What does the rock know
This comes to us via the skeptical PZ Meyers at Pharyngula.

Does a stone carving in one of Rome’s biggest cathedrals know whether Pope John Paul II will survive his latest health crisis?

The monument to Pope Sylvester II, who ruled the Catholic Church 1,000 years ago, is said to moisten when the death of a pontiff is imminent.

On Friday, a priest touched the carving in Rome’s Basilica of Saint John Lateran and confirmed it was dry — good news for the pope, who had windpipe surgery Thursday after being rushed to the hospital with breathing problems.

Let's be perfectly clear about this: rocks do not have the power of prophecy. Oh, sure, they'll tell you they do, but they're lying. They just make stuff up that they think you want to hear. As soon as the rock gets a few lucky guesses, people start running in circles saying "oooh, what an amazing rock. It can tell the future." They don't remember all of the times the stupid rock was wrong. People are so gullible.

How to be a good sport
I am neither a big fan of Hallie Berry nor a professional Berry basher. Still, this caught me eye as a class act.

George W. Bush won the "Razzie" worst actor of the year award on Saturday for his performance as president in "Fahrenheit 9/11" but his moment in Hollywood's dubious spotlight was eclipsed by Halle Berry, who actually turned up to receive her embarrassing accolade.

Berry was named worst actress of 2004 by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation for her performance in "Catwoman" and she showed up to accept her "Razzie" carrying the Oscar she won in 2002 for "Monster's Ball."

"They can't take this away from me, it's got my name on it!" she quipped. A raucous crowd cheered her on as she gave a stirring recreation of her Academy Award acceptance speech, including tears.

She thanked everyone involved in "Catwoman," a film she said took her from the top of her profession to the bottom.

"I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit," she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him "next time read the script first."

It's also a good career move to endear herself to her detractors and keep the spotlight even after making a stinker of a movie.

Over at The Poorman, the comments on this story include Don Henley managing almost the exact same stunt.

Carnival of Bad History, issue #1
It's finally here, our first issue!! It's not as big as I had hoped, but it is the first issue, and it will grow.

Orac at Respectful Insolence how he came to take on the ultimate in bad history. The title tells all: "Musings on the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz: How I discovered Holocaust denial." It is a sensitive and moving glimpse into a battle that rages over the internet every day.

Most of us, if we have heard of Trofim Lysenko, know him only as a Stalinist characture. Lysenko was a Soviet biologist who pushed some outdated theory of genetics, based on Marxist ideology and managed to single-handedly cause a famine. But how many of us cam detail that theory and place it within its history of science context. Coturnix looks at his book collection and gives us a lesson in what Lysenko believed, how he argued it, and even manages to find an occasional nice thing to say about him.

Jonathan Dresner of Cliopatria showed the kind of enthusiasm we like to see. He sent us not one, not two, but three contributions.

Contribution number one he calls his personal favorite from last year, a "whack at the Marco Polo myth." What is the myth? The idea that Polo ever made it all the way to China.

Contribution number two finds a childish myth embedded in the President's second inaugural address.

Contribution number three takes aim at a historically trained neo-con's fantasy and holes it below the waterline. He also gives us some tasty folk music to wash down our history lesson.

Finally, my own contribution is actually an old post that I republished last month as an example of the kind of thing I had in mind for the carnival and just because I like insulting what passes for intellectual honesty among our leaders. Condi and Rummy tell us about the German Werewolf program, but their explanation fits better in a Captain America comic book than a peer reviewed history book.

And that's it. Our first issue has been short but sweet. Many people who expressed interest in the idea of bad history also expressed some shyness that their work was not good enough. Nonsense, truth is not the exclusive property those who lucky enough to be paid to pursue it. This week I'm going out recruiting posts and I won't take no for an answer.

Issue #2 will be out on the ides of March. I'll also be hosting that issue here at archy, but Alan gets to write it.

Of oosiks and blog traffic
PZ Meyers has an interesting post on the evolution of the penis (really!). It seems the penis has evolved several times in amniotes (a group that includes mammals) and, more alarmingly, devolved and disappeared at least once. Meyers talks about the tissue and hydraulics, but leaves out the bone structure. Yes, some mammals have penis bones. I assume the adaptation is for speed. The penis bone is kept in the abdomen and, when needed, a set of muscles push it into a sheath in the fleshy part of the penis. Sliding a bone into and out of a sheath is much faster than waiting for the hydraulics to kick in and limits the time spent mating, which is, after all, vulnerable position.

