Yeah, great. People laying flour and marking arrows with chalk for a goof running event—something they’ve done plenty of times, coast-to-coast—gets them felony charges in Connecticut.

Beer runners’ trail a recipe for trouble

Because, as we all know, the preferred delivery method for anthrax is by dumping a “white, powdery substance” in an Ikea parking lot.

Here’s the quote from the Mayor’s office:

“You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know,” she said. “It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We’re thankful it wasn’t, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out.”

Oh crap, we gotta worry about something more serious than terrorists, now? Zombie aliens? Bioagents that turn oil into mad cow disease? Sharks with freakin’ laser beams on their heads?

No, not literally, you perv. I really enjoy Glenn Greenwald and his relentless fact-checking and presentation. Some people call him Glennzilla, and I can see why.

So, there’s Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) who plead guilty to soliciting sex in a public restroom a few months ago. But back in October, someone reported that Craig was in the habit of having anonymous sex with other men. In the former case, right-wing blogs/pundits are saying how loathesome this is, he should resign, etc. But in the latter, the person who reported it was himself villified, and many rightwingers were insisting that a) the reporter was a scumbag, and b) whatever happens between Craig and another consenting adult is nobody else’s business.

That last bit’s especially entertaining, given the source(s). But Greenwald says that the primary reason why opinion in October (how dare you even speak of this) differs from opinion this week (what a horrid, horrid little pervert of a man) is because, in October, there were elections to think about.

Glenn Greenwald - Larry Craig’s bathroom behavior and the right wing — then and now

About my favorite in-a-nutshell line from this one:

As always, it is astonishing to observe how the same human brain can accommodate those two opposite thoughts only a few months apart without even realizing that it is doing so.

Last week, I was biking home from work, and I caught up to a couple lanes of traffic stopped at a red light. I did a dumb thing—I tried going through a space between two cars where there really wasn’t space for me. As I tried to get through, I hit the car mirror on my right, which fortunately was hinged to move back easily when encountering an idiot like myself.

I stop, look up, and the woman in the car—can’t hear her, her windows are up—gets a pained expression on her face, and she’s mouthing, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” And I’m saying , yes, I’m fine, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I readjust her mirror as I continue apologizing profusely.

I ride off, thinking what a dumb idea that was, but I got past that and thought about what she did. Her first reaction was to be concerned for my safety. That was kinda nice to run into randomly.

Well this is fun.

State GOP forms loyalty committee

More of this, guys. Your attempts to rule by fear amuse me.

I’ll identify myself as liberal, and I know I will have a tendency to believe a liberal story easier than a conservative story, but in most cases I have a functioning gut check when I read something that appeals to me. It’s not always possible to do your own fact checking to be sure that what you’re reading is true, but it’s as least worthy to ask yourself, since I don’t know the full background here, is it possible this can be false? Or, at least, not entirely true? If it’s important enough to be sure, do further investigation. If not, at least come away with the idea that what you’re reading might not be as complete as it should.

I extend that concept, then, to groups of people. If there’s a story that liberals are greatly agreeing with, is it simply slipping into group acceptance because all these other people believe it to be true, and they don’t do their own fact checking? I’m not as vigilant with this one, because I tend to identify with liberals more, and I have an innate belief that liberals are more rational. I should say, an innate, irrational belief. People are irrational everywhere, and while the majority of the reading I do makes me feel that liberals on average have a better handle on logic than conservatives, it doesn’t make that an absolute truth. But I can forget it, sometimes.

But on the other hand, sometimes a story comes along that makes me think I should take a stronger mental stance against conservative groupthink, and in this case the story is about Scott Beuchamp.

As I’ve said, I’ve been enjoying Gleen Greenwald recently. I like his even-toned writing, and his sourcing is very good—he’s convinced me that I can tend to believe him. Recently he said something about the Scott Beauchamp story. For context, Beauchamp is a soldier in Iraq, who wrote some features in The New Republic about his Iraq experiences under the pseudo-pseudonym Scott Thomas (his full name is Scott Thomas Beauchamp), and some things he wrote about were fairly nasty and possibly illegal. (Subscription is required to get them on the Web.)

Greenwald wrote the following about the right’s reaction to Beauchamp:

I would simply add that right-wing troop-exploiters always reserve their most hateful, vicious and deeply personal attacks for soldiers and veterans who deviate from their political church — Jack Murtha, John Kerry, Wes Clark, Max Cleland, Scott Beauchamp. Similarly, the minute Pat Tillman’s political views became known, the use they had for him vanished (and nobody has less interest in finding out what happened to Pat Tillman than they do). As Digby points out, they “support the troops” only to the extent that the troops are useful props for their political agenda.

This is strident enough that it caught my attention. How would he come to this fairly strong conclusion? I started looking through the story in various parts of the web, and yeah, the right sure has been coming down hard on him.

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