Musin's:
Two things about the Rove scandal:
1. It's part of a broader problem in the Bush administration about truth-telling. Recall that this whole thing got started when Joe Wilson came back from Niger to privately refute the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had purchased yellowcake uranium for weaponry. Plame's name entered into it, many say, because Bush and Rove wanted to punish Wilson for going public with his doubts about the yellowcake claims, which Bush repeated in his State of the Union address. The little lie Rove and Co. have been telling--that Rove knew nothing of the Plame leaker--distracts from this bigger lie: one of trumped up WMD evidence that landed us, ultimately, in this war.
2. The affair offers a test of the White House's ethics: while they may have lied through their teeth--about WMD, about when Bush and Blair conspired to go to war, about who blew Plame's cover--they now face that dreaded "waffler" label. Will, as Bush and Scott McClellan promised, the White House fire the leaker? Will McClellan be strung up for his inconsistency?

McClellan in a "bad spot" over Rove: The net's abuzz, at least the lefternmost portion of it, over a just-concluded White House press conference in which press secretary Scott McClellan twisted in the wind over uncharacteristic and relentless questioning by reporters about Karl Rove's outing--by name or by inference--of CIA agent Plame. This exchange followed a question about whether McClellan stood behind his 2003 statement that four Bush insiders, including Rove, assured him they had nothing to do with the leak:

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.

You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott...

And: Scotty then and now.

Genocide IS news: Last month, the five largest corporate TV networks ran 50 times as many stories about the Michael Jackson trial, and twelve times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur. Only one network gave more coverage to the Sudan story than they did to the "Runaway Bride" story. Visit BeAWitness.org to tell the networks the government-backed genocide in Darfur IS news.

Learn more: A commenter points out the blog Sudan: The Passion of the Present, dedicated to "sharing ideas and inspiration on how to stop the genocide in Darfur."

Visit Sustainablog today! Drop by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg's thoughtful Sustainablog starting at 9 this morning: he'll be blogging for 24 hours straight to raise awareness of sustainability issues and to raise some cash for the Earthways Center, part of the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. Read posts by guest bloggers from WorldChanging, Enviropundit, Grist, Eyeteeth, and others. Good luck, Jeff.

Russell Simmons: Not lovin' it. Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, mentioned in this earlier post, will not be helping McDonad's do an urban overhaul on their burgerflipper uniforms, thankyouverymuch. "I am not in talks with them," he protests. "I'm a vegan!"

Mobile mouthpiece: "What would you say, given one free minute of anonymous, uncensored speech?" So asks Ohio State MFA student Daniel Jolliffe with his mobile art project, One Free Minute. Looking a little like a Little Tikes bike trailer mated with a Victrola by Atelier van Lieshout, the sculpture allows cellphone callers to leave one minute of anonymous, free speech that is then broadcast in public spaces. The recordings remain anonymous--caller ID data is purged and both live and recorded calls are randomly selected to be played out of the loudspeaker--and more than 1000 callers have participated, offering an array of free speech samples. The range? One caller decries how "f*&$ing terrifying" the Project for a New American Century is, while another performs the theme from Beverly Hills Cop as if he's a chicken.

Leaker confirmed. Twas Karl Rove who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to a Time reporter, according to Newsweek. As Rep. John Conyers blogs, "Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to 'restore honesty and dignity to the White House?' How’s that going?"

Anatomy of a fantasy: "[T]rying to come to an understanding as to [the] origins and true physiological make up" of characters from childhood animations and today, artist Michael Paulus began a series of anatomical drawings of the skeletal systems of Charlie Brown, Hello Kitty, Pikachu, and two dozen other 2D beings. Impressively rendered, the works for me go beyond just a clever exercise into a weird, almost-spiritual place: both about looking beyond surfaces and putting flesh and bone to the products of the imagination.

Japanese rice paddy art: Rice farmers in Inakadate, Japan have created field-sized works of art that feature images of the Mona Lisa and Ukiyoe works by 18th-century masters Sharaku (L) and Utamaro. Best viewed now through mid-August, the fields are created using purple and yellow varieties of rice. More images at the Inakadate village website.

Miscellany:

American Idiot: Green Day, proving that (major label) punk ain't dead, playing "American Idiot" at Live8 in Berlin, July 2. [Lyrics here; video of all Live8 shows here.]

Lego concentration camp: In an age where ends-justify-the-means rightwing pundits trivialize torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib as soldiers just "blowing off steam" and "having a good time," perhaps Polish conceptual artist Zbigniew Libera's Lego concentration camp of the late '90s is worth another look.

More free music: The Flaming Lips have released a live CD, The Fearless Freaks, for free mp3 download here.

Compassionate conservatism, courtesy Fox News: Fox News anchor Brit Hume says that his "first thought" on hearing about the London terror attacks that killed 40 or more people was "Hmmm, time to buy" stocks. Just a day earlier his Fox cohort John Gibson mused that, in selecting London for the 2012 Olympic Games, the IOC "missed a golden opportunity" in overlooking Paris: if the games were hosted by the French capital, terrorists could "blow up Paris, and who cares?"

