(no subject)

I finally got some artwork that I've been waiting and waiting for at work and I loved it so I got to squee a bit this morning. I like to start the day with a squee.

Got some crafting worked on last night only to look at the project, note that I'd added a row backwards somehow right at the beginning, *facepalm*. It is one of the worst feelings in crafting, "Ha ha! I did it, look how much progress...wait, what the-? Oh fuck me." Then one enters the 3 stages of crafting grief: a heartfelt sigh and additional cursing, the dithering over whether or not one can justify said mistake as "artistic license", and finally the inevitable acceptance that one must rip out said mistake and do it over properly.

Despite this I keep telling myself I have months and months before Xmas and at least one long vacation that can be devoted solely to crafting if need be. I also need to get into some serious Xmas shopping soon, the only problem being the lack of space in my apartment. I'll think about that later.

Tonight, a bit of crafting and then class, tomorrow doctor's appointment and Lost.

A made woman

Digby chimes in with a few words of wisdom on the Miers nomination:

The Bush administration is about setting up the legal and institutional framework for a Republican majority for the next generation. That is Karl Rove's raison d'etre, beyond Junior, beyond conservatism, beyond ideology.

Harriet Miers is the official machine justice, a made woman, the one whose only committment and loyalty will be to Karl Rove and George Bush. I'm sure they would have preferred Alberto Gonzales but he is too much of a known quantity to easily finesse the varying political requirements within the base. She will do just fine. She is their creature. Her purpose on the court is to assist the Republican party in any way necessary, not to advance conservatism.

Voting for business interests is, of course, a given. Now the Texas mafia and the spawn of the college Republicans have their own seat on the highest court in the land for the next 20 years. But having one on the court for the next 10 years is crucial. With the election fixing, gerrymandering, corruption and executive power cases coming before the court over the next few years, her position will be very important to the GOP machine. It may very well be personally important to Karl Rove himself. (One hopes that the Democratic senators will, at least, take the PR opportunity to extract a bunch of public statements from her that she will recuse herself if and when specific criminal cases involving big name Republicans she's worked with come before the court.)

It's important to recognize, finally, what Karl Rove and the Bush administration, with the help of the modern Republican apparatus under Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed is all about. They are building a political machine, not a political movement. I find it very amusing that the right wing "intellectuals," from their ivory tower think tanks and millionaire supported sinecures at political magazines, have still failed to recognize that.

BSG-a-thon

So tamago has expressed an interest in being introduced to the glory that is the new Battlestar Galactica and we've talked about doing a marathon (like the Dr. Who-a-thon). My question to the locals is, who'd be interested, and what times would you suggest? I'm thinking maybe a couple of consequtive weekends in November might work best, but suggestions would be very welcome.

Hat tip to the rude one

The Rude Pundit's take on the Wingers backlash against the Miers nomination:

'Cause, even though, and, c'mon, the chances of Harriet Miers being some lefty who's been playin' rope-a-dope with George W. Bush since the 1990s are about the same as Donald Rumsfeld admitting an error, it's a blast to watch conservatives go ballistic that Bush didn't nominate Johnny Fuckyerrights, a Pepperdine-educated ideologue who has personally beaten a "confession" out of a "terrorist" and then shoved aborted fetuses back into wombs after chainsawing down an old growth forest just to make a single copy of a book on intelligent design that can be sold by Halliburton at a thousand-fold mark-up to poor school districts forced by law to teach it. And, what the fuck, he's black.

Here's the National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru (which, strangely, is also the name of the Rude Pundit's favorite Sri Lankan dish) on CNN's Newsnight last night: "I think it's a missed opportunity for the president to nominate somebody and get them confirmed who's a solid conservative with a track record and a known quantity, who has given us some evidence that she's thought seriously about the role of the judiciary in our society." Ponnuru (which is also the Rude Pundit's favorite Kama Sutra position) said that, as William Kristol commented, conservatives are "demoralized."

And then Ponnuru joined the party liberals have been having for about, let's say, four and a half years now: "[T]he argument that the administration making is, this was a good decision because the president made it and the president makes good decisions. And that might be enough for a monarchy, but it's plainly not a persuasive argument in a democratic system." Which used to be called "questioning a President at a time of war" or "treasonous" or some such shit when it was the rest of us who asked Bush to actually persuade us that he's right. Hey, National Review, welcome back to America - now why don't you help clean up the fuckin' mess you made?