This is a picture of the gavel that we had made for my father when he was the master of a Masonic lodge in Anchorage. The head is a piece of walrus tusk ivory and the handle is an oosik, a walrus or seal penis bone. As oosiks go, this is small one (about 20 cm long). I have seen walrus oosiks as big as a human femur.



Just for the record, the ivory was purchased from a licensed native craftsman, and this was before export restrictions began. Quite a few lodges in Alaska and Washington have gavels like this among their memorabilia. It's a joke that never gets old. I doubt as if you could get one of these any more.

If this post doesn't up my traffic, I don't know what will. I am, of course posting this, purely in the interests of science.

Bad tactics and good
Senator Jon Corzine (NJ-D) has sent a letter to the White House demanding that Bush denounce the attacks on AARP by USA Next. The USA Next campaign is despicable and Bush has both the power and responsibility to make them stop, but I still have mixed feelings about the tactical usefulness of making demands like this.

In recent years these sorts of demands for apologies and/or denunciations have become commonplace. In some cases the responsibility is well placed and the demands are perfectly valid. But more often the whole business is an exercise in political theater. Democrats and Republicans, liberals, libertarians and conservatives, are all responsible for creating this state of affairs.

The ongoing Ward Churchill brou-ha-ha is a perfect example. Churchill made some rather disgusting statements that implied that all of the workers at the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns" who deserved to die. Immediately, various conservative operatives seized on Churchill's statements as a weapon to bludgeon their various enemies: liberals, Democrats, and/or academia. They demanded that their targets repudiate Churchill. Why should anyone respond? Churchill is not a spokesman for the Democratic Party. I haven't seen any evidence that even votes Democratic. His statements were not made to benefit the Democrats or support a Democratic issue. The Democrats have no responsibility for Churchill and little ability to control what he says (outside of joining a lynch mob). The same argument holds true for liberalism and the academic establishment.

A secondary aspect of the whole charade is the fact that the demands for apologies and/or denunciations so often come from people who have no standing. The best example of this is both sides hypersensitivity to any hint of racism, classism, anti-Semitism, or sexism by their opponents. How often can we listen to white, wealthy, protestant males express shock and demand apologies for the racial/class/religious/gender insensitivity of other white, wealthy, protestant males and care? In time this silly game of gotcha has the effect of numbing our sensitivity to real racism, classism, anti-Semitism, and sexism.

The reason for making these demands are patently cynical and political. Whether or not the target responds to the demand, the association between the target and the condemned action gets to be made in public (in this case Democrats and Churchill's words). Cynical overuse of this tactic has drained it of any functionality when it really is valid. Corzine's call for the White House to denounce USA Next is just another bit of political noise for most people. The overuse of the tactic relativises all such calls in the public mind. they all look alike. The public looses the ability to discern between valid calls and cynical calls and truly bad behavior gains the protective color of public apathy.

USA Next's ads really are despicable and the White House really does have the ability and responsibility to stop them. The Swift Boat ads (by the same people) show us the course the White House will probably take. First, Bush will simply deny any responsibility. They are a separate organization; they can say whatever they want. If only the FCC had such a strong commitment to free speech. Next, he will try to profit from the situation by demanding we give him something in return for his doing the right thing. Remember his demand that his price for condemning the Swities was a complete ban on 527's like MoveOn? Finally, by the time he does say something, USA Next will have had enough time to do their damage. He will only act when their fifteen minutes of fame has passed.

What's to do? As well meaning as Corzine might be, he's the wrong one to be making the demand. AARP should be the one making the demand through their membership. It is important that they involve their thirty five million members. This post by Paperwight could serve as a rough draft for the message they should send the membership. After that, it would be fair game and a good idea for as many Democrats and others to make their demands in support of the AARP demand.

Blogging as a pathetic cry for attention
I came into blogging almost two years ago hoping for fame, fortune, dancing girls, and cheese sandwiches. Today, I can get the cheese sandwich if I bring my own cheese and make it myself. That's about how I expected it to turn out, though I'm still holding out hope that the fame and fortune will turn up someday. Going into blogging expecting F&F is about as smart as majoring in Art History for F&F. Sure, you could be the next Sister Wendy, but you're going to be a lot happier if you get some intristic pleasure from it and view any F&F that comes your way as pure gravy.