Social-reality street art: In Brasilia, Brazil, Mello gives street art a new meaning--and relevance. See more examples here.

(Via Wooster.)

Gannon's bus seat: front line of the War on Terror. News fauxporter Jeff Gannon sticks it to the London bombers:

Today's terrorist attacks against innocent citizens in London are stark reminders that the War on Terror is indeed global and ongoing. It makes one wonder what would be happening if the front lines weren't in Baghdad.

I'm going to ride the Washington, DC Metro several times today in symbolic solidarity with our allies in Great Britain and defiance of terrorists and their murderous ideology.

One commenter at Gannon's blog asks, "Will you have any particular destination? Or are you simply planning to ride the train back and forth? How will you let your fellow passengers know that you are there to defy terrorists and are not just an ordinary commuter?" Another suggests, "don't forget to read the want-ads all day to show the terrorists who is boss."

DIY news on London blasts: With the death toll from today's terrorist attacks in London passing 30, citizen journalism is providing some of the more urgent, interesting coverage: as Waxy notes, a new Flickr photo pool is starting to move from screen-captures to original photos, and Wikipedia is offering constantly updated news coverage. And then, of course, there are the bloggers (here and here).

[Image: posting at a London school.]

Band-Aid for Africa? Kudos to Live-8 organizer Bob Geldoff, write The True-Cost Economists, for using the concert to put "poverty in Africa squarely back on the international political agenda – something that we consider to be a genuine media coup, worthy of everyone’s recognition." But perhaps the benefit distracts from the real problem:

Rather than bickering over how much money we should dole out to the world’s poor, the G8 big-wigs should be wrestling with the fact that economic justice is impossible under the current model. We need a new economic paradigm. One that eliminates subsidies that prevent African farmers from competing fairly with their northern neighbors. One where we stop burdening people in faraway places with the external costs of the goods we consume so voraciously. One that addresses the social and environmental costs of the way we do business. One based on more comprehensive ways of measuring progress. Until we establish economies that are open, holistic and human scale, hand-outs to Africa will merely serve as a band-aid.

Comments anyone?

Africa blogs: Can anyone suggest African bloggers who are covering the G8 summit well? Here are two interesting sites, written by Americans who served in the Peace Corps in Africa, and a third that's more of a portal, but I'd like to find sites written by authors in African countries.

Black Star Journal

My heart's in Accra...

BlogAfrica

And with a curtsy and a wave, he was off to the ball...

(Via Greg, who calls this Bush's "Ownership Society Skirt.")

Distribution of casualties: The Palm Beach Post is mapping the home states of military deaths in Iraq. Visit the paper's site to click on dots, representing the 1,748 soldiers killed in Iraq, to learn their names, towns, and details of their deaths.

(Via Raw Story.)

Honorin' the dead: Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year old son Casey died in combat in Iraq, met privately with George W. Bush in June 2004. In a new interview, she says the meeting amplified her anguish. Bush kept forgetting her son's name and called her "Ma" and "Mom," in what she calls a "phony act." She says, "His mouth kept moving, but there was nothing in his eyes or anything else about him that showed me he really cared or had any real compassion at all. This is a human being totally disconnected from humanity and reality. His eyes were empty, hollow shells and he was acting like I should be proud to just be in his presence when it was my son who died for his illegal war! It was one of the most disgusting experiences I ever had and it took me almost a year to even talk about it." From the moment Bush entered the room, Sheehan had a sour taste in her mouth: rather than a hug or handshake, Bush, "in a condescending tone and with a disgusting loud Texas accent," said, 'Who we’all honorin’ here today?'"

(Via Peek.)

The tyranny of the mouseclick: Part game, part digital anthropology, part ergonomic research project, the Institute for Interactive Research's site dontclick.it challenges you to navigate a web page using techniques other than clicking. Wend your way through the page replacing clicks with gestures or a timer, and learn about the history of computer interfaces, see the more than 7,000 "mouse recordings" of cursor movement, and answer the question, "Do you miss the click?" If a new clickless standard can be agreed upon, I wonder how it'll ease cases of carpal tunnel (he typed, with a twinge in his wrist).

(Via Seth Godin.)

But what would it have done to the environment? Vowing no change in the US's stance on global warming—a phenomenon the White House refuses to acknowledge as real—George W. Bush said yesterday that signing onto the Kyoto Protocol would've "wrecked the economy."

Who's buttering Bush's bread? On Bush's reluctance to believe prevailing science on climate change, Norman Baker of the UK's Liberal Democrats said, "Bush is in a phone box with the chief of ExxonMobil as the last of the non-believers." According to OpenSecrets, the oil and gas industry gave Bush nearly $5 million in contributions since 1990.

Deep-phat fry: Having hired a firm to negotiate product-placement for Big Macs in hip-hop songs, McDonald's is now angling to sign on urban fashion designers Russell Simmons and P.Diddy, along with Tommy Hilfiger, Fubu, and others, to turn its employee uniforms into coveted street gear. AdAge reports that the potentially $80-million makeover is meant to "turn employees into walking brand billboards as they circulate among their peers." With more than 30,000 employees, McDonald's is the world's largest youth employer.