Ah, Texas.

A homeless man who spit in the mouth and eye of a police officer and then taunted him, saying he was H.I.V. positive, was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday for harassing a public servant with a deadly weapon: his saliva.

Because of the deadly weapon finding, the man, Willie Campbell, 42, of Dallas, will not be eligible for parole until he has served half his sentence.

Does it matter that you can't get HIV from saliva? Apparently not to juries in Texas.

Unfortunately for George W. Bush, the appeasement-rejecting leader in this instance is the King of Saudi Arabia.

With the price of oil hitting record highs, President Bush used a private visit to King Abdullah’s ranch here Friday to make a second attempt to persuade the Saudi government to increase oil production and was rebuffed yet again....

When Mr. Bush was last here in January, a similar request caused him some embarrassment. The president asked the Saudi oil minister to increase production, and his request on that occasion was publicly turned down. He then took up the matter with the king, but the conversation did not get very far.

I was on CNN last night, on Anderson Cooper's show, discussing the Supreme Court of California's gay marriage decision with Tony Perkins, head douchebag from the Family Research Council. Doing that kind of teevee is hard: you're in a dark room, staring into a black camera lens, you're not getting any visual cues from the person you're being interviewed by, and you only have a brief moment to make your point before you're interrupted by the host or the other talking/shouting head. So if you think I sucked—and it's entirely possible that I did—blame the format not the faggot.

Anyway, there was one point I wanted to make and failed to during my segment: the normally right-about-everything Jeffrey Toobin was wrong about something.

Religious bigots in California have already gathered enough signatures to place an anti-gay marriage amendment to California's state constitution before the voters this November. If the amendment passes, it would undo the California's supreme courts marriage decision and, essentially, invalidate the legal marriages that thousands of same-sex couples in California will have entered into this summer and fall. Shortly before I came on, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's legal affairs analyst, predicted that voters would pass the amendment that—hadn't voters, after all, approved gay marriage bans and anti-gay-marriage amendments in every state where they had been placed on the ballot?

Uh, no, voters have not.

In 2006 an anti-gay marriage amendment was rejected by voters in John McCain's home state of Arizona. McCain, who opposes a federal anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment, endorsed Arizona's state anti-gay amendment—you can see his sweaty, pink head at the end of this commercial.

The failure of the 2006 anti-gay marriage amendment in Arizona should give us hope. It failed in a conservative state in 2006, which was a very bad year for the GOP. California is a much more liberal state and 2008 is shaping up to be an even worse year for the GOP. If we can beat this thing anywhere, we can beat it in California.

^{Ron van der Ende's 727, bas relief in wood, 122 by 55 by 6 inches}

At OKOK. (Gallery web site here.)

Only one reading tonight, but it should be a good one. Rabih Alameddine is reading at Elliott Bay Book Company with The Hakawati, which is an epic novel set in the Middle East. It's getting rave reviews from authors I adore, like Dorothy Allison and Jonathan Safran Foer. I have not read it yet; it's 500 pages, and I'm still pushing my way through Heinlein.

And now, Chuck Palahniuk interviewing a transvestite pretending to be the porn-star main character of his upcoming novel, Snuff.

That's all for today, but there's always more in our readings calendar.

(Credit)

French Laundry at Home, a hilarious (yes, hilarious) food blog you should check out--now!--if you haven't already, on cooking tripe:

You know when you walk into a nursing home for the first time, and there's a distinct, rather unpleasant smell? Or, when you drive past a sewage treatment plant or paper mill? Or the airplane bathroom on a Southwest Airlines flight? Or a hospital's burn unit?

Those are all preferable smells compared to cooked tripe.

People, this smell was worse than morning breath and dirty hair after you've have the flu for three days and haven't brushed your teeth or showered at all.

I strained the liquid into another saucepan, reduced it, added some cream, a little mustard, and some salt and pepper, as the book suggested. By this time, my corneas had evaporated from the stench and my eyebrows started to fall out.

This? Was disgusting. Absolutely, positively the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life.

I left my kitchen, cookbook in hand, and sat outside on the front porch to re-read the instructions to make sure I hadn't missed a crucial step. I hadn't. It was then that I saw the final sentence that wrapped up the instructions for the dish: "It's terrific."

