Gods, because the retribution for the measure of our pride should be cataclysmic.

Dan Savage linked to the author of a book called the Obesity Myth, which assures us that we have nothing to worry about and obesity is not a problem. When I read this, I can’t help but think of a time when I went camping with my folks, and we were situated next to another camper who was roughly the size of an elephant seal, and probably had considerable difficulty in seeing his toes. I don’t mean to poke fun at this man, or to cast blame on him, but I DO think that his condition is problematic.

As a biologist I find it inarguable that being overweight has dire consequences, relating mostly to type 2 diabetes and heart disease. But I think obesity in this country is symptomatic of another, larger problem, which is the general decay of the American diet.

In most societies the population spends eons cultivating a diet that agrees with their temperament, environment, and lifestyle. It’s natural that over the course of many hundreds of years a traditional diet will become refined, so that we should not be surprised when we find that people who eat traditional diets live longer, healthier lives. The Indian diet that I am accustomed to eating and was raised on is, I think, extremely healthy, has superbly balanced meals and augments the diet with spices of unknown pharmacological powers (e.g. turmeric!). I do not think this is an accident.

By contrast, the American diet has not evolved along such a course. Rather, it’s evolution has been dictated mostly by the profit motive, especially as the agricultural sector has shrunk and food has become the province of large corporations. Home-cooked food is a rarity; purchased prepared meals are the norm. Prepared foods cannot possibly be as healthy as home-cooked food. For one, much of the nutritional value of food decays over time. Additionally, the ingredients in prepared foods are generally of lower quality and are designed to maximize shelf-life and prevent spoilage rather than for human health.

There’s nothing more disgusting than a Hamburger Helper commercial, urging you to “save time”, and relax after your hard day at work with a “convenient” meal, at the expense of your children, who will lap up the pre-packaged slop and grow increasingly unhealthy as a result.

Americans are notoriously ignorant when it comes to nutrition. In the whole of my educational career, I had exactly two weeks of formal education on the subject of nutrition. I can hardly remember what I learned, but suffice it to say that, whatever I was taught, it was certainly not enough. Perhaps this has changed since then, but I highly doubt it. Parents are also remarkably ignorant, especially since I continue to see so many buying their children soda, which is just about the worst thing you could possibly do for your child. Even just high-fructose corn syrup goes instantly into the blood, causes your blood sugar level to skyrocket, and causes your body to immediately begin converting that excess sugar into fat. Obesity in a bottle. And the list of ills of soda could occupy pages on its own. But judging by the volume of soda kids consume, parents seem to be unaware of its severe problems.

Meanwhile, many companies make lots of money. Kraft Macaroni is cheap and easy to manufacture, lasts forever and ships easily. The concommitant loss in public health is an externality that the industry does not have to bear. But America is obviously feeling the effects.

I rant in this space because I don’t imagine anyone is interested in turning this around the way it SHOULD be turned around. The state of American agriculture, of American eating habits, and of American awareness of nutrition, need to be turned around. These are all battles that are difficult to fight, and selling diet tapes is so much more profitable…

Uh… so this story in the Boston Globe follows pretty much along the lines of the torture piece I wrote here a while ago. Weird. Oh well, at least someone agrees with me… perfectly.

on the RAPE and TORTURE at Abu Ghraib by U.S. “liberators” …

Tom DeLay, R-Texas: “…some people are overreacting. The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends”

Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma: “I have to say I’m probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. The idea that these prisoners, you know they’re not there for traffic violations. If they’re in cellblock 1A or 1B these prisoners, they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents, many of them probably have American blood on their hands, and here we’re so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.”

Rush Limbaugh, Fat Drug Addict Idiot: “This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it, and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?”

Rush, please don’t EVER EVER blow off steam anywhere near me.