Internal Monologue

The defense contracting cycle in a nutshell: But the NMD pork-in-space project is far from exceptional. Seeking fat contracts, the big defense companies give donations to those politicians who will pay them back by commissioning expensive defense projects; the contractors then reward the politicians by locating their firms in their districts; finally the voters, glad of the jobs, reward the politicians by reelecting them. Johnson offers dozens of examples, including Florida's Democratic senator Bill Nelson, a member of the Armed Services Committee, who in the 2006 federal budget "obtained $916 million for defense projects, about two-thirds of which went to the Florida-based plants of Boeing, Honeywell, General Dynamics, Armor Holdings, and other munitions makers." Since 2003, Nelson has received $108,750 in campaign contributions from thirteen companies for which he arranged contracts. It's a cycle perpetuated by everyone involved: contractors, politicians, voters. Ev

A portrait of the author as Kendilla, in the MMORPG Anarchy Online circa 2004. From the old guild page , which inexplicably is still up. In various virtual worlds, cute girls get offered more help, money helps you get ahead despite efforts to stop it, and people strive for status among their peers...sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? It makes you want to ask: why pay $9.95 a month when I can get all that for free in the real world? Of course, in a virtual world, I could be a cute girl (I was for a while...it was SO MUCH FUN...but no time for MMORPGs these days.) Here's a discussion of how reality is invading virtual worlds (HT: Sullivan ): But today, when the games are beginning to reach a mass market in more and more countries, and the research into what actually happens in these virtual worlds has become more extensive, two things have become much clearer: the virtual world has several behaviour patterns in common with the real world, and the dynamic on the part of the

I didn't report on this yesterday, because the reports I saw were contradictory. But I guess if the New York Times is running with it, I can't be blamed too much for mentioning it. (Witness the herd effect!) This is one of those very bad possibilities that has been looming for some time: Iraqi and American officials got a jolt late in the day when reports emerged suggesting that Turkish forces had begun a long-threatened incursion into northern Iraq to hunt Kurdish guerrillas who stage attacks inside Turkey. The reports, attributed to Turkish military officials, said thousands of soldiers crossed the border in pursuit of members of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or P.K.K. American and Turkish officials quickly denied the reports. Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, also said in a telephone interview that while a large force of Turkish troops remained massed on the border, none had crossed into Iraq. “There hasn’t been any Turkish military incursion or operation inside

Retired Gen. George Washington Criticizes Bush's Handling Of Iraq War WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Revolutionary War veteran noted that while Hussein was a tyrant, that alone did not justify a "conflict that seems without design or end." Via Cheers and Jeers on DailyKos .

Atrios posted this again , so why shouldn't I, even though I've done so already . If you ever need to remind yourself to be skeptical of what you hear in the media, just take another look at this TIME cover.

Here's more info on Holsinger , the guy Bush has nominated to be Surgeon General . Apparently, anal sex really freaks him out: And today, the Human Rights Campaign released a document Holsinger authored in 1991 as a member of the United Methodist Church's Committee to Study Homosexuality. Titled Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality , Holsinger's religious tract-cum-scientific paper is a fascinating window into the perverse imagination of homophobia. In essence, Holsinger argues that male-female "reproductive systems are fully complementary" because "anatomically the vagina is designed to receive the penis." The remainder of his paper is a graphic account of the "delicate" rectum which is "incapable" of "protection" if "objects that are large, sharp, or pointed are inserted" into it. From there Holsinger continues to discuss what he imagines are the pains (and pleasures?) of anal sex, from "fist fornication&

I guess Sullivan was as horrified by this story about a woman's experience in Saudi Arabia as I was. He posted this video in retaliation against all cultures that force women to be veiled: Morphing is still pretty cool, even though it's been around for a while.