It made me wonder how long it took Michael Ruhlman and Thomas Keller to come up with that sentence, because surely, it has to be some sort of inside joke or secret chef-to-chef code for a dish that is really awful but meant to be tried only in some sort of freakish dare. I imagine their exchange might have gone a little something like this:

Michael: So, we've described how to cook tripe, and we've included your story about the importance of cooking offal. Would you like to add something here at the end that describes what tripe tastes like?

Thomas: Yeah, sure. But in case someone, someday decides they want to cook every recipe in this book and maybe write about it, let's not deter them in any way, so how about we say, "It's absolutely fantastic!"

Michael: Thomas.

Thomas: Yes, Michael?

Michael: Fantastic. Really?

Thomas: Um, how about, "it doesn't suck... oh no wait, IT DOES!"?

Michael: Or, "hope you've got your fumigator on speed dial"?

Thomas: Oh, I know! What if we say "it's good" and you draw a picture of me doing air quotes around the word "good"?

Michael: *giggle*snort* Or, we could say it tastes like a word that rhymes with something else. Like "schmass"?

Thomas: Wait, wait, wait. I got it. Let's say it tastes terrific. After all, Michael, you went to the CIA; you've been inducted into the Secret Chef Jargon That Pranks Home Cooks Club -- you remember what "terrific" means, right?

Michael: Oh yes. Ha ha. But the regular reader won't know that now will they? We are so smart. This will most certainly encourage a potential home cook perhaps from the Washington, DC region to try this dish in like, I dunno, ten years or so, because she thinks it will be really great.

Thomas: Well done, Ruhlman. Well done. Terrific it is.

Michael: MWWAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!

Thanks a lot, guys. Thanks a lot.

Responding the attacks of yesterday (which some were calling an attempted long-distance swift-boating by the president), Obama told a town hall meeting in South Dakota:

That’s exactly the kind of appalling attack that’s divided our country and that alienates us from the world, and that’s why we need change in Washington.

More, including charges that McCain is being a hypocrite on Hamas, here and here.

And here's the tape of McCain calling for, uh... talks with Hamas:

...on live TV during last night's Hardball. As Huffington Post's Jason Linkins eloquently explains, "host Chris Matthews took up President Bush's pointed attack on the Democrats in the Knesset, asking if Bush was 'out of line.' Radio talk-show host Kevin James didn't think so, saying-and I'm paraphrasing-'RRRRAAAAAHHHH! OBAMA BLAAAAHHHH! HAMAS LOVES BARACK, YAAAAHHHH!'"

Then Chris Matthews proceeds to beat Kevin James like that pinata full of shit that he is. Enjoy.

I got a postcard! My name was misspelled, but I’m cool with that.

The text, in case you can’t read it:

1) The Seattle police mostly shmooze [sic] + rarely police—when you see a police car parked, there’ll be another one around the corner.

2) On Pine St across from Nordstrom’s, a Fed-Ex driver stopped to deliver a package + got a ticket. This never happens. The driver was Asian. You should check the ethnicity of ticketed drivers.

Could police really be racially profiling people for parking tickets? I must demur. After all, parking tickets are issued to unoccupied vehicles, thus preventing the ticketing officer from seeing the driver or identifying his or her race. Besides, if all the cops are congregating to schmooze, they probably wouldn’t be able to watch each driver, make a note of which cars were parked by Asian folks, and ticket their cars. But I do appreciate the note.

Up to 80,000: Death toll from China earthquake keeps rising.

Collapsing: Support for Bush's war in Iraq, as Congress refuses (for now) to throw another $163 billion at the effort.

Ain't Summer Yet: Avalanche danger soars in Cascades.

Black Turnout: Could jeopardize long Republican dominance of the South.

Another "honor killing" in Iraq: "My daughter deserved to die for falling in love."

Still Lying: Everything's under control, says Burmese government, refusing aid.

Gettin' Hitched: Ellen Degeneres to marry hottie g.f.

Annoying Framing of a Touching Story: Tutsi woman weaves "peace baskets" alongside Hutu woman whose husband slaughtered her entire family.

