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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
...and the school fight song is "Play That Funky Music White Boy"
Rubber Nun directs us to the website of Trent Lott Middle School.
You know? The Trent Lott Black Panthers...
posted by tbogg at 11:22 PM
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The hard part about making yourself a martyr is getting that third nail in...
Somebody get Matthew Hoy a band-aid. The delicate flower of rightwing spin is greviously wounded by an off-handed comment by Nicholas Kristof.
First off, he brings in the Conservative's favorite whipping boy, Paul Krugman for no better reason than to take a cheap shot at the idea of Paul Krugman, with a segue to Kristof:
New York Times editorial page columnists have, since the inception of President George Bush's administration, taken a certain pride in taking "brave" and "honorable" stands against a popular president -- especially since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Everyone's favorite columnist, Paul Krugman, recently told the German newspaper that he is "the solitary voice of the truth in a sea of corruption. Sometimes I think that I land (laugh) a day in one of these cages in Guantanamo Bay. But I can ask always yet in the Federal Republic for asylum. I hope, you take me in the emergency up."
That's right, an allegedly intelligent man actually seems to think that he is some sort of modern day Cassandra standing alone against the evil tyranny of the Bush administration. Krugman also seems to think that he's got some corner on the "truth."
Of course, this brings us to Krugman's colleague, Nicholas Kristof
...and what follows has nothing to do with Krugman. For that matter, it doesn't have much to do with anything except for a perceived slight to the most oppressed of all religions: Christianity.
...like Krugman, Kristof uses any opportunity to take a cheap shot at a class of people he's probably never met
Ready for the cheap shot? Here it is, in Kristof's own words:
So how can we undermine North Korean propaganda and totalitarianism? By imposing sanctions and increasing its isolation? Or by engaging it and tying it to the global economy?
The answer should be obvious, for there is no greater subversive in a Communist country than an American factory manager. People will hear stories from his housemaid's third cousin's neighbor's friend about how he has five pairs of blue jeans (!), a beer belly (!), blows his nose on tissues that he then throws away (!), and reads a Bible (!) and Playboy magazine (!!). Many a Communist will immediately begin dreaming of capitalism.
Did you catch it? Look again. Got a magnifying glass? Oh, hell...let's let Brother Hoy 'splain it all to you:
Krugman was one of the first to start it when he popularized the trend of using Attorney General John Ashcroft's name as a synonym for Bigfoot, Big Brother and Josef Stalin all wrapped up in one.
Now, I don't really count Kristof's little jab as a serious slam against Christianity -- but it's one of those little things that I think is indicative of many in the liberal media. A little jab at the Christians is OK, and maybe even the Jews (those Israelis being so pesky and all), but a similar skewering of blacks, Latinos, gays, women? I seriously doubt would have made it past the Times copy editors -- if doing it had crossed Kristof's mind in the first place.
Apparently it was Kristof's mention of a Bible that got Hoy's Deuteronomies in a twist. Blue jeans, beer, tissues, BIBLE, Playboy magazine. It used to be that Christians became martyrs by being crucified for their beliefs. These days, one little prick on the finger is all it takes for them to start screaming "Stigmata!".
You know, they just don't make martyrs like they used to.
posted by tbogg at 11:00 PM
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Send money to Tom Toles...
for this.
posted by tbogg at 10:40 PM
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Mo Dowd is starting to take this whole Bush fiasco seriously...finally
Really. Not one mention of botox or Prada. Just all Bush... all bad...all the time.
Despite their desire to support their president, many Americans are uncomfortable with the ideological rigidity of the administration — the headlong tax cuts unashamedly benefiting the wealthy; the selection of judges who want to reverse two decades of social policy; the moves to impose new restrictions on abortion, and the deletion of information on a Centers for Disease Control Web site about lifesaving condoms, which are viewed by the religious right as morally wrong
posted by tbogg at 10:36 PM
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Three kings...a bunch of peasants..and one jester
Michael Kelly, who loves war even more than his own children, is getting downright depressed that the Warrior President and his poodle may not start the war on time for Kelly's Armageddon pool at work.
On Iraq, are things going, as a British prime minister once warned an American president against, wobbly?
With less than two weeks to go to a Jan. 27 deadline for a report on whether Iraq is complying with the U.N. Security Council resolution that Baghdad fully disclose and dismantle its program of weapons of mass destruction, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Hans Blix, tells The Post that, as he sees it, the report due that day is just a little old interim sort of thing and will mark "the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it."
snip
The current American president's only stalwart, the current British prime minister, stands with his party against him and with only 13 percent of the British public willing to support U.S. and British action against Iraq absent U.N. approval. Secretary of State Colin Powell takes this moment to declare that "to characterize Prime Minister Blair as a poodle is an absolutely absurd and silly charge."
Then Kelly lets us know what he thinks of the same public opinion that he wants to influence:
But I don't think this will be of any more consequence than were all the now-forgotten fits and starts that preceded the first war against Hussein.
Now, as then, only three people really matter as to the outcome: the Iraqi dictator, the American president and the British prime minister
So what about public opinion regarding a war that the UN won't support? The American public are far from sold on the idea. The British public (13%!) say "no thanks". The Iraqi public don't have a choice, but one would think that they don't want to die while being liberated by American bombs.
As President George Bush once so eloquently said, "Who cares what you think?"
As Michael Kelly says, "Let someone else roll...I've got a deadline to meet."
posted by tbogg at 10:29 PM
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College diversity to Bush is admitting more Deltas, and fewer Sigmas
President To Oppose Race-Based Admissions
President Bush plans to declare his opposition to University of Michigan admissions policies that give preference to black and Hispanic students, injecting the White House into the Supreme Court's most far-reaching affirmative action case in a generation, administration officials said yesterday.
The officials said Bush, who faces a deadline tomorrow for registering opposition with the high court, plans to pay tribute to the value of racial diversity in higher education. But he plans to argue that Michigan's approach is flawed.
...since it helps to admit minorities who can't shoot hoop or run fast.
