The construct is not mine; you can thank Charles Dodgson for that.

Not that Hillary’s campaign bothered to thank him – my guess is they adopted the Mock Turtle’s curriculum strategy all by their brilliant selves. I mean, it does seem like it was tailor-made for the campaign they ran, doesn’t it?

`I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. `I only took the regular course.’

`What was that?’ inquired Alice.

`Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’

`I never heard of “Uglification,” Alice ventured to say. `What is it?’

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’

`Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: `it means – to – make – anything – prettier.’

`Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, `if you don’t know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.’

You’ve read, of course, the New York Times story from last week, yes? The one about how retired military officers were paid by the Pentagon to sell the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq by spewing administration propaganda to the “news” media?

It was a breathtaking and horrifying account of the lengths this administration will go to to lie to the American public so that certain people (not you and me) can get richer, and the level of disgrace that certain members of the military are willing to bring upon the uniform by prostituting themselves for an illegal war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

As I read the article, I thought of a snippet from a book I had read and re-read in high school:

[I]n the early 1960s, an interviewer was trying to get Ernest Hemingway to identify the characteristics required for a person to be a ‘great writer’. As the interviewer offered a list of various possibilities, Hemingway disparaged each in sequence. Finally, frustrated, the interviewer asked, ‘Isn’t there any one essential ingredient that you can identify?’ Hemingway replied, ‘Yes, there is. In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector.’

                   – Teaching as a Subversive Activity,

                     by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner

                     (excerpt; PDF file)

Do these people have no shame?

The LA Times is reporting that the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles has been trying to ring up impressive numbers – by having his prosecutors going after, well, parking violators:

The disgruntled prosecutors in Los Angeles say they are now spending an exorbitant amount of time working on less significant cases — mail theft, smaller drug offenses and illegal immigration — to reach quotas. They cited the recent disbanding of the office’s public integrity and environmental crimes section, a unit with a history of working on complex police corruption and political corruption cases, as evidence of a shift toward high-volume, low-quality prosecutions . . .

Talk about burying the lede. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada refused to prosecute a Pentagon procurement scandal last year – a scandal which involved (mirabile dictu!) President George Bush. The Pentagon’s Inspector General, which just two weeks ago found serious problems with the testing and procurement of billions of dollars of body armor contracts, looked into the awarding of a $50 million contract to Strategic Message Solutions, a company that, as the Post says, “barely existed” (all emphases added):  

[I]nvestigators concluded that [Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen M.] Goldfein and others worked inside the Air Force contracting system to favor SMS and its owners, despite an offer by the company that was more than twice as expensive as another bid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…

Rationale

The reasons for Nacht und Nebel were many:

   * First, distinct complaints by other governments or humanitarian organizations against the German government were made far more difficult because the exact cause of internment or death, indeed whether or not the event had even occurred, was obscured. It kept the Nazis from being held accountable.

   * The decree and hidden events afforded the Nazis the ability to act cruelly and unjustly without public outcry.

   * It allowed an across-the-board, silent veto of international treaties and conventions: one cannot apply the limits and terms of humane treatment in war if one cannot locate the victim or discern his destiny.

   * Additionally, it lessened the moral qualms and confrontations of the German public as well as that of servicemen, in an agreed and/or ignorant silence.

wapo editorial sept 06

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

the actual decree

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ava…

http://www.historyplace.com/wo…

keitel letter

Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved . . . by measures by which the relatives of the criminals do not know the fate of the criminal. The prisoners are, in future, to be transported . . . secretly, and further treatment of the offenders will take place at the new destination]; these measures will have a deterrent effect because – A. The prisoners will vanish without a trace. B. No information may be given as to their whereabouts or their fate.Prisoners taken . . . are subjected to military procedure only if particular military interests require this. In case [any authorities inquire about such prisoners, they are to be told that they were arrested, but that the proceedings do not allow any further information.

http://www.shoaheducation.com/…

The Olympic Games have been the scene of several high-profile political statements over the past three-quarters of a century. Take a look at these photos and see which ones made an impact:

Quality, as it relates to journalism, and the inclusion of people like John Yoo and Doug Feith on the faculties of major universities

New diary: Hillary has a hidden strategy to win the general election

Talk about the electoral College.  Do some research to see how those electors are pledged.  Compare and contrast that with Hillary’s declared intentions about pledged delegates.

New diary: the fact is, not conspiracy, defeat Hillary

Discuss how the fact of Mark Penn’s work for Columbia, as opposed to the lie about old bomb is involvement with the Canadians, worked against her.  Similarly, discuss how the fact of her Bosnia sniper story proved to be so inconvenient; also, the story about NAFTA and North American Free Trade Agreement.  Also, the story that she opposed the Iraq war before old mama did.  Also, the fact of her fund-raising shortfalls.  Also, the fact of her poor decision-making surrounding her campaign, undercutting her “experience” and “judgment” strategies.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this issue over the past two-plus years:

The Army can’t be sure some of its body armor met safety standards, partly because it didn’t do proper paperwork on initial testing of the protective vests, a Defense Department audit said.