Recipe of the Day: Aromatic Braised Chicken with Fried Onions (recipe and photo via Gourmet)

Continue reading "The Morning News" »

Slog tipper Matt Hickey writes:

Could you please remind the readers that just because it's way nice this weekend that it's still no excuse to wear fucking flip flops everywhere? I'd like one summer of not having to look at people's ugly, ugly feet.

Thank you for the public service.

Matt

It's like you're reading my mind, Matt.

The terribilosity of this cannot be expressed with the verbiography that I possess.

I know that as a scientist, I am expected to loathe all imperial measurements--inches, cups, quarts, gallons and Fahrenheit. Whining about the United States' failure to embrace the metric system? Default behavior for dim bulbs seeking to seem sophisticated.

You know what? I don't like metric measurements for many daily tasks. Why? Factors!

The metric system is based around base 10 numbers. Why? We have ten fingers, so our counting system is based around base 10. This makes jumping between large differences in magnitude--say between the size of my desk and the size of the State--relatively easy. But, ten is a terrible, ugly, number. With only two factors, two and five, it's a bitch to subdivide measures.

Why couldn't we have twelve fingers? Twelve is a beautiful number--breaking down into factors of two, three, four and six. Ahhh! Grab a ruler and try to measure a third of foot. Easy! Try to measure a third of a meter. A total pain in the ass! Nothing like an infinite repeat (33.3333333333333333333333333333333333... cm) to ruin a perfectly pleasant day.

Imperial measures for volume are even more pleasant, residing in the world of base 2. Thirty-two fluid ounces to a quart--factors of two, four, eight and sixteen. I'm practically drooling. Ever try to adjust a recipe using measuring cups in milliliters? Ack!

For the lab where I'm routinely bouncing between microliters, milliliters and plain old liters, metric measures are great. Nifty even. For daily activities like cooking? Not so much so.

(Tip of the hat to WiS.)

Updated!

If I could kill off two non-metric measures right now... hmmm.

So long Fahrenheit! What an inane way to measure temperature! We cannot even figure out how zero Fahrenheit was defined.

And goodbye to Letter, Legal and all the other hideous US paper sizes! Metric paper sizes are totally rad! The height-to-width ratio is 1: square root (2). So what? That means if you take two pieces of paper of the smaller size and put them next to one another? You get the next size up. Yay!

Via Ben Smith:

Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.

I wish I had much to say about Sony's coming-someday MMO, The Agency, after attending their online division's reveal party last night in Bellevue. That won't happen. My e-mail invite said the game would be demoed, but the only thing that was shown was a months-old video clip of incomplete gameplay. When I asked someone where new game footage was, a woman in attendance stared me down like I'd asked her why the sky is blue. She exclaimed that the game was nowhere near ready to play, but, oh, hey, there's some exclusive art over there, seen it yet?

And I wish the developers had much to say, but while replaying the months-old video, The Agency's head designer kept pausing in his narration to say that he wasn't allowed to reveal certain details yet. By "certain," he meant "most." Not sure if SOE thought their "open house" party would be reason enough to come out, complete with fancy catering, ice blocks shaped like guns, booze ahoy, and chicks in Tank Girl-styled outfits... you can guess where this is going:

So, sure, I could rehash the game's few deets-so-far. As in, this is an MMO that splits the difference between Goldeneye and World of Warcraft, and so far, it doesn't appear to have a clear target audience or cohesive artistic core. But it's hard to judge something that's still quite unfinished. Nobody was saying how soon The Agency will come out, how it might change while still in development, or how the heck Sony will convince console gamers to cough up MMO-style fees, so last night, the only solid things in their corner were booth babes and dorks. Still, I'll always hold out hope for a game with some Goldeneye flavor, so I'm looking forward to digging deeper into the PS3/PC game once the Bellevue studio gets an early version up and running.

By the way, same thing goes to any other local game devs: INVITE US TO SEE YOUR STUFF! Just as long as you promise I won't have to endure turquoise cameltoe at your offices, anyway.