Yesterday, Atrios ran an amazingly angry letter from Ron Brynaert of Why Are we Back in Iraq? Ron's letter seems to be a continuation of an equally angry post on his blog the day before. Ron is annoyed that he has been doing tons of background research on the Gannon/Guckert/GOPUSA story without getting much credit. Several hundred Atrios readers stopped to comment and most called Ron a jerk. Atrios followed up by reprinting his tips to new bloggers. Meanwhile, Ron has picked up more traffic in the last couple days than he has in the last few months and wrote a post thanking Atrios. I think they are both being far better sports about this I would have been.

Coincidentally, the Kofax Award winners were announced yesterday, allowing for more wounded egos. I didn't make it into the finals, so my wound has almost healed into a mildly throbbing scar. Elayne Riggs has taken this opportunity to address blogger envy and why we blog.

I think y'all need to ask yourself what you really expect to get out of blogging. If I really yearned to win a Koufax instead of just make the first round of nominations, I acknowledge I would have had to post a lot more regularly, and write more longer essays..., than I did in 2004, so I truly cannot bitch about my exclusion from the Koufax finals. If I wanted "famous" bloggers to blogroll me, I'd e-mail them and ask what I could do to be worthy of their consideration.... If my goal was to be a "famous" blogger myself - I'm sorry, that's out of my control but there are certainly ways to increase your online presence (join alliances and webrings, go out and actually find/report on real news scoops, attend Drinking Liberally or other social events). If you're looking to Make Money Fast - well, I'm sure there's a Nigerian prince with a message just for you waiting in your in-box.

That about says it for me. I blog because I need to write; because I need to say something; because I need to shout into the big, black void at the end of life, "I was here." Blogging is a way to finally break out of the I'm-going-to-write-a-book-someday lethargy that has dominated the last thirty years of my life. Some readers are necessary to make it work. More readers make it better. George Soros showing up with his checkbook and saying "I want you to quit your job and write full time" would make it best. I'm not holding my breath.

Blogging has extra benefits that I never expected to find. There are a number of genuine little communities here. I not only have a few readers, I have readers on every continent except Antarctica. It's pretty cool to look at the map every so often and wonder "How did I get three readers on Guatemala?"

I've joked with my clever wife (who, by the way, is a dancing girl, so I'm not doing that bad) about the possibility of staging a feud with someone as a way to build our traffic. It might work (if you're interested, contact me). I also could build readership by finding more interesting things to blog about. That sounds like work.

And now that I've spent a whole day blogging about blogging, I'll go back to insulting the leaders of the free world. But if anyone has some spare F or F that they want to send my way, I won't turn it down (Atrios? Ron? Anyone?).

UPDATE: Brynaert responded to my "mostly fair" account of the affair of the missing links. He tells me that they made Air America and sends this message:

fic foc fuck fuck foo

not amazingly angry, but also not maybe amazingly funny

and...yeah...my hits sparked up big-time...but i've also gotten a lot of traffic from the ones who have linked to my Talon News plagiarism stories...and i knew atrios would print my e-mail and i love him even more for that...now people are talking about what i've been talking about...links make us stronger; that's one of the secrets of the other side of the blogosphere

peace
ron brynaert aka ron not fucking roy

Remember that lesson, "links make us stronger." Atrios? Farmer? Anyone?

Call for bad history
I'll be posting the first Carnival of Bad History here next Tuesday. We still have plenty of room for contributions and I'll be accepting till about noon on Monday.

Since this is the first Carnival, I'm very fluid on how old the contributions can be. If you've written anything you think might be relevant since the first of the year or so, send it in.

Also, since this is the first carnival, we're still fine-tuning the concept. Anything even remotely related is acceptable. If you want to correct a bad historical parallel that some talking head pulls out to support their position, send it in. If you have a pet peeve about historical movies, send it in. If you've been doing battle with holocaust deniers, internment apologists, or slavery romanticizers, definately send it in. If you want to debunk a favorite conspiracy theory, send it in. If you just want to bash on The DaVinci Code, send that in too.

Lastly, we need volunteers to be future hosts. The whole point of a carnival is to share the glory.

Send your article links and hosting volunteerances (or whatever you call that) to archy or to Bad History.

Koufax awards
The 2004 Koufax Awards were announced yesterday over at Wampum. Tragically, archy was overlooked in every single category. I'll be launching a big self-pittying rant later on to blame the big bloggers for not linking to me.

