Quick links: Halloween edition

But every day is scary here at The Big Con, isn't it?

• Here's a neat little piece from the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. [1] Gadget geeks will love it: scientists have devised insect-sized robots that can fly around and take video of the scene down below. The bagatelle was in the tech section. Which reveals the moral obscenity of our age, because it should have been on the front page, because, as the article casually reveals, what these things are being used for, by the Department of Homeland Security, is spying on peaceful antiwar protesters. "America can be pretty sneaky," the Post quotes an expert a former Air Force colonel. Well, yes, that's something to be proud of, isn't it?

• On the subject of media obscenities.

It's stunning the way the press sticks to their insistence on he-said-she-said symmetry when reporting on scientific-cum-ideological "controversies" ("Opinions Differ on Flatness of Earth") no matter how many times conservatives' "science" is proven to partake of outright lies. As Aaron Swartz documents [2] in Extra! the magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, they blame Rachel Carson's 1962 environmental classic Silent Spring for the persistence of Third World malaria because it led to a ban on DDT—even the New York Times Magazine fell for it, claiming, “Silent Spring is now killing African children because of its persistence in the public mind"—even though (a) there is no global DDT ban; and (b) Carson was actually dead right that spreading DDT would lead to more, not less, malaria.

• And speaking of the media's cult of ideological symmetry, dig this. Leonard Pitts, a generally admirable liberal columnist, in apiece usefully excoriating Ann Coulter [3], adds an insipid fillip: "That will be read as criticism of conservatism, but I intend a larger point. After all, liberalism has had its own unfortunate extremes -- the drug use of the '60s, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army and the like." Of course, top-tier conservative presidential candidates like Mitt Romney have embraced Ann Coulter. I don't remember, say, Jimmy Carter doing the same for the SLA and Weather Underground. Try criticizing conservatives, Leonard. It's fun, it's accurate, and they deserve it.

• Meanwhile, in the art of political war, conservatives have mastered the art of winning every last battle, even the ones in which we thought they'd just been slaughtered. Remember when Rush Limbaugh lost his mind (well, on second thought, that's a daily occurrence) and called military personnel who protested the war"phony soldiers"? First he won media absolution [4], recall, by doctoring the tape. Now he's turned it into a public relations net plus. He's auctioned off the letter from Harry Reid excoriating him for his obscenity [5] for $2.1 million, which he's donated to a charity that aides the families of fallen Marines—and even got Harry Reid to pat him on the back. "'What could be a more worthwhile cause?" said Reid, urging support for the fund-raising drive shortly before bidding closed.'"

• Finally, did anyone see Rick Berman of the "Center for Consumer Freedom" [6] on the Colbert Report? For those who don't know, Berman is the basis for the tobacco lobbyist character in the novel and film Thank You for Smoking [7], and is known and consumer-advocate circles and other islands of sanity as "Dr. Evil." Colbert, of course, in his usual brilliantly subversive way, made Berman look like a fool. After the segment, I re-watched the damned fine 60 Minutes profile [8] of this only-in-America monster. Then, still curious, I googled around. What I found was this fascinating Free Republic thread [9], in which one by one, the "Freepers" lined up to proclaim Berman their hero: "Seems to me we need a few more folks on our side like this."

Ladies and gentlemen, your conservative movement.