Internal Monologue

Warning: Six Feet Under Spoilers OK, Sullivan and his reader seem to have a very different reaction to the last scene of the last episode of Six Feet Under than I did. In the final part of the last episode, there's a very extended sequence where they show the death of every single character who hasn't died already. Here's the reader reaction: I watched the finale of the show, which ended on that clip, and was floored - moved to despairing tears. These few minutes capture the inevitability of death, both the point and pointlessness of life, and the crushing surprise and lingering despair caused by death for survivors. If they handed out Oscars and Emmys for scenes, this deserved both. And Sullivan adds: "It's TV at its best". I beg to differ. I found that final sequence to be bordering on slapstick. So did my wife. It's the most maudlin, schmaltzy, steaming pile of emotional crap I've seen on television in a long time. In fact, I think it deserve

Grishnash in the comment section of a previous post: I think I may be able to explain the differences in reported magnitudes. As far as I can tell the South Koreans are using the 1-second Lg body wave calculation based on the Nuttli method. That's a good method for a moderate earthquake on your continent, but I don't know how well it works for a nuke. USGS is using Gutenberg-Richter body wave method as authoritative, which is obviously picking up a higher value for this test. Here are quick notes from what the USGS says the seismometers saw (from this site ): Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang, China (MDJ) recorded it first and computed a local (Richter 1935 method) magnitude of 4.2, a duration magnitude of 5.0, and a Nuttli method magnitude 3.8. The duration magnitude isn't useful (and the USGS discarded it) because this was not an earthquake, so the usual duration relationships don't apply. Inchon, South Korea (INCN) came up with 4.1 by Richter 1935 method, and 3.7 by

This diary on Kos looks at the seismic data and has a nice diagram of how a plutonium-based bomb works. (It's pretty hard to do.) It seems to say that the test "fizzled"; a fizzle being a nuclear detonation in which the compression didn't go exactly as planned and a lot of the plutonium got blasted away rather than compressed into the critical mass. We should have some expert opinion coming in on Internal Monologue soon!

The latest USA Today poll is bad news for the Republicans (HT: Sullivan ): WASHINGTON — Four weeks before congressional elections, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows Democrats hold a 23-point lead over GOP candidates. That's double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994. President Bush's approval rating was 37%, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. The approval rating for Congress was 24%, down 5 points from last month. This Kos post looks at several polls, all of which show Bush below 40%. It'll be interesting to see the reaction from the Korean nuclear test. I've read some both on the left and right who think this is going to give Bush a "security bounce", but I doubt it. People don't trust the Republicans on security anymore, and this test shows the failure of Bush's policies and makes the Iraq war look like even more of a blunder.

It is very insulting to be lied to so blatantly . Greewald: As Think Progress documented , at some point during the day on Friday, the GOP decided to go on television and tell an outright lie -- namely, that when Denny Hastert learned the previous Friday about the IMs exchanged between Mark Foley and Congressional pages (as a result of the ABC story), Hastert delivered an ultimatum to Foley: either resign or be expelled. Thereafter, so the new GOP mythology claimed, Foley resigned. This story is complete fiction. It never happened. It was just made up by Republican operatives in order to defend Denny Hastert and make him look like some sort of hard-nosed, no-nonsense tough guy who took extraordinary steps against Mark Foley. But there is no doubt that this never happened, and anyone who is saying that it did is, by definition, lying -- and is lying clearly and demonstrably. A lot of journalism in this country seems to be broken. I remember a college friend of mine who was doing extrem

This test has humiliated China, which has recently spent a good deal of diplomatic effort to dissuade North Korea from going forward with the test. Will they now consider pulling the plug on fuel and food shipments? This Newsweek article starts to ask some of the questions. Of course, I wonder what the Bush administration will do. But I don't think they're in as much of a position to do anything as China. And of course one wonders about the American political fallout. Obviously, this is a huge failure for Bush's policies. But of course they'll try to spin it as a reason to stay in power. Just a thought: is there a possibility that N. Korea is bluffing about this? Maybe they just set off a huge amount of conventional explosives underground. But people seem to think this is the real thing.

This just in...I don't know much yet. Via this diary on Kos , we have this MSNBC story : SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Monday it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test, setting off an underground blast in defiance of international warnings and intense diplomatic activity aimed at heading off such a move. U.S. and South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the North Korean report but the U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a seismic event with a preliminary magnitude of 4.2 in northeastern North Korea that coincided with the country’s announced nuclear test. UPDATE: see Grishnash in the comments; he thinks it's consistent with a nuclear detonation.