Not everyone I voted for won an award, but all of the winners are deserving. Just reading the nominees added a few new daily stops to my reading list. I'm most pleased that my friend David Neiwert won another Best Series Kofax award for his essay "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism." This is my chance to try and cop some reflected glory because I knew David when. Seriously, David's two fascism essays should be required reading for all of us

It's not too late to go drop a few nickels in the tip jar Wampum tip jar. They not only spend a lot of time managing these awards, but they also take a serious financial hit because of the server traffic (something those of us who whine about wanting more traffic should consider). After you do that, go congratulate the winners and check out the runners up. Then come back here and pump up my traffic numbers.

Two opportunities
In the last post, I described USA Next as "a classic Karl Rove style dirty trick." We might not ever know whether or not Uncle Karl was really involved, but if he is even remotely involved, it would be to our tremendous advantage to expose his links.

USA Next is playing a very dangerous game in demonizing AARP. AARP has millions of members, of all races and religions, mostly solidly middle class, and spread across the political spectrum. and they vote. They live in every neighborhood and go to every church. They are not an urban elite like the ACLU. They are not an ethnic "interest group" like the NAACP. And they vote.

Seniors are not a constituency you want mad at you if you expect to work in the political system. Enough seniors are AARP members or know members that they will know that USA Next's characterization of them as unpatriotic and ultra-liberal is just wrong. USA Next is inviting a very dangerous backlash. Our job is to make sure that backlash happens.

I see two possible routes a backlash could take. One is to directly tie USA Next to the White House. At the very least, it would end this Social Security privatization nonsense. I don't get the sense that the GOP members of congress would be very interested in carrying this issue forward without the White House pushing them. It could very well cause a shake up and some firings at the top. It would probably destroy most of Bush's "political capital" and limit the amount of damage he can do during a second term.

The second course is to tar the Republicans in general as the party of low politics and dirty tricks. This would be the time to publicly review Tom DeLay's recent career and the evolution of parliamentary procedure in Congress.

The best of all possible worlds would be if both backlashes happened and if we dragged them out into the midterm election season.

What's worse than execrable?
Let's ponder the word "execrable." It comes from the came root as "excrement" and therefore means "poop-like" or "poopy" (insert your own favorite Anglo-Saxon synonym for "poop" if you prefer). Comparing someone, something, or some behavior to poop should be about as low as we can go. What do we call people whose behavior falls lower than that?

Taking its cues from the success of last year's Swift boat veterans' campaign in the presidential race, a conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush's toughest opponents in the battle to overhaul Social Security.

The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing the private investment accounts at the center of Mr. Bush's plan.

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

This much of the story has been well reported in Left Blogistan so far. Sure the Swifties were pretty repulsive in an election, but how bad can a genuine policy debate get? This bad:

Over the headline: "The REAL AARP Agenda", the ad has, on the left, a picture of a soldier in desert fatigues with a big 'X' crossing him out and on the right a picture of two men (in tuxes and obviously just married) kissing each other. The gay newlyweds have a big green check mark over them.

Atrios and others have copies of the ad. It's even more disgusting to look at than the description lets on. So far, the ad has been spotted on the American Spectator website. Clicking through on the ad takes you to the USA Next website where no attempt is made to connect the AARP with failure to support the troops or advocating gay marriage. The ad is nothing more than a cheap smear with no basis. However, the very boldness of the lie makes it very likely that the mainstream press will repeat it with the justification that the charge itself is news.

What is the point of such an easily exposed lie? Any rumor, no matter how unlikely is bound to find a few believers and staking out a completely outrageous position like this makes it easier to push a slightly less outrageous, but still false position. In this case, while most people won't believe those two specific claims, they will have the seeds of a "liberal AARP" idea planted in their minds. The press, now dominated by a "he said, she said" style of reporting, will link the AARP and USA Next together in their reporting.

Any student of recent political tactics will notice that this is a classic Karl Rove style dirty trick (though it is unlikely that we will be able to prove a link until long after the fact). Rove campaigns are always marked by attack groups going deep into the mud and saying things far more vile than Rove's client could utter in public. These groups carefully maintain their independence and thereby provide deniability for Rove's client. Five out of the 31 paragraphs in the New York Times article are quotes from USA Next officials distancing themselves from the White House. But Rove's client always profits from these groups. Some of the mud sticks, some doubts are planted, and any time or energy the AARP spends defending themselves from USA Next is time not spent opposing the will of Bush.

Too bad the AARP lost so much of its credibility and alienated so many of its friends supporting the administration's prescription drug con. They could use both of them about now.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall reports that USA Next has already pulled the ad. Fortunately, Josh and others have saved screen shots of the offending piece.