Once new construction occupies the hundreds of empty lots in South Lake Union and the Denny Triangle, Denny Way will essentially run through the middle of downtown. Cranes flanking the street, and design proposals filed with the city, show that Denny will be home to thousands of new residents and office workers. One of those proposed buildings, 1200 Stewart, being developed for Lexas Companies, will be a giant among them, standing 400 feet tall with twin towers on a block-long podium.

Thoryk Architecture

The big problem with block-long developments is their tendency to have massive unbroken faces with few or zero urban amenities, which turns off pedestrians. A lack of sidewalk activity makes for a dull and dangerous street. That’s why the downtown design guidelines' number-one requirement for the streetscape is to “promote pedestrian interaction.” Another guideline, for public amenities, is to “design for personal safety & security.”

In practice, this means providing retail at the sidewalk. Shoppers and workers make the street lively and keep an eye out for public safety.

But the latest designs for 1200 Stewart provide no retail along Denny Way, and only a couple of small retail spaces off Denny. And the downtown design-review board approved the latest drawings on Tuesday for the next stage of review with no requirement to build any retail.

“Denny is not going to be coffee shops and newsstands,” said downtown design-review board member James Falconer. “You’re not going to saunter down Denny. You have to accept it for what it is.” (Whether the Department of Planning and Development has officially provided an exemption to the design guidelines for Denny is unclear; calls to DPD for comment haven’t been returned.)

Falconer excused the lack of retail on Denny, saying that there was no place to park cars. But with 800 (!!!) below-grade parking spots in the proposed development, his assertion seems ludicrous.

Malaika Lafferty, who has lived for 11 years in the Cascade neighborhood, which borders Denny at the site of 1200 Stewart, says, “I think honestly, if we’re talking about improving the density in our core, I don’t know how one can do that without providing amenities at street level. It’s about what the neighborhood needs, and we need retail down there.”

I know, I know—Denny is clogged with cars and isn’t a very hospitable place for pedestrians, so building for retail in its current state seems unrealistic. But here’s the thing: Traffic on Denny is fucked—and will only become more fucked—and most of the thousands of newcomers will have feet. So they’ll be walking up Denny to get to Capitol Hill, crossing Denny to go downtown, or walking down Denny to go shopping. It's the only street that functionally connects South Lake Union to Belltown and Capitol Hill. It will be a pedestrian corridor regardless of what we build, so we should plan for pedestrians.

More after the jump.

Continue reading "City Design Review Board Undermines Denny" »

This is what passes for wall art just down my street:

("I just wanted the rush of putting something on this wall ... Coincidentally, I didn't get a rush - - - ain't that a bitch")

And this stop-motion video shows the wall art they get in Buenos Aires:

(Hat tip to Penny Arcade for the video link.)

The allegedly meddling mom has been indicted. Take it away, Associated Press:

A federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

Megan Meier, 13, hanged herself in her bedroom after being targeted in a MySpace hoax. Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis is said to have helped create a false-identity MySpace account to contact Megan Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans. Josh didn't exist. Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006 after receiving cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Drew was charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to get information used to inflict emotional distress on the girl. Drew has denied creating the account or sending messages to Megan.

Clinton defends Obama and slams Bush's attack, saying:

President Bush’s comparison of any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is both offensive and outrageous on the face of it, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy. This is the kind of statement that has no place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a political point seems terribly misplaced. Unfortunately, this is what we’ve come to expect from President Bush.

No clubs have taken any of our writers hostage lately, but here's what has happened in the last day...

Groovy-Ass German Funk!: Compliments of Terry Miller.

Slats vs. the S.L.U.T.: Which would you rather ride? Ew, that sounds dirty.

Props to DJ Riz: For all his rare disco and funk cuts.

I'm a Video Star: I'm my head.

Tonight in Music: To the Waves, El Perro del Mar, Paul Baribeau, the Kills.

Eurovision: Don’t mention the wars!

The Soundtrack for a Movie That's Never Been Made: Solaris.

Sound Check: Trent Moorman interviews the Lymbyc Systym's Jared Bell.

For You Slackers: Neumo's adds a second Posies performance to Friday's show.

Today's Music News: Brian Cook has a bi-polar relationship with today's headlines.

Accidental Mash-Up: The new Mates of State record gets some unexpected Spanish vocals.

Sasha Frere-Jones Brags About Seeing Erykah Badu: And remembering Charles Mudede's best opening sentence ever.

There's more. There's always more.

Hey look! A baby turtle!

Today, the Department of Defense announced a $2.3 million award to the University of Cincinnati to study brain trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder.

But, according to an email leaked to a citizens' advocacy group, VA bosses are discouraging social workers and psychiatrists from diagnosing PTSD in veterans because it's inconvenient:

In the words of Melanie Sloan, the righteously outraged director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, "the VA is calling on its employees to deliberately misdiagnose returning veterans in an effort to cut costs."

Which isn't just outrageous—it's outrageously dumb.

Ignoring PTSD now will only cost the VA, with interest, in the next few decades. As this WSJ story reports, PTSD is both underreported and lasting:

Many military personnel are reluctant to seek counseling for PTSD because they are afraid that seeking help would harm their careers. A recent survey by the American Psychiatric Association found that 75% of military personnel felt that asking for assistance would reduce their chances for promotion.

Undoubtedly, some people fake PTSD—but the incentives lean towards underreporting, not overreporting.

Military officers and psychologists fear that veterans of the two wars will suffer mental-health problems for decades to come, a largely hidden cost of the current conflicts.

"There's a financial cost to this, but more importantly there'll be a cost in lives if we don't get a handle on this problem now," Sen. Christopher Bond (R., Mo.) said in a recent interview.

Money for research is good. Money for treatment is imperative.

For those of you who didn't make it to the Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC) last weekend, I'll fill you in: it was awesome.

This year, the ECCC moved into a new, gigantic space at the Washington State Convention Center to give us nerds more room to roam.

I was only able to make it to the con on Sunday—no, I didn't go in costume—but the place was still friggin' packed. It also smelled a little stinky.

There were lines wrapping around the room for some of the big name comic writers and artists signing books and doing sketches, but nobody seemed to care about the "celebrity" guests, who practically had tumbleweeds blowing by their tables. Just what the hell is a Farscape, anyways?

All the booksellers were well stocked—a huge improvement over last year, where there were, like, three dudes selling comics—and willing to haggle, and I walked out with a full run of Sandman books. Big disappointment of the day: I couldn't get one seller to drop his asking price for this beauty:

According to the guy selling this monstrosity, it's "totally worth $800 bucks" because it "doubles as a coffee table."

For those of you that missed this year's rad ECCC, Kelly O's got your back. Ms. O shot a fantastic two-part video with local ruffian and comic fan Jeff Leonard, featuring the Suicide Girls (???) and a dude dressed as Space Ghost who bears an uncanny resemblance to Paul Constant. Hmm....

See you next year!

"Now that I am Governor, you must do what I say!"

The Obama interview in Willamette Week.

Would you stop the DEA's raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?

I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism. The way I want to approach the issue of medical marijuana is to base it on science, and if there is sound science that supports the use of medical marijuana and if it is controlled and prescribed in a way that other medicine is prescribed, then it's something that I think we should consider.

Seems an innocuous enough answer: He'll stop the raids on sick people, but he won't "support" medical marijuana until it goes through the same rigors as pharmaceuticals. (Not that there isn't a ton of evidence already.) Of course, that's a cop-out response because he's not promising to stop prosecutions and the government usually won't fund or allow "sound" research on the schedule-one drug. In the meantime, he says, we have higher priorities. Here's the RNC's retort...

Barack Obama’s pledge to stop Executive agencies from implementing laws passed by Congress raises serious doubts about his understanding of what the job of the President of the United States actually is. His refusal to enforce the law reveals that Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience necessary to do the job of President, or that he fundamentally lacks the judgment to carry out the most basic functions of the Executive Branch. What other laws would Barack Obama direct federal agents not to enforce?

Gee, RNC, it seems like Obama agrees with the current Republican administration: After 9/11, the federal government overhauled priorities for the FBI--federal agents--directing resources away from certain domestic crimes and toward terrorism.

But there's no question that the GOP has pulled an about-face on terrorism before. The real question is this: Given the public support for medical pot in swing states, will McCain try to muzzle the RNC on the medical-marijuana issue before November?

More "campaign ads candidates wish they could run" here.