Further adventures of a cavalier approach to the rule of law.

In the category of "yet another reason Guantanamo is an affront to human values," the Guardian (UK) is reporting that it took them 3 days to find witnesses for one detainee that the US Government claimed it couldn't locate after several months. What's most amazing about this story is that the witnesses weren't holed up in remote locations, either:

The Guardian searched for Mr Mujahid's witnesses and found them within three days. One was working for President Hamid Karzai. Another was teaching at a leading American college. The third was living in Kabul. The fourth, it turned out, was dead. Each witness said he had never been approached by the Americans
to testify in Mr Mujahid's hearing.

OK, obviously the US couldn't have called the dead man to testify, but if a newspaper can figure out the guy's dead after an extensive 3 day search, why can't the US figure it out after a few months? Holy crap. One was working for the US-installed leader.

Meanwhile, Abdullah Mujahid has spent 3 years in custody. While he may or may not be guilty -- the original complaint appears to be that Mr. Mujahid was fired from his position as a police chief for "colluding with anti-government forces" -- it's also a travesty that these witnesses, as in so many other cases, were "non-contactable" according to the military.

Truly a bargain at 37.4 million pounds.

So the BBC is reporting today that the Monarchy costs about 37.4 million pounds a year. They break that cost down by telling each taxpayer that they each essentially pay 62p a year for the pleasure of maintaining the powerless figurehead and her family.

The Queen and her family are independently wealthy anyway, with Prince Charles making a reported 14 million pounds in 2005 (not bad for a guy who apparently travels extensively and plays polo). It makes you wonder how much the Queen herself is worth.

Well, as the Sex Pistols sang so many years ago, "God Save the Queen, Because Tourists Are Money..." The English monarch is worth more to England enthroned than she would be reduced to commoner, as the untold tourist dollars pour into the country to watch them changing guard at Buckingham Palace, lining the streets for perhaps a glimpse of HRH, and of course just the touristy love to soak in the mythical resonance of the monarchy itself (and interestingly enough, many of those tourists come from the US, who forcibly threw off the monarchy and all its trappings a few hundred years back).

The English monarchy survived the period of revolution and managed to make it past irrelevance to the largely safe waters of historical tourism. It's one thing to tour a palace once inhabited by a royal family deposed and beheaded long ago; it's quite another to walk through the Palace inhabited by a living -- if powerless -- monarch.

I'm not defending the monarchy, but merely the idea that the English monarchy is a cornerstone of British tourism and exists at the public expense mainly as a marketing expenditure. The king is a thing, as Hamlet would say, and like most fetishized commodities, it has an exchange value far higher than its use value.

What a Rush!

Honestly, does it get any better than this?

"Rush Limbaugh Held for Having Viagra Without Prescription"

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Rush Limbaugh was detained for about 3 1/2 hours at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities said they found a bottle of Viagra in his possession without a prescription.

Oh my. Repeat drug offender Rush just can't get enough. He was down in the Dominican Republic with his illicit stash of sex pills, and I'm scared to speculate on any of that...ugh.

Really, in the scheme of things this offense is a joke, especially compared to his pain-med abuse -- a charge he more or less beat, proving once again that if you're going to abuse drugs it pays to be a celebrity.

I can understand how Limbaugh maybe was duped into purchasing viagra illegally, since after all I receive solicitations for V=!Ag=r@ or some such poorly spelled substitute in my email all the time.

Usually they call this money laundering.

Here's really where the truth comes bubbling out like so much shit from a leaking septic tank:

Moving money from a casino-operating Indian tribe to Ralph Reed, the Christian Coalition founder and professed gambling opponent, was a problem. Lobbyist Abramoff turned to his longtime friend Norquist, apparently to provide a buffer
for Reed.
The result, according to evidence gathered by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, was that Norquist's Americans for Tax Relief became a conduit for more than a million dollars from the Mississippi Choctaw to Reed's operation, while Norquist, a close White House ally, took a cut. [via CNN.com]

Norquist, who famously claimed he wanted to shrink government to the size where he could "drown it in the bathtub," like most libertarians, detests government except when it works to their benefit. That is to say, he liked government without all the rules and oversight and checks and balances. Sure, libertarian theory is all about competition and free markets, but libertarian practice is all about jobbing the game through backroom deals and old-boy networks that essentially make the so-called free market a joke.

Fortunately, every now and then their shenanigans come to light and the public gets to see the ethical bankruptcy of these self-styled freedom lovers. Unfortunately, the public rarely takes notice and at any rate has a notoriously short attention span and is easily distracted by bread and circuses (e.g. "defense of marriage," "cut and run," etc.). New York Times columnist Paul Krugman points this out in his June 19 column (you need NYT login to see it, so the link won't work otherwise...), "Class War Politics." An excerpt:

But if the real source of today's bitter partisanship is a Republican move to the right on economic issues, why have the last three elections been dominated by talk of terrorism, with a bit of religion on the side? Because a party whose economic policies favor a narrow elite needs to focus the public's attention elsewhere. And there's no better way to do that than accusing the other party of being unpatriotic and godless.

It's a classic bait and switch, and yes indeed it all comes down to economics. The Times actually has been beating this drum a bit lately, and I'm surprised, mainly because the mainstream media is very gunshy when it comes to evoking the bugaboo of "class warfare." Well, guess what? The war has long since started, and the Republicans* are the ones who started it.

*That's the short statement. The long statement acknowledges that the Republicans are simply the bagmen doing the bidding of the US elite who have always used whatever means necessary to maintain their advantages, whether it be the Pinkertons, Vigilance Committees, or Politicians.

A few quick words.

Sorry everyone (all three of you that is), but I've been out of it with the World Cup going on. The USA play Ghana today at 10 a.m., and if you haven't been watching, what I'm looking for is a USA win v. Ghana and Italy to beat the Czech Republic.

More importantly, today my wife and I celebrate our ninth anniversary of wedded bliss. We met here in DC in graduate school and somehow haven't deconstructed one another yet or managed to finish our doctorates. But that's all Guinness under the bridge, as they say.

We have too many books. We don't have enough.

Now the USA game is on.

UPDATE: The USA looked like a bunch of scared seventh graders going up against the ninth grade. Granted the referee was card happy (on both teams) and awarded a bullshit penalty to Ghana, but still even if it remained 1-1, the USA would be out of the cup. They wouldn't be able to define "offensive creativity" if you handed them a dictionary, and all of them today seemed unwilling to shoot the ball. You cannot score if you do not shoot. Cute passes are cute passes, but goals are goals.

He paused, midday, and looked at the wall.

Was I going to write something?

Water Water Everywhere.

My son and I got caught in that monumental downpour this afternoon -- not the first one, but the second one -- as we were on our way to pick up his little sister. About halfway to the park it started pouring. By the time we'd reached the park, we realized our flimsy umbrella was worthless, so I folded it up and we let the rain set the agenda.

It's like jumping in the pool; once you're wet it doesn't really matter anymore and we were indeed soaked, the clothes clinging to the skin and me wishing I'd worn a different shirt. Let's just say my love of anything in the butter food group keeps people from describing me as "chiseled."

Hustling down 19th Street, we followed the floodwaters down the hill, as they eddied up with every curb cut. These momentary pools were perfect for stomping, and I did my best Gene Kelly impersonation, much to the amusement of my son and the horror of a few innocent bystanders.

Luckily for us, the rain stopped while we were picking up the little one, so she got home good and dry, while we made it home a few soggy pounds heavier.

Fortunately it was only water weight, and that's relatively easy to take off.