Both administration officials and conservative opponents of affirmative action depicted Bush's planned position as a political compromise forged amid intense negotiation. Justice Department lawyers, led by Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, lobbied the president hard for a brief that would categorically declare that not even diversity can justify the use of race. White House political adviser Karl Rove and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, sensitive to the need to expand the Republican base to include minorities, pushed in the other direction, the officials said
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush, who leaves such decisions to the Justice Department in lesser cases, had taken deep personal involvement in preparing the administration position. "It's something the president has continued to focus on," Fleischer said yesterday. "He'll likely focus on it some more, and it remains a question under review."
Yup. President My IQ Matches My SAT Score is focused again, and I'm sure it will be a bold and focused decision that will be hailed as bold by journalists who are focused on fat advances from publishers like Regnery Press who have taken the bold step of printing all their books on soft, quilted twin-ply.
Meanwhile white Legacies with names like Brent, Trevor, and Whitney are breathing a sigh of relief that they won't have to go to, like, Long Beach State or UTEP.
posted by tbogg at 10:02 PM
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I've never known a bully who was right.
A letter from the 1/20 edition of Time magazine:
Does anyone honestly believe that Saddam is out to conquer the globe or that the rest of the world will love the U.S. if it buries Iraq? Does anyone believe that aggression begets peace? As the skipper of a U.S. Navy warship in the South Pacific, I saw enough war to last a lifetime. In my 86 years, I've never known a bully who was right. I consider George Bush's foreign policy loathsome; and, worse, it's dangerous beyond words.
THEODORE R. TREADWELL
Danbury, Conn.
posted by tbogg at 9:46 PM
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...a major coup for the growing field of creation science
Gill called the discovery "a powerfully compelling refutation" of secular scientists' long-held assertion that dinosaurs lived on Earth millions of years before humans.
posted by tbogg at 9:26 PM
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No more blue balls in Georgia
The Georgia Supreme Court struck down a 170-year-old law that made it a crime for unmarried people to have sex.
Many of those who have been waiting for over 170 years claimed to not care any more since Matlock entered their lives.
posted by tbogg at 6:31 PM
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"But I'm not guilty of all the hate crime things they accused me of."
Burned a cross on an inter-racial couples front lawn...used racial epithets....
But Daniel Swan isn't a racist. He's just...stupid, I guess.
Daniel Swan, the Mississippi cross-burner whose potential prison sentence was reduced by embattled Judge Charles Pickering, says both he and the judge are victims of political intrigue.
"Politics are hurting a good man like Pickering and have put me in a real bind," he said.
Swan, 29, of tiny Sandy Hook in south Mississippi, said his life went into free fall soon after President Bush nominated Pickering, a federal district judge in Hattiesburg, for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
snip
Swan said he and a group of other young, white men were drinking in the parking lot of the Improve Grocery, whiling away the hours on the night of Jan. 8, 1994, when a car filled with black men drove by.
"There was a lot of hooting and hollering," Swan said. Then one of his companions, a 17-year-old identified in court papers as "J.B.," came up with the idea of burning a cross on the Polkeys' lawn, Swan said.
The men already had hoisted a dead skunk on a pole in front of the Improve Grocery and performed other pranks that night. To Swan, the cross-burning was just another game.
Swan said he, J.B. and a third man, named Mickey Thomas, went to Swan's home, gathered some boards from an old hog pen and hammered a cross together. Swan said he drove the cross and the men in his pickup to the Polkey home, where they propped the gasoline-doused cross on a cedar tree and struck a match.
"The cross made a big old light and then the gasoline burned off," Swan said.
"There wasn't even any damage to the cedar tree."
I think I'll refrain from commenting on the joys of how to wile away an evening in a small southern town.
J.B., who Swan says was the ringleader of the group, reached a deal with prosecutors that placed him on home detention for six months and one year of probation. Thomas was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. He received the same deal as J.B.
Swan was the only one of the three defendants who had faced the possibility of serious prison time. Prosecuted under a federal statute that covers the use of fire in the commission of a felony, he could have received a minimum of seven years in prison.
Swan said he's grateful Pickering fought to have his potential sentence reduced.
"He was sworn to be honest and fair when he took office, and that's what he was, honest and fair," Swan said.
Swan, who was obviously turned down by most of the Ivy League schools, fails to mention that he chose to not accept a plea bargain, which Judge Pickering was well aware of. So, apparently Judge Pickering wasn't exactly being "fair".
Pickering said he urged prosecutors to lessen Swan's potential sentence because he believed Swan's punishment was unfair based on what the other two defendants received. Pickering called Assistant Attorney General Frank Hunger — a fellow Mississippian and former Vice President Al Gore's brother-in-law — to "express my frustration with the gross disparity in sentence recommended by the government and my inability to get a response from the Justice Department in Washington." Hunger told Pickering he couldn't help him.
No mention of the plea bargain again...oh, and did he mention it was the Clinton Justice Department's fault? Yer gawldang tootin', it was.
So. To recap. Swan isn't a racist. Pickering isn't a racist. And the Clinton Justice department should probably be investigated for failure to return a phone call. Indictments, I'm sure, are just around the corner.
One additional note: I believe that Daniel Swan's may be violating his probation by wearing that shirt. He's certainly violating something...
(link via Atrios)
posted by tbogg at 4:08 PM
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Bad news for Rove...worse news for Saddam.
Bob Fertik emails me this link and comments:
Bush's 'Re-Elect' Poll Drops to 36% - That's BELOW Poppy!
Bush's "approval" rating is down to 58% in the latest Gallup Poll, but that's not the number that matters to political professionals. The important number is his "re-elect", and that stands at a dismal 36%, with 32% "definitely" voting for someone else, and 31% undecided. W's 36% puts him BELOW the 37% of the vote that Poppy got in losing to Bill Clinton in 1992 - the lowest re-election vote in 80 years. W's "re-elect" numbers are dismal, and if it was a Democrat they'd be saying he's "toast." Hey Charlie Cook, Stu Rothenberg, Bill Schneider, etc. - quit hiding Bush's dismal "re-elect" numbers!
Looks like the military build-up is timed out perfectly for President Inigo Montoya.
posted by tbogg at 12:55 PM
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Snow White takes on the Seven Dwarfs in a Pay Per View Smackdown...
Poor Peggy...apparently the move to Mondays is keeping her from writing a column that is wonderous in it true...Noonan-ness. What she submits to the WSJ has the scent of : "I screwed around all weekend, and now I'm pulling an all-nighter on Sunday night to get the column done...right after Alias is over...".
