Get it out there. Force the confrontation on these frankly absurd issues. Let’s talk and rave angrily and laugh about this garbage. If that’s in bad taste, so be it.

I’m with The New Yorker on this one. Desensitize the unspeakable by exposing it and making it speakable. Ridicule it. But Libby Spencer’s idea for ramming home the point — realized here by yours truly — is really great.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – An ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable.

Gons G. Nachman, 42, pleaded guilty in April to possessing child pornography after admitting that he had sex with 14- to 17-year-old girls while serving as a consular officer in Brazil and Congo and documenting the encounters in pictures and videos.

Nachman admitted that he had sex with two women whom he met in the visa application process, but he denied coercing them and he was never charged in the matter.

Perhaps the strangest twist in the case was Nachman’s request that the judge who will sentence him conduct a marriage ceremony for him and his 21-year-old Brazilian fiancee. He wanted to be married before sentencing since he doubted that he would be able to marry once transferred to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.

Excerpted from full story by Matthew Barakat, AP Writer

“This is a hard decision for me personally because, frankly, I don’t like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

–Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, wife of British banking financier Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild, interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°.

Go to full story on Rumproast

(Illustration by The New York Times; photo via Agence France-Presse)

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a point that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.”

Updated, 1:23 p.m., Agence France-Presse has retracted the image as “apparently digitally altered.”

Go to original in The New York Times

Early-Life Nutrition May Be Associated With Adult Intellectual Functioning

Media Contact: Ashante Dobbs adobbs2@emory.edu (404) 727-5692

Adults who had improved nutrition in early childhood may score better on intellectual tests, regardless of the number of years they attended school, according to a report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“Schooling is a key component of the development of literacy, reading comprehension and cognitive functioning, and thus of human capital,” says Aryeh D. Stein, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of global health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Research also suggests that poor nutrition in early life is associated with poor performance on cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) tests in adulthood.

“Therefore, both nutrition and early-childhood intellectual enrichment are likely to be important determinants of intellectual functioning in adulthood,” Stein says.
Read more »

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has declared that armed struggle in Latin America is essentially over. In the latest chapter of his complex mediation between left-wing guerrillas and the right-wing Colombian government, Chavez has asked the FARC guerrillas to lay down their arms and release all hostages “in exchange of nothing” — as a humanitarian gesture. To clarify the complex relations between FARC, Hugo Chavez, the Colombian government and the Bush administration, The Real News Network Analyst Pepe Escobar spoke to historian Forrest Hylton in New York.

Photograph by Anita Brown, 2008

One of my favorite discussion lists is book_arts-l, which serves the worldwide community of book artists, bookbinders, conservators, curators and other book people. Most of the threads are usually about technical matters, such as how long you can keep wheat paste, how to remove odors from old or damp books, and so on, but from time to time the nature of the book itself as an object rather than a reading experience comes under very thoughtful consideration.

For the past few days, the main topic has been the relevance of the book in the Internet age. You can see the full thread in the April archive .

The principal problem with digital books is technological obsolescence. I wrote a little about this in my book, “Mortality and Mercy on the Internet’s Pynchon-L@Waste.Org Discussion List,” published by Intangible Assets Manufacturing in 1997. Electronic media depend on reading devices that have changed with bewildering speed. Try accessing a wire recording, or even a document saved on a 5.25″ floppy. I have a complete book that I translated in 1989 on a 5.25″ floppy. I will need to pay to have it restored if I should need it again. The disk itself may not even be good any more.
Read more »

From The Ridiculous Business Jargon Dictionary

Do you wonder where your co-workers picked up all the ridiculous things they say? From fresh-faced interns to top management, everyone drops one of these gems occasionally. We can only hope that you’re not here to actually add these buzzwords to your vocabulary.

Al Desco adj. Describes any meal eaten at your desk (you have our sympathies if it’s dinner). “I slept in so I’m having breakfast Al Desco.”

Anticipointment n. The feeling that something didn’t live up to its hype.

Blamestorming v. Meeting to discuss a failure and find a scapegoat.

Deceptionist n. A receptionist whose job is actually to delay or block potential visitors. Ruthless with a polite, perfect smile.

Generica n. The parts of America that are so overrun with national franchises, that it’s impossible to tell one city from another.

Jargonaut n. A true master of ridiculous jargon, this individual has a ‘robust’ vocabulary, but none of it means anything.

Keepage n. The opposite of garbage.

Photox v. Improving the appearance of one’s face in a digital image using graphics software.

PowerPointless adj. Fancy graphics and animations in slide presentations that distract your audience instead of clarifying.

Putting socks on an octopus v. Attempting an impossible task. “Closing these latest prospects is like putting socks on an octopus.”

Rent-a-quote n. ‘Experts’ for hire that are prized for their ability to provide convincing sound-bites.

Spokesweasel n. A public relations agent. He usually possesses a remarkable gift for spin.

Stepford Worker n. An employee that has bought the corporate party line completely and become an unthinking clone. Surprisingly desirable in the business world.

Trustafarian n. A co-worker, typically a young intern, who is from a wealthy background but dresses like a bohemian stoner.

Yogurt cities n. Places that have an ‘active culture’, meaning a large number of museums, theaters, art galleries, etc.

Zerotasking v. Doing nothing.

How can you ‘leak’ an AP photo? 

Left, the National Examiner Feb. 4, 2008

Now it can be told. This truly absurd non-story is actually quite useful as an example of Clinton Rules, which Paul Krugman neatly summed up in February:
Hate Springs Eternal

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
There’s not the slightest shred of evidence that Clinton staff circulated the picture, but it is a fact that it was circulating on right wing sites previously. And even if some local Clinton dweeb in East Buttfuck, Texas, passed it along, nothing as yet links it to anyone with any executive power in the Clinton campaign. So all we have is the word of the notoriously ethical and reliable Matt Drudge. Compare the outrage over the anonymous sources in the New York Times story on McCain’s sleazy side. But when it comes to the Clintons, Drudge gets a complete pass. Read more »

For the record, a truly beautiful moment in American politics. It’s being called a concession speech, and maybe it is. If so, I fervently hope that Barack Obama delivers the goods. I worry that he has some still-undisclosed truly horrible bad stuff that will only come out after he gets the nomination. Maybe I am a simpleton, but I can’t understand why else Republicans like Peggy Noonan would be exhorting Democrats to nominate him.

Despite their smarmy enthusiasm, I think that what Ann Coulter has to say is far more revealing. They are convinced that real Americans won’t vote for a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. I’m sure there was a time when they would have been absolutely right about that. I am definitely not sure that they are right now.

What will George W. Bush’s place in history be? The worst president in United States history? No doubt about that. The man who set in stone the right wing control of the judiciary? Well, we’ll see. The man who did the most to set the stage for either a woman or a black man to become President of the United States? Hey. I’ll hoist a glass to that.

Cheers. It looks as if it’s going to be Denzel Washington (or Martha Stewart) versus Mr. McGoo. Even the blind can see the odds. The only thing we can’t calculate is what Karl Rove has up his sleeve.