BuzzMachine

Tom Ridge is a dork
: How many ways can we call the guy a dysfunctional idiot? His continuing refusal to testify before Congress is a mark of stupidity, cowardice, and bureaucracy.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge stood firm Sunday in his refusal to testify before Congress about the White House’s anti-terrorism budget, saying his appearance would violate the constitution’s separation of powers.

Dork.

Speaking of dorks
: Tom Cruise is one, too.

Fly Naked
: Daniel Taylor resurrects my Fly Naked campaign — it being preferable to flying clothed but being exposed in those new X-ray machines that should have been invented by a teenage Woody Allen.

The sound of silence
: I think I’ve been quite tasteful avoiding punchlines about Lady Thatcher being forbidden to speak in public anymore because of her health. I’ll continue my stretch of virtue if for no other reason than that the punchlines are all so obvious.

And this week, David Warren writes:

Baroness Thatcher was taken ill this past week, and I’ve been asked to write her obituary as a precaution. (This isn’t it.) I happily agree to most such assignments, for when I write an advance obituary, the subject invariably survives; lives so many years that my essay is eventually lost in the files. I attribute the longevity of Ronald Reagan, the Pope, and the Queen Mother, to the obituaries I wrote of them back in the ‘nineties. On the other hand, I now deeply regret having written an obituary of Osama bin Laden.

Tacky tourism II
: Below, I lampoon Californians for turning Ground Zero into a tourist attraction. But it turns out New York is not above the sin, witness this NY Times story:

he destruction of the World Trade Center has emerged as a powerful selling point for New York City, invoked again and again over the last six months to make the case that big events like the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards ceremony and a proposed joint meeting of Congress all belong in New York….

The argument goes like this: Bringing an event like the Super Bowl to New York City will stimulate tourism and help the city and the country recover; it will be an expression of solidarity with New Yorkers; it will strike a blow against terrorism; it will enable visitors to share in the New York spirit.

The case being made is striking in its appeal, in part, to sympathy for the purpose of drumming up tourist business. It appears to link notions of patriotism and civic duty to things like hotel bookings. It centers for once not on the glamour of New York, but on its most tragic moment.

Supporting New York is good. Exploiting this tragedy is not.

An improper memorial
: I agree with the NY Times editorial yesterday that came out against a New York State holiday on Sept. 11:

Relieving people of work does not necessarily move their thoughts in a desired direction…. Few people caught up in Memorial Day traffic bestir themselves to remember the Union’s Civil War dead.”

I cannot stand the idea of workers and schoolchildren thinking, “Oh, good, it’s Sept. 11: That means a day off!”

That date should not mean a day off or anything happy. That date should mean solemn remembrance.

The towers
: Paul Morris at Killing the Buddha writes a striking essay on the towers-of-light memorial at the World Trade Center. [via wood s lot]

He doesn’t like the memorial; he says the lights that matter are the flood lights shining “down to the scorched earth, where heads bow in prayer and bend in toil.” He adds:

Don’t be fooled; nothing has been restored. What you see is what you get, a skyline without substance, a tribute that lacks soul. You can find better replicas of the towers from any vendor on the street.

Even so, Morris has many poetic and memorable visions of the towers of light:

You’d be forgiven if, after 9/11, you thought you’d never crane your neck to look that high up again, because there it is, against all gods, a great Babel tower siphoning the light of stars barely visible above lower Manhattan. It’s as though the flood lamps huddling around ground zero suddenly looked up one by one to create an ethereal halo in the sky….

When dust from the debris removal drifts west and enters the columns, the heat from the bulbs forces it to rise and the towers become a swirl of particles. The effect of watching their ascension is dizzying. At a certain spot in the sky difficult to determine, the columns of light begin to destabilize. They seem almost to be tipping, leaning into each other for support while simultaneously buckling outward….

Nearing midnight, Con Edison cuts the juice and the towers collapse. This time they fall in reverse, as the lights that created them shoot like twin rockets reaching escape velocity. And then they’re gone. Again.

Night after night, the towers are extinguished this way, over and over as midnight approaches. And day after day, they are rebuilt anew, photon by photon — today, tomorrow, and the next after that in a series of power surges embraced by a city impatient to heal.

I like the towers of light. But he’s right: It’s because I’m part of a city impatient to heal. Well said.

Terror tourism
: The LA Times runs a tourism guide to Ground Zero. Tasteless Californians. [via Victory Coffee]

Privacy? Crap!
: The most overused, panicky, paranoid buzzword of the last decade is “privacy.”

Privacy paranoia dogs the Internet. Somehow, it became a sin to use evil cookies to target ads on free Web pages. Y’know, if the New York Times uses its registration data to know that I am male so it doesn’t waste an impression selling a feminine hygiene product tp me, that’s just fine. If Amazon uses my buying history to recommend books I might like, that’s a service. If a smart supermarket learns that people who buy beef buy more ketchup and they sell that data to Heinz, good for them. No harm done.

Now the privacy bugaboo monster is being brought to bear to harm our efforts against terrorism. That’s not only stupid. It’s dangerous.

The feds are planning to put surveillance cameras on national monuments in Washington and suddenly, the amorphous club of “privacy advocates” is whining in stories in the Washington Post and NY Times). “It is becoming more evident that Congress may have to step in and ensure that this technology does not take away our right to be left alone,” Rep. Constance A. Morella (R-Md.) said in the Post.

What a bunch of crap! There is no privacy issue here.

First, this is public property. Cops could be standing there watching what you’re doing. Photographers could legally record what you’re doing and air it because you’re doing it publicly. I could watch what you do and tell the world. You don’t have privacy in public.

Second, and far more important, these monuments are likely targets of terrorists. It is a vital necessity of national security to watch and record what happens there so we can perhaps prevent an attack or at least catch the terrorists in the act.

For self-appointed privacy whiners to stand in the way of this is not only stupid, it is obstructing our national security.

I can’t quite grok the ideology of privacy panic. Sometimes, it comes from PC liberals like the frightening Ed Markey; sometimes it comes from libertarians and right-wing government-haters. And the media too often just accept this whining without questioning the wisom or logic or simple common sense of it. No matter: It’s time to call this privacy whining what it is: Stupid.

Yesterday, I had FoxNews on my office TV and watched the high-speed chase du jour — not the dump truck chase, that was Thursday’s high-speed chase, but Friday’s high-speed chase with copters — news and police copters — chasing a bozo in Florida as he drove nowhere and then got out of his car and ran. All the while, those copters kept him in sight, even zooming in on him in the backyard of a house; you could practically read the brand name on his dorky shorts. And I thought: Damn, I wish we could bring this technology — this wonderful, Big Brother technology — to catch criminals other than idiot dorks in fast cars.

I wish we had more surveillance cameras to catch the murderer who dropped anthrax in mailboxes.

The anthrax connection
: Here’s new evidence that the hijackers could have been behind the anthrax attacks. The NY Times reports today that one of the hijackers on the Pennsylvania jet was treated for a skin lesion that the doctor and other experts now believe was anthrax. The doctor in Ft. Lauderdale, Christos Tsonas, reported this to the FBI in October; it’s coming out only now, thanks to a Johns Hopkins report that says this “raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were the perpetrators of the anthrax letter attacks.” Now add this:

Dr. Tsonas’s comments add to a tantalizing array of circumstantial evidence. Some of the hijackers, including Mr. Alhaznawi, lived and attended flight school near American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., where the first victim of the anthrax attacks worked. Some of the hijackers also rented apartments from a real estate agent who was the wife of an editor of The Sun, a publication of American Media.

In addition, in October, a pharmacist in Delray Beach, Fla., said he had told the F.B.I. that two of the hijackers, Mohamad Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, came into the pharmacy looking for something to treat irritations on Mr. Atta’s hands….

For his part, Dr. Tsonas said he believed that the hijackers probably did have anthrax.

“What were they doing looking at crop-dusters?” he asked, echoing experts’ fears that the hijackers may have wanted to spread lethal germs. “There are too many coincidences.”

But that’s not all, folks. The Times also reports today that we’ve found a biological warfare lab in Afghanistan being built to product anthrax.

I have long believed that the anthrax attacks came from the foreign terrorists — not that I know anything; I’m just another blathering blogger. But I fear that the FBI has been chasing domestic geese when they should have been looking for foreign connections that can still do more damage here with anthrax or with dirty radioactive bombs or just with suicide bombs.

Rocky binBoa
: The apparent ring-leader of the gang that murdered Washington Post reporter Daniel Pearl laughed in court as he was charged with the crime. The Times of London reported on the scumbucket’s youth in Britain with a particulary strange tidbit about his idol:

Former schoolmates in London described Omar Sheikh as a bully who constantly sought attention. As a teenager he would lie about his age so that he could enter arm-wrestling contests with younger opponents. The sport became an obsession after he saw his idol, Sylvester Stallone, arm-wrestling in the film Over the Top, and Omar would tour pubs in the East End of London, winning money in local contests.

What he said
: Ken Layne said it before I did: The “demonstrators” from Anderson “protesting” in favor of the company look like Scientologists: “the same empty slogans, glazed eyes and sweaty fear.”

They also look doughy, too white, and more boring and nerdy than even an accountant should look. They’re not doing themselves any PR favor here. I wouldn’t trust them. Would you?

Burgers sted burqas
: I don’t know why but I’m writing about trivial, meaningless things today — burgers, dogs, Dave Letterman, and the most meaningless of all, Liza Minelli — instead of important things like war and terrorism and mourning and molestation. Feels good.

Burgers
: I’m jealous of Ken Layne and Matt Welch for many things (and they’re probably jealous of me for one thing: a paying job). I’m jealous of their weather, their cameraderie, their books… but mostly I’m jealous of their ability to dash out and meet at In-N-Out Burger or Fat Burger. And I’m jealous of their ability to eat burgers. I used to eat burgers practically every day; I had personal relationships with my neighborhood McDonald’s staff. But then I (a) got married and (b) got my cholesterol tested. I got old. Well, older.

So now I eat chicken sandwiches (no mayo).

Feel pity for me.

But that’s why I’m happy that Burger King just introduced its BK Veggie. Howard Stern and company made fun of it this morning. But I say it’s not so bad. It’s much better than McDonald’s veggie burger (sold in a few places in New York). McD makes the big mistake of trying to make vegetables into meat; they miss and turn them into rubber. Burger King, on the other hand, lets veggies be veggies. Their burger isn’t afraid to be nutty, even crunchy. It’s unashamed to show the random carrot bit. And they put low-fat mayo on it.

That made me happy.

And when I’m really old and lose all my teeth, I’ll also like it because it’s good gumming food.

With those pathetic caveats in mind, I recommend the BK Veggie.

I should add that I don’t like the BK Veggie as much as my current fast-food fave: the grilled-stuffed burrito (chicken, of course, not beef) at Taco Bell.

Now I know that Layne and Welch will make fun of me for that because they can go down the street and get real burritos from real burrito stands. But I don’t live in L.A. I live in New Jersey, where pasta is the official state food. A restaurant without pasta is soon to be an empty storefront.

But mark my words, boys: You, too, will get old or older. You will find hair growing in your ears and plaque in your arteries. You, too, will lead such a dull life that your day can be brightened by the arrival of a new veggie burger.

Thank God I can still drink.

Man bites man
: Ever since I started running, I’ve developed a new relationship to dogs. I now fear them. They now hate me. I don’t know why; do they presume guilt of some dog law because we’re running (and in my case, not very fast)? Do they think I look dorky in my running togs (I do… but, hell, they’re just dogs)? Whatever, they tend to want to attack me and a few times have.

So I’m glad to see the dog verdict in California. Sure, that was extreme. But I plan to wave it in front of every irresponsible dog owner on my route: Controlling your animal is your responsiblity.

Conan/Dave… Conan/Dave…
: Conan O’Brien is getting his show repeated on cable at a civilized hour (6 or 7p and noon on Comedy Central). I repeat: That’s what CBS should be doing with Dave Letterman. How about 7-8p on VH-1? They could use the boost.

Liza OD
: Rex Reed (who better) reports on Liza’s wedding [via Amy Welborn]:

I

Airline slugfest
: Hmmm, is that an Irish name?

: See also the Happy Fun Pundit’s lesson in statistics and ethnicity.

The dreaded Afghan springtime
: Remember when we were told that winter in Afghanistan would be a killer, assuring us a quagmire?

Now we’re supposed to dread the melting snows of springtime.The Guardian:

American military and intelligence chiefs are bracing themselves for an upsurge in guerrilla-style attacks from al-Qaida and Taliban forces in Afghanistan when the snows melt in a few weeks time.

As concern continued to grow among British backbench MPs of a possible “mission creep” in Afghanistan, the CIA director, George Tenet, warned that al-Qaida terrorists were poised to step up their activities following the spring thaw.

We advance from guagmire to “mission-creep.”

I dread that Afghan summer.

A holy alliance
: This is how bad it is for the Catholic Church: Andrew Sullivan, Maureen Dowd, and Howard Stern all agree about what’s wrong with the institution. They all say that the fundamental fault in the church is that it excludes and mistreats women.

Here’s Dowd, going about 10 miles too far, trying to blame every sin in society on men (which, by the way, I do resent; she is guilty of mistersogeny):

A monsoon of sickening stories lately illustrates how twisted societies become when women are either never seen, dismissed as second-class citizens or occluded by testosterone: the church subsidizing pedophilia; the Afghan warlords’ resumption of pedophilia; the Taliban obliteration of women; the brotherhood of Al Qaeda and Mohamed Atta’s mysogynistic funeral instructions; the implosion of the macho Enron Ponzi scheme; the repression of women, even American servicewomen, by our allies the Saudis.

Here’s Sullivan:

…it seems to me that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is the root of the problem. None of this hideous abuse of children would have occurred in the same way if women were fully a part of the institution. Not only would they have blown the whistle on some of this evil, their very presence would have helped prevent it from happening. There is simply no profound theological reason for the exclusion of women from ecclesiastical power, nothing but the inheritance of a patriarchal anachronism that is suffocating the Church from its apex to its roots. No church can exclude half of humanity from its sacred offices without denying the fundamental dignity and equality of the human person.

And here, with characteristic brevity and bluntness and wisdom, is Stern:

The burqa is no different from the habit.

dot.con
: I reserved my copy of Ken Layne’s novel, previously unavailable Up Over. Have you?

: Tim Blair capitalizes Up Over, so now I will, too.

Dead weight
: A NASA guy tells Space.com that we can and should take a journey to the nearest star, which would take at least 43 years and necessitate breeding the next generation of space cadets on board since the trip (and return) would take longer than a life

Landis has even suggested sending out crews consisting only of women to save on weight, replacing men with frozen sperm to ensure reproduction later down the line.

Like I didn’t feel useless already.

His church
: Andrew Sullivan has a personal, honest, painful, and wise post today on his fears for his church:

…It seems to me that something far more profound is happening to the Church than its leaders now recognize. This is big. The horror any decent person should feel at the brutal exploitation of children in the Church