So she falls back on her true talent: channeling the thoughts of others. But unlike other times, she takes on all seven Democratic candidates instead of just one.
a look at the 2004 Dems and the vibes they bring:
Dr. Dean gives off an interesting attitude. It's as if he thinks his inside-the-Beltway competitors are a bunch of hicks.
Joe Lieberman gives off a kind of canny happiness. He's a happy guy, and shrewd too. He thinks he'd be a good president because he's a good guy.
John Kerry brings the weight of experience and knowledge. Almost every member of his freshman Senate class has run for president, a fact he mentions. He wears his experience as if it were not a suit or a shield but a kind of gravity that hovers around his head, forcing his face and shoulders down.
John Edwards doesn't bring gravity. He seems light, smooth and amiable. He has no crags. He seems untouched by life, as a bright boomer lawyer would. But he hasn't been untouched; he's known tragedy,
Dick Gephardt gives off a vibe of tired niceness. He is nice; it's part of who he is and part what he does. But he's tired of Congress.
On and on she goes channeling what she thinks all the candidates think, causing you to wonder: When was the last time Peggy managed to have seven men in her in one day, not counting the NYFD Fireman's Ball back in October?
Then there is this:
I think the Democrats as a party are still somewhat transfixed by the lesson of 1992. And they're waiting for history to turn on a dime. They don't think George W. Bush is a fool anymore, but they don't think that highly of him. And they know history can turn on a dime, and they know that Bushes ride high and fall far, like cowboys who stand tall in the saddle on the tallest horse and then lose their balance and fall hard.
Somewhere in Texas, Larry McMurtry is just cringing....
posted by tbogg at 9:53 AM
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Enter soon...Enter often
Roger Ailes (the charming smart one) is having a contest to rename the Kaus Files to something that is a bit more accurate.
posted by tbogg at 9:29 AM
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Fear, Ignorance, and Occasional Bigotry...Republicans Unveil Campaign Slogan for 2004
John Ashcroft is out to help America's poor downtrodden Christians who are being forced to sit at the front of the bus and drink from any damn water fountain they want.
The Bush administration escalated its campaign today to loosen restrictions on religious charity-providers, with Attorney General John Ashcroft delivering an aggressive attack on the "bigotry" that he said religious groups had faced for decades in the United States.
"Unfortunately, over the last several decades, the government has discriminated against people of faith who are striving to do good for others," Mr. Ashcroft said in a speech in Denver. "Out of fear, ignorance and occasional bigotry, faith-based groups have been prohibited from competing for federal funding on a level playing field with secular groups."
It must be extra galling to Ashcroft to see others using "fear, ignorance and occasional bigotry" to discriminate against faith-based (religious) groups since those are the foundation of most religions in America today. How dare they?
Mr. Ashcroft's outspoken views on God and religion, his prayer breakfasts at the Justice Department and remarks attributed to him comparing Christianity with Islam last year have made him a lightning rod for criticism from civil rights advocates who accuse him of crossing the line into religious advocacy.
Meanwhile...no sign of the anthrax killer or Eric Robert Rudolph.
posted by tbogg at 9:23 AM
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Domain Name Watch
Two years into the Bush administration and hotcheneyoncheneyaction.com is still available...
posted by tbogg at 8:59 AM
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Ruminate This is back
...and Lisa has a few things to say.
We can sit around day and night, moping and moaning privately, but if we don't take every opportunity to voice our discontent publicly, we'll end up as complicit as the ones who brought us to this place. We'll end up deserving whatever we get.
posted by tbogg at 8:46 AM
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Hey Larry. Do we have a SPC/SPN for a bedwetting cokehead?
Democratic Veteran has a job (no!...it's a adventure!) for anyone who wants to find out how Lt. Bush separated from the TANG.
posted by tbogg at 8:41 AM
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Gov. Ehrlich's hitman
Maryland's Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich has a unique way with dismissing people.
The first of the letters arrived as early as 9 a.m. yesterday when the man in the dark coat -- promptly dubbed "trench-coat man" by his targets -- showed up at the Annapolis office of the Department of Natural Resources. Assistant Secretary Carolyn Watson said she had just arrived at work when a guard at the front desk asked her to accompany the man to the secretary's office.
When the two got into the elevator, Watson introduced herself and stuck out her hand. The man shook her hand, "then pulled his away in one fluid motion, dipped into his leather portfolio, whipped out very dramatically this envelope and looks at me and says, 'Sorry.' "
"It was like being subpoenaed," she said. "It was so absurd, it was funny."
posted by tbogg at 8:14 AM
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Iraq, North Korea, Unemployment, Faltering Economy, Assault on the Environment...did I mention Jackass?
Joe Lieberman certainly has his priorities in order.
posted by tbogg at 8:04 AM
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Uncle Ernie update
Rock legend Pete Townshend has been released on bail by police following his arrest on suspicion of child pornography offences.
The Who star was arrested after police searched his home following his admission he paid to view child pornography on the internet
In related news, Michael Jackson is house-shopping in Palm Beach.
posted by tbogg at 7:54 AM
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I believe this is Code Red on the Tom Ridge Terror-O-Meter
President Bush’s job approval has slipped to 58 percent in a new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, the first time it has fallen below 60 percent in that poll since before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While still solid overall, his approval was down 5 points from a week ago.
posted by tbogg at 7:49 AM
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Monday, January 13, 2003
Creating a generation of super-smart people
Digby and Janeane Garofalo should get together and breed.
Now, Jefferson may have been dead for 40 years when Marx published Das Kapital, but apparently he was a Marxist, being a proponent of "class warfare" and all.
And old Teddy Roosevelt actually WAS a Marxist, because in 1906 he said, while arguing for a graduated inheritance tax and a progressive income tax:
"The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government."
Talk about class warfare! My God, didn't he realize that he was cruelly punishing the most productive and hard working members of society who were just trying to keep their hard earned money so they could spend it on antiques and fine art and thus produce jobs for dead people?
posted by tbogg at 1:27 PM
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Prof. Reynolds comes clean
Instapundit finally admits it:
It's about oil.
I think that once we win in Iraq, we should take the position that we certainly weren't shedding our blood to provide cheap oil for Germany. And act accordingly.
Wow. For a minute there, I thought we were doing it because of UN sanctions or democracy or because "he tried to kill my dad".
posted by tbogg at 1:23 PM
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The blame game boomerang...
The Bush administration is perfectly correct to blame a previous administration for the North Korea mess. So I wanna hear some apologies from you, George H.W. Bush.
The Bush administration appears to be readying a new round of Washington’s oldest game, the blame game, on the North Korea nuclear “situation.” But the public record shows there is a lot of blame to go around ... and if George W. Bush wants to know more about how this fiasco evolved, he might want to pick up the phone and call dear old dad, George H. W. Bush.
While the current Bush administration is right to criticize the Clinton presidency for making a bad deal with Kim Jong Il and his father, Kim Il Sung, the Clintonites were faced with a fait accompli when they entered office in 1993. According to the latest CIA assessment of the North Korean nuclear program, sent in November to Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., “the North has one or possibly two weapons using plutonium produced prior to 1992.” In 1992, of course, the president was Bush’s father. So by the time the North was rattling sabers in 1994, the Clinton administration knew they were probably dealing with a nuclear power.
...and while you're at it, I want to hear a big apology for knocking up Barb back around October 1945. You did more damage then than any North Korean nuke could ever do....
posted by tbogg at 1:07 PM
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Advise and rubberstamp
According to reader G Harris:
I listened to Senator Dr Frist on both Meet the Press and Fox Sunday. I paraphrase, but when asked about the nomination he said that he has never met Judge Pickering, or is aware of his judicial history, but he is sure that he is an incredibly qualified candidate for the bench and he will be confirmed. So much for the independent branches of Government, "advise and consent", blah blah.
Looks like "Kitty Kervorkian*" Bill Frist is going to get on just swell with "Frog Exploding" Georgie Bush.
* I didn't make this one up...but I love it.
posted by tbogg at 10:55 AM
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Why I love Janeane Garofalo
From Howie "Didn't Win Media Whore of the Year But Not For Lack of Effort" Kurtz's column:
"'I'm not here as an actor. I'm here as a citizen,' Penn said. To which King replied, 'A citizen wouldn't have been on this show.'
"But that, activists and actors on the left contend, is exactly the point. At a time when the voices against a war with Iraq that are getting the most attention are those of Penn, Martin Scorsese and Janeane Garofalo, many Bush critics are ceding that the best way to get on the air any dissent against what increasingly seems like an inevitable war might be through celebrities. . . .
"Garofalo told Salon that she felt the need to speak out publicly because the people who were already speaking out don't get the audience they deserve. 'I wish all the time I was booked on those news programs that they had booked Howard Zinn or members of Veterans for Common Sense,' she says. 'But of course they choose to book myself and a handful of other actors so they can force us to spend the majority of our time on the news defending why anyone should listen to us.'
"Progressive Hollywood stalwarts such as Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen have been out front on the issue almost from the start, but it's just in the last month that the rest of the movie industry has become noticeably organized."
posted by tbogg at 10:51 AM
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Have the boy bring the drinks out onto the veranda...
Jeanne D'Arc points out that Dick Cheney and his oily buddies are looking to Africa for their next hit of that sweet black crude.
This is what happens when you give oil executives copies of the Raj Quartet. Or, in George Bush's case, the Classics Illustrated version.
posted by tbogg at 10:39 AM
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Just say "no" to Joe
Lieberman jumps in the ring. Liberals immediately jump out.
Lieberman has also been a determined foe of one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal and high-profile pool of donors: Hollywood movie and television studios and their producers.
In his rhetoric Lieberman has struck a tone of stern condemnation of much of America’s popular culture, from rap music to violent video games.
He sponsored legislation to pressure the television industry to adopt rules for rating violent and lewd content.
Lieberman has also denounced day-time TV talk shows hosted by Jerry Springer and others as “demeaning, exploitative, perverted, divisive or, at best, amoral.”
...but he has no problem with pre-emptive war.
Oh, and this:
Lieberman sponsored legislation in the 1990s to set up experimental voucher programs, letting parents use taxpayer dollars to send their children to the public, private or religious school of their choice. On this issue, Lieberman parted company with the teachers unions who are one of the Democratic Party’s strongest constituencies.
snip
Unlike many Democrats, Lieberman has supported a moment of silence in public school classrooms, which students could use for silent prayer.
Lieberman is a moralistic prig and if we needed one of those we could ask to borrow one from the Republican Party.
posted by tbogg at 10:08 AM
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Sunday, January 12, 2003
The peasants are revolting.
Bob Novack, in back-to-back columns, tells us that Republican Senators, all of whom were actually elected as opposed to appointed, are getting a little tired of the Bushies high-handed ways:
First there is the tax cuts.
Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, a deficit hawk who usually supports the Bush administration line, rose during a closed-door conference of Republican senators Wednesday to severely criticize President Bush's tax-cut plan.
Voinovich was followed by a half dozen other GOP senators also negative about their president's major initiative. None has gone on record against it, fostering hope at the White House that the tax-cut critics can be turned around.
Then there is " the road to war":
Republican senators gathering last Wednesday for their session-opening "retreat" should have been happy, blessed with a regained majority and a popular president. They were not. Instead, they complained bitterly of arrogance by the Bush administration, especially the Pentagon, in treatment of Congress along the road to war.
Two years of growing discontent boiled over during the closed-door meeting at the Library of Congress. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card was there to hear grievances from President Bush's Senate base that it is ignored and insulted by the administration, particularly Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in preparing war against Iraq. Furthermore, recital of complaints began with Sen. John Warner, a pillar of the Senate GOP establishment.
This is a disconnected time in Washington. Republican senators appreciate that they have returned to majority status thanks to George W. Bush's bold midterm election strategy and his popularity leading the war against terrorism. Yet their unease about a divided administration on the brink of attacking Iraq is deepened because they are neither consulted nor informed about war plans.
By criticizing President George W Bush they are only giving aid and comfort to America's enemies. Why do all these Republican Senators hate America?
heh heh heh
posted by tbogg at 11:12 PM
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Viagra for Lawrence Kudlow
Cancel his order for a Corvette, George Bush's plan to eliminate the dividend tax has give Larry Kudlow the boner of his life.
President Bush's plan to abolish the double tax on dividends can rescue the stock market and investor wealth, liberate shareholder rights and democratize corporate governance, spark a new economic cycle of expansion and prosperity, and fund the war on terror
Of course Larry fails to mention the massive deficits the plan will create (or should we say massive-er?) but that could be because all the blood in his body has accumulated in his money-worshipping engorged member, so he's not thinking very clearly at the moment. Then again Larry has never really cared much whether the government accumulated massive debt in the service of making the rich richer. Remember the Reagan deficts and how supply-side didn't work?
During President Reagan's first term, Mr. Kudlow was the associate director for economics and planning, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President, where he was engaged in the development of Reagan administration economic and budget policy
I guess talk of deficits is a touchy subject around the Kudlow household....
posted by tbogg at 11:01 PM
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The sky is blue, water is wet, David Horowitz gets all his facts wrong..again.
As has been well documented, well, just about everywhere, Charles Pickering is not the man the Lott Republicans would have us believe. But that won't stop David Horowitz from spewing out the same discredited talking points. Sure beats doing a little research.
The Democrats have started the new congressional session by launching a lynching party. (How embarrassing is it these days to be a Democrat?) In fact this is the second lynch party organized by the Democrats for the same victim, Judge Charles Pickering whom the Preisdent (sic) has nominated to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last session, after smearing Pickering in a manner that would make Joe McCarthy blush, the Democrats voted in lock step to keep his nomination from coming to the Senate floor. Leading the lynch party was New York Senator Charles Schumer who has promised to filibuster the Pickering nomination and who said, "To renominate Charles Pickering Sr. who...is probably best known for intervening on behalf of a convicted cross-burner, shows unfortunately that Richard Nixon's Southern strategy is still alive and well in the White House."
Did he mention is was a "lynching party"? And if the Democrats really do intend on lynching Charles Pickering will it be in DC or down in Mississippi, where they know how to do it right?
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is a fruit for the crow to pluck
For the rain to wither, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
-Lyrics by: Lewis Allan
posted by tbogg at 10:44 PM
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Frist is fine with the Pickering Plantation
On the subject of U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering, a nominee for appellate judge who is the most controversial choice on a list of conservative Bush judicial picks, Frist said, "I receive his nomination gladly." He added, "I plan on supporting Pickering."
snip
Frist defended his own civil rights record, which has been criticized by civil rights organizations. He said studies of his votes ignore actions such as "the fact I go to Africa once a year or twice a year to work with the African American community."
...and some of his best friends are...oh, hell, what did we expect?
posted by tbogg at 10:32 PM
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition
Fat Tony Scalia, the Supreme Court's Theocratic thug thinks it's okay to cram religion down non-believer's throats as long as the majority approves.
The rally-style event drew a lone protester, who silently held a sign promoting the separation of church and state.
"The sign back here which says `Get religion out of government,' can be imposed on the whole country," Justice Scalia said. "I have no problem with that philosophy being adopted democratically.
"If the gentleman holding the sign would persuade all of you of that, then we could eliminate `under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance. That could be democratically done."
snip
Justice Scalia used the event to repeat criticisms that the Constitution is being interpreted liberally. "It is a Constitution that morphs while you look at it like Plasticman," he said.
In other news, Scalia failed again to explain Bush v. Gore and why it could not be used as a precedent in future cases....
posted by tbogg at 10:01 PM
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Compassionate CONservatism.
Jeff Danziger
posted by tbogg at 8:13 PM
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The reason God is making an appointment with Mr. Rope and Mr. Stout Overhead Beam.
I think the fact that this woman chooses to honor God this way is proof that he doesn't exist.
posted by tbogg at 7:02 PM
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I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV..Oh hell, let's face it. I'm an idiot.
Apparently besides being restaurateur and a washed-up football coach, Mike Ditka is also a cancer researcher as well as a political scientist:
Secondhand smoke "might make your hair smell," but it's not a proven health risk, Bears-coach-turned-restaurant-owner Mike Ditka said Thursday, leading the charge against a proposed restaurant smoking ban in Chicago.
With a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, Ditka said his steelworker father was living proof that it's baloney for medical experts to claim that exposing a restaurant employee to an eight-hour shift's worth of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes
and
Reminded that smoking has been banned for years in California restaurants and bars, Ditka said: "That's fruits and nuts. That's what they are. A lot of liberals. . .. All the do-gooders in the world. The people in California who abolished smoking are the same people who want to legalize marijuana. Come on. Give me a break."
posted by tbogg at 6:52 PM
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Roses are red, violets are blue, if you don't love Jesus, you'll be cast into the fiery pits of hell where your blackened soul will writhe in excruciating torment for an eternity, you vile ejaculate of Satan. Merry Christmas. Love- Danny
Students Face Discipline For Passing Out Candy With Religious Note
The Rutherford Institute, a group that often assists students in religious-related disputes, came to the aid of Daniel Walz and his mother Dana after an April 1998 incident when Daniel was told he could not pass out pencils with the religious message "Jesus loves the little children" attached.
posted by tbogg at 1:12 AM
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Better than any Sunday editorial in any paper his week...and probably next week too
Jeez, I'm glad Digby started his own blog. This is terrific. Email it to your friends.
(By the way, if you don't know how to link to a particular Blogger post, just click on the time after the posters name and you'll get the specific URL...you probably knew that, but I'm just trying to be helpful.)
posted by tbogg at 12:54 AM
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Place your hand on the Bible...and never take it off.
This has the Federalist Society's fingerprints all over it.
A special Justice Department recruitment program long overseen by career employees has been moved firmly under the control of Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and his senior aides, prompting complaints that the effort is being politicized, according to current and former department officials.
Ashcroft decided last year that the Attorney General's Honors Program, which offers new law school graduates full-time positions within Justice and its component agencies, would benefit from more direct participation by him and other political appointees, officials said.
So Attorney General Can't Beat A Dead Man gets to be "involved". What does that mean?
Philip Heymann, who also was a deputy attorney general during the Clinton years, said that giving political appointees control of the honors program is likely to result in an ideologically slanted group of candidates.
"This would just eliminate everybody who's a Democrat or not a conservative Republican," said Heymann, a Harvard University law professor. "If they're seen as Democrats, they'll be out of the running."
But Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo and other Ashcroft aides dismiss such complaints, saying that the program's previous structure was tilted in favor of Ivy League schools and sometimes served as an exclusive buddy system. Corallo said the roster of law schools with candidates in the program has expanded dramatically, now including institutions such as Georgia State University, Temple University, the University of Kansas and other smaller schools.
Politics, they said, is not a consideration.
"We don't ask people what their party affiliation is," Corallo said. "The grumblings that are out there are from people who think we shouldn't bring in conservatives but should only bring in liberals. . . . We're doing both. What we're not doing is disqualifying people based on their politics."
Ashcroft aides also said the changes have resulted in a higher caliber of candidates during interviews that began in the fall. The prospective hires were able to interact with senior Justice attorneys, sometimes including Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson or Ashcroft himself, officials said.
"It was the attorney general's idea to implement changes that make the program more accountable," Corallo said. "He decided that if it's the Attorney General's Honors Program, it ought to actually be the attorney general's program. . . . The quality of the candidates has by any standard risen significantly. It has been made a real priority as opposed to years past."
As we all know, the real legal minds first apply to Eastern Mississippi-Gulfport Baptist Law School and Clown College before they even think about, oh say, Harvard or Yale. So it is completely understandable that the "standard has risen".
A half-dozen school placement officers said they had noticed a marked shift to the right in the political makeup of students who were approached for interviews this year.
At Columbia University Law School, for example, the head of the campus Federalist Society chapter set a school record by winning interviews at five separate Justice Department divisions, according to public interest law dean Ellen Chapnick. The Federalist Society is a conservative legal group whose membership includes some of the Justice Department's top officials.
Well, slap me on the ass and call me Clarence! What a complete suprise. But here is the best part:
But Corallo, the Justice spokesman, said the department's overarching goal is to attract the best new lawyers from a wide constellation of law schools, without regard to politics.
"Essentially, we are setting out to create a world-class law firm without the six-figure salaries and prestige," he said. "We're offering them low pay and long hours, but we are also offering them the chance to serve their country, particularly now in the war on terrorism. This is an historic time for the Justice Department."
Terrorists and tax cuts, the excuse for every Bush atrocity....
posted by tbogg at 12:37 AM
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More "gonadal politics"...
The War Against Women
...two years into the Bush presidency, it is apparent that reversing or otherwise eviscerating the Supreme Court's momentous 1973 ruling that recognized a woman's fundamental right to make her own childbearing decisions is indeed Mr. Bush's mission. The lengthening string of anti-choice executive orders, regulations, legal briefs, legislative maneuvers and key appointments emanating from his administration suggests that undermining the reproductive freedom essential to women's health, privacy and equality is a major preoccupation of his administration — second only, perhaps, to the war on terrorism.
I can't say this enough:
Thanks Ralph.
posted by tbogg at 12:20 AM
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Ted Rall
posted by tbogg at 12:16 AM
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Friday, January 10, 2003
They're not too big on "dead baby" jokes either...
Sarcasm not funny to most children
There goes half my demographic. Thank god for the MILF's.
posted by tbogg at 9:32 PM
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Welcome to
Democratic Veteran to the Hot Links.
posted by tbogg at 9:29 PM
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Weekend note.
With multiple soccer games to be played this weekend (tune into ESPN this Sunday to see the US Women's National team play Japan, featuring a cameo appearance by my daughter as "The Perky Yet Serious Ball Girl") I probably won't be posting anything until Sunday night, for your Monday morning amusement.
Additionally we also will not be seeing LOTR: The Two Towers this weekend, which is keeping me from drawing any geopolitical analogies or making any pop cultural references, particularly since I have never read the books, and have no intention of doing so. Our family hopes to correct this deficiency within the next two weeks so that we will no longer be shunned by the really cool people who have seen it, like, four times already.
Enjoy the weekend NFL playoff games, and if you are watching alone, remember: Never eat pretzels unless you have a pretzel-buddy standing by.
posted by tbogg at 3:40 PM
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If we can't steal the money...let's steal the credit for nor stealing the money.
The Republicans are mighty proud of themselves for rolling back the Great Eli Lily Handout Act of 2002.
Republicans said Friday they would reverse a much-criticized provision in the Homeland Security bill that would limit lawsuits against vaccine makers
SENATE MAJORITY Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who supported the original vaccine provision and said he still hopes to take up the issue later this year in more comprehensive legislation, said he would include the change in a fiscal 2003 spending bill the Senate will take up this month.
You have to go to the third paragraph to find out that the Democrats took the lead in this.
Next Monday Republicans are expected to pat themselves on the back for not raping all of the environment and for not crowning George Bush, Most Powerful Potentate and Warrior God of All The World.....at least not yet
posted by tbogg at 3:22 PM
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The economics game
Faced with a budget deficit, Gov. Davis of California is calling for cuts in spending as well as new taxes to cover shortfalls. The state does not allow itself to run deficits, so Davis has made a balanced but important decision on what to do. After all, he's a grownup.
Faced with budget deficits as far as the eye can see, according to the Washington Post, VP Dick Cheney is calling for a massive giveaway to the rich. After all, if you have big bills that are going to come due, the best thing you can do is shrink your income. And if we don't give all this money away to the rich? Well the economy is going to go in the tank...the same way it has been going since Bush & Cheney were handed the keys to the car.
So you know what that means?
(Okay...so I broke my rule...kinda.)
posted by tbogg at 1:52 PM
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Mega-Ditto
A letter posted on Media Whores Online
Horse,
I am a lifelong liberal and Democrat. No, really... back away from the "delete" key! As you know from my many fan emails to Media Whores Online, I'm not one of those crazy Freeper poseurs. No one despises the GOP and their Whore enablers more than I.
That being said, I want to state something here to everyone in the Democratic party who might happen to read it. This is a pledge and I will stick with it, though I hope to God that I don't have to:
If the Democratic party nominates that spineless, gutless, fence-straddling GOP waterboy Joe Leiberman as their 2004 presidential candidate, I will walk into the booth, plug my nose and vote Republican across the whole f**ing board.
As I said, I pray that it doesn't have to come to this. But hey, at least I won't be voting Green.
Steve in Denver
posted by tbogg at 12:20 PM
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Cleaning up after the Republicans....
After 12 years of Reagan-Bush deficits and high unemployment, it took Bill Clinton to get the economy going again and give us a surplus. So it shouldn't suprise anyone that Democrat Bill Richardson should be called in to help out President Axis Of Stupidity with his North Korea problem.
If they sent Dick Cheney in, Tokyo would probably be a smoldering ashpile right now.
posted by tbogg at 12:04 PM
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A sports note
Allen Barra at Salon and Rick Reilly at Sport Illustrated have been dumping on referee Terry Porter for the call he made during the Ohio State-Miami National Championship game. They mostly seem aggravated by the time it took Porter to throw his flag, while giving a cursory look at the play itself. The fact is, that Glenn Sharpe of Miami did interfer with OSU's Chris Gamble from the moment he came off the line until the ball was thrown.
The call was correct, and who cares if he took his time to make it. Any sports official will tell you the important thing is to get the call right.
Additional note...sportswriter Will McDonough passed away yesterday while watching the sports news on TV. I won't say that that is the way he would want to go (I'm thinking it would involve a rotating bed and multiple cheerleaders), but it seems weirdly fitting. He was a pretty good sportswriter and there aren't that many around.
Okay...back to fighting the bad guys.
posted by tbogg at 11:46 AM
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I get great e-mail:
Good post on the unemployed individuals in NYC. Delay's statements are so blatantly stupid, but I'm very afraid that what we are witnessing in America is the death of altruism and a kind of sadistic, vicious societal stupidity whose antidote may not be good, virtuous, moral liberals attempting change at the polls, but rather pissed-off just-folks, armed by the Republicans through their nutcase NRA laws, taking back their government and doling out rough justice to the Republican Marie Antoinettes. What about a tax revolt at all levels of government which demands a return to moral Liberal government, and I don't mean American Indian costumes on deadbeats tossing tea? Reverse Venezuela-style.
When do good, virtuous Liberals take back the word "evil" and apply it to Delay? When do good, virtuous, Liberals take back the word "enemy" and go after this corrupt bunch? What would it take for Liberals to appear dangerous, and I mean lots of us.
The Republicans have successfully recombined the DNA of Ayn Rand with the noxious sperm of the Christian, born-again Right and come up with an indestructible alien with acid for blood, and multiple jaws-within-jaws to savage all opposition. Liberals believe the American people will turn out to be Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), eventually, given the facts, but I have a terrible premonition that the American people, like the Delay-type ideological f****r scientists in the movie, will find the monster fascinating, preserve its many offspring, and clone the hell out of it.
Well, O.K., the metaphors went a little haywire, but then I learned vicious hate-talk at the feet of Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, add your own names.
Thanks for listening.
John
(tbogg note: I made one little edit to John's letter that I want to explain. There is one word that I don't use on Tbogg and you probably know which one it is. It's not that I'm prudish about it (I use it often and with relish), it's just that if I put it on the blog, my wife can't access it at work at lunchtime to see what I'm up to, because of a filter at her work. So I am F-word free in writing if not at heart--Tom)
posted by tbogg at 11:26 AM
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Private First Class Ben Shapiro...yeah, I like the sound of that.
Looks like our little Ben can't wait to get his war on.
No it won't. We know they have chemical weapons (which they have had since the last Gulf War). Why should we compromise our intelligence sources to get France's help?
snip
This is called a material breach. Which means war.
So we should expect our little Benny to enlist any day now, right? I mean, he's eighteen, it's an all volunteer Army. It's not like Ben could use the old "I'm a lover...not a fighter" excuse, because we know better. I'm sure they have a spot for a dedicated anti-Islamofacist. Add to that, his comprehensive military knowledge acquired through multiple viewings of The Two Towers, and I think we've got officer material sitting in a dorm room at UCLA.
But, faced with actually having to fight a war that he so wholeheartedly supports, Ben bashfully demurs.
And so he sits in his dorm room, frantically altering the title of his memoirs, copy by copy, from:
I Haven't Got Time To Breed
to
I Haven't Got Time To Bleed.
...By Chicken Little Hawk Shapiro.
posted by tbogg at 11:03 AM
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Got a rocket in your pocket....Keep coolie cool boy
I don't think the Suzanne Fields column on what is "cool" is going to make people forget about Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp anytime soon. Apparently she was so bedazzled with La Noonan's latest about why "we" like Bush (which she quotes from), she decided that she too could discourse on something that she knows nothing about: coolness.
George Bush reflects cowboy cool which comes naturally, compared to, say, the Democratic wannabees who want to fill his boots.
snip
Ever since George W. shaded Al Gore in the presidential debates, he has been described as a rugged man at home in his body. No beard, no couturier earth tones, no hot tubs, at least not on TV. Unlike Bill Clinton, George W. engages women without an eye for the opportunity to shamelessly exploit. He's seductive with the safe aura of a faithful husband. Is there anything cooler than a guy who knows himself and keeps it to himself?
Yes. What woman could keep her knickers in place when confronted by the Golfcart Cowboy?
Here's a simple rule: if you are talking about George Bush, Laura Bush, and Donald Rumsfeld...you aren't talking about cool. They have never been cool (although there is a certain coolness factor in Laura since she is the only First Lady to actually kill someone, but that is negated by...well, she is mousy librarian, secret-lush Laura Bush ), they will never be cool. They weren't even cool in the fifties.
I did like this line, though:
Conservative cool comes with a preference for uncomplicated leaders, plain guys who could play linebacker.
Here's a picture of linebacker George W Bush crushing a receiver on a crossing route.
Cool.
posted by tbogg at 10:31 AM
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I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you....
CalPundit is losing what little faith he had (and it wasn't much) in the Bush Administration.
See. It is all about oil.
posted by tbogg at 9:33 AM
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Dialectics at a Standstill: A Methodological Inquiry Into the Philosophy of Xander
I know some bloggers will find this interesting.
Professors talking about... Buffy.
I'd go but I'll be at the International Punky Brewster Conference in Oslo that week.
posted by tbogg at 9:13 AM
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Parables for stupid people
Short Bus Sean Hannity
Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
Oh. Right. Apparently if we tax those darn rich people too much they will just take their diamond-encrusted ball and go...well, we don't know where they will go...but just you watch.
posted by tbogg at 9:04 AM
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Oh, the humanity....
Spilled Fuel, Ham Combine To Create Mess During I-40 Morning Commute
Officials said a tractor-trailer went off the side of the road at 1:46 a.m. Thursday taking down the guardrail along westbound I-40 at Aviation Parkway, between Wade Avenue and Interstate 540.
The truck landed on its side and slid under a bridge abuttment. Officials said the driver told them he fell asleep before the accident occurred. Officials said the driver was not injured and there was no structural damage to the bridge.
The truck was carrying 40,000 pounds of fresh ham, which crews transferred to another truck. Officials said 250 gallons of fuel, which spilled from the truck, also had to be cleaned up.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham was spotted standing by the side of the road sobbing uncontrollably.
posted by tbogg at 8:55 AM
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...a less than judicial temperament.
EJ Dionne.
Moreover, conservatives are increasingly willing to use federal judicial power to achieve political ends. Forget Florida 2000 and consider a redistricting controversy in Mississippi last year. It involved none other than Rep. Charles W. Pickering Jr., a Republican who is Judge Pickering's son.
Mississippi lost a congressional seat after the 2000 Census, and Pickering's district was merged with that of Rep. Ronnie Shows, a Democrat. A state judge drew district lines favoring Shows. A federal three-judge panel, all Republican appointees, then drew a plan favoring Pickering. The judges said they would impose their plan if the Bush Justice Department did not quickly clear the state plan for civil rights purposes. By dragging its feet, the Justice Department sealed Shows's fate. The final blow came from none other than Justice Scalia -- a friend of the Pickering family who presided over the younger Pickering's first swearing-in as a congressman. Scalia ruled to allow the Republican judges to impose their map. Pickering beat Shows this fall.
Or consider the ruling of Judge John D. Bates in December declaring that Congress's General Accounting Office -- and thus the public -- had no right to learn the specifics about meetings between Vice President Cheney's famous energy task force and various energy executives and lobbyists. The same John Bates, an appointee of the current president, was an attorney for Ken Starr's Whitewater investigation and pushed hard (and successfully) for the release of various White House documents related to Hillary Rodham Clinton's activities.
"When that guy was working for Ken Starr, he wanted to go open the dresser drawers of the White House," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. "I guess it's a lot different when it's a Republican vice president." Such suspicions of partisanship in the judiciary are corrosive because, unfortunately, they are now plausible.
posted by tbogg at 8:34 AM
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Scenes from a Bush Presidency
War
Arms race
High unemployment
Massive deficits
and bad music.
posted by tbogg at 8:21 AM
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Jesse does Noonan.....eww.
Noonan Strikes.
posted by tbogg at 8:13 AM
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Thursday, January 09, 2003
There’s nothing so stupid that Sean won’t say it
The Daily Howler takes on Short Bus Sean Hannity.
HANNITY: You don’t understand, Gene. When you cut taxes, Gene Sperling, you double revenues, you increase revenues, you spur economic growth.
posted by tbogg at 1:01 PM
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The few...the proud...the can't leave yet.
Everyone planning on leaving the Marines soon, take one step forward.... not so fast there, Bunky.
Preparing for possible war against Iraq, the Marine Corps has taken the unusual step of stopping all Marines from leaving the service for the coming 12 months, officials said Thursday.
The decision was announced to all Marines in an internal message Tuesday from Gen. James Jones, the Marine Corps commandant. He said it applies to active-duty as well as reserve Marines and is effective Jan. 15 through Jan. 31, 2004.
It's not just a career, it's a form of involuntary servitude...hoo-yah.
posted by tbogg at 12:51 PM
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The employment picture
Bob Herbert:
Ms. Escobar is 43 and single, and lives in a small apartment in Queens. She has worked for a number of airlines over the past several years, most recently as a ticket agent for T.W.A. That job vanished with the World Trade Center.
"We were laid off Oct. 14, 2001," she said. "I haven't been able to find work since then. I've applied everywhere. I've gone back to school to improve my computer skills. I've learned another language. I feel very bad because I want to work so I can pay my bills. I've always worked. But now I can't find a job."
snip
Or Joe Bergmann. Mr. Bergmann, who lives in Midtown Manhattan, was a creative director for a firm that did interactive advertising. He was laid off Oct. 2, 2001, and, to his amazement, has been out of work ever since. When I asked if he ever imagined it would be so hard to find a job, he said, "Not at all. There's no way."
Mr. Bergmann, 54, is married and has two daughters. His wife works, but her employment outlook, even in the short term, is uncertain. The family has had the benefit of some savings and a bonus Mr. Bergmann earned at a previous job. But he does not know what will happen if he doesn't get another job soon.
snip
Unemployment benefits for Ms. Escobar and Mr. Bergmann ran out last July. The extension signed by President Bush yesterday does not apply to them.
Now lets cut to a comment by Tom DeLay:
In the Senate, newly elected Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., sought passage of a five-month extension as the first order of business when the Senate convened on Tuesday. But by then, Democrats in both houses, noting that unemployment has continued to rise, decided to press for additional benefits for jobless people who have already exhausted their 13 weeks of benefits.
"Frankly, it's the least they can do," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. "But we can do better."
But Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, House majority leader, said, "nothing is good enough" for Democrats. "I would venture to guess that they would have unlimited unemployment compensation so somebody could stay out of work for the rest of their lives."
Now back to Ms. Escobar:
Ms. Escobar has taken the president's policies somewhat personally. "I'm a Republican and I'm not ashamed to say it," she said. "But I'm very upset that they have done nothing for us."
I asked if she had voted for Mr. Bush. "I sure did," she said, then added, "I feel very betrayed."
posted by tbogg at 12:17 PM
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More bad news for Bush
From a Salon Premium (no link without membership) article sent in by alert reader Chris:
Mary Landrieu: "Unfortunately, the president's package is very short on stimulus,"
From MSNBC:
Even if you could get an effective enlargement, some women would still like your penