Sounds like old Chuck was on to something:

Whereas it is most apparent, that the Multitude of Coffee Houses of late years set up and kept within the Kingdom...and the great resort of idle and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects; as well for that many tradesmen and others, do therein misspend much of their time, which might and probably would otherwise by employed in and about their Lawful Callings and Affairs; but also, for that in such houses...diverse False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majesties Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath thought it fit and necessary, that the said Coffee-houses be (for the Future) put down and suppressed...

- Charles II, 1675, "A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee Houses"

Idle? Misspending much of their time? Devising malicious and scandlous reports of the government?

Sounds like some people I know.

On a less serious note -- or is it more serious? -- have you checked out Flight of the Conchords? They're hilarious. They have a new show on HBO, you can see a clip here, but they have many videos up on YouTube. Like this one.

Finally, on maybe the most serious note of all, I am going to try and do some pickling today. Does anyone else pickle?

I've been on a pickling tear.

Hey, it's Friday. Enjoy.

From Digg, a story about the Gore boy's arrest:

An Inconvenient Youth

New York Post, look out.

This weekend, a world-wide series of concerts will take place, calling attention to the issue of Climate Change. Megan Tady, writing for In These Times, has a problem with the idea:

With so many environmentalists and scientists waving their hands and screaming, “This is an emergency,” can we really afford to rock out to John Mayer? And “momentum” seems to imply that we’re building on to something that was already powerful, but really, we’ve only “stepped up” our recycling, “stepped up” our Prius driving, and “stepped up” our sweater wearing—one of Al Gore’s famous instructions for combating climate change.

Left out of the plan is any understanding that our entire energy system (and economic way of life) has to be completely restructured in order to truly thwart global warming. But instead of talking about how we can bring corporate polluters to their knees, oust our lying leaders and undermine a system that favors profit over people—which leads inexorably to the destruction of the planet, no matter how warm your sweater—we’re told to clap along at feel-good concerts, sponsored by the likes of Chevy and Phillips.

It's a valid point. But not everyone is ready to be radicalized in this fight. We should be. We should be doing "a lot more than tossing out light bulbs." We should be radically changing our purchasing habits, and our lifestyles.

The Times, for example, recently ran a piece about green consumerism, and in it described a kind of rift that's developing in the eco-movement, calling the new trend of green-conscious consumerism as "light green":

It is not just ecology activists with one foot in the 1970s, though, who have taken issue with the consumerist personality of the “light green” movement. Anti-consumerist fervor burns hotly among some activists who came of age under the influence of noisy, disruptive anti-globalization protests.

Last year, a San Francisco group called the Compact made headlines with a vow to live the entire year without buying anything but bare essentials like medicine and food. A year in, the original 10 “mostly” made it, said Rachel Kesel, 26, a founder. The movement claims some 8,300 adherents throughout the country and in places as distant as Singapore and Iceland.

But we all are not prepared to make that kind of sacrifice.

We need to start somewhere. If the concerts this weekend simply keep the issue on the front-burner, and get people -- especially young people -- to continue talking about climate change, it will have served its purpose.

Now go out and change a few more light bulbs...

Oh, and if I had to pick which concert to see, it would definitely be London.

SPINAL TAP!!!

Several of those arrested in the British failed car bombings were doctors. The common image of the jihadist -- poor, uneducated, young -- is basically a fallacy.

In 2005, Frontline ran a documentary, called Al Qaeda's New Front, that included a terrorist profile:

[The study] found that three quarters of his sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority -- 90 percent -- came from caring, intact families. 63 percent had gone to college, as compared with the five to six percent typical in the third world.

...The terrorists he studied were not, for example, "the Palestinian 14-year-olds we see on the news," but they joined the jihad at an average age of 26. Three-quarters were professionals or semi-professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, his right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician, and the 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was an architect.

I was going to write something very much like Josh just posted, about the David Brooks column today, and how truth marks a dividing line on this issue.

But it occurs to me that "truth" is actually hard to come by these days. Hence, we have David Brooks.

There are two reasons for this. First, truthiness, not truth, is what matters. We have a President who creates foreign policy by looking into people's souls. There's nothing rational about those on the Right these days, having lost all pretense of conservative principles and values. They are Right because they believe they are right.

They've looked into George W. Bush's soul, and they like what they see.

But the second reason is political. For the last six years, we've had a Congress more than willing to rubber-stamp the White House's policies. That, in turn, helped create things like this Senate Intelligence Committee Report, which continues to give all kinds of cover to the truthiness found in the columns of people like David Brooks:

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (39-44) presents the following as established facts, some of which are still controversial:

• The U.S. embassy in Niger issued a cable reporting that the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal warranted a hard look.
• Valerie Plame suggested her husband travel to Niger to look into it.
• ...
  
• On March 8, 2002 an intelligence report based on Wilson's trip was disseminated. The report indicated the former Prime Minister of Niger had said no contracts to sell uranium to Iraq were signed during his tenure. An Iraqi delegation had approached him in June 1999, however, to discuss "expanding commercial relations." The Prime Minister took this overture to refer to uranium yellowcake sales. The Prime Minister did not pursue the matter because of the UN sanctions on Iraq then in effect.
• The Senate Intelligence Committee Report finds that Wilson's description of his findings differ from some parts of the DO intelligence report "in some respects":
  • Wilson told the Senate his findings refuted the notion Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.
  • The intelligence report written from Wilson's findings, but not by Wilson, confirms that in 1999 Iraq had approached Niger for increased trade, which was interpreted by the former Prime Minister as suggesting that Iraq was seeking uranium.

Who can make heads or tails of that? (And that's the wikipedia version -- try reading the actual Senate Report.) And while it seems to me that it's important the Congress goes back, and addresses the historical record, who knows if they will? Perhaps the Democrats will feel this is "old news" that just stirs up the past...

In the end, it comes down to, who do you trust?

When Josh Marshall says, "I've looked into this, and the truth is, Wilson is telling the truth," I believe him. And the "facts" he presents, along with people like Larry Johnson, seem to me convincing.

But it seems just as plausible, were I to be more ideologically conservative, that I'd believe someone's else's version of the truth.

It's often said that we, as news consumers, should look at "both sides of the story," and make up our own mind about the issues. Maybe that was possible, one day long ago.

Today, facts seem much more fleeting, wisps of smoke that pass by so quickly.

Who says post-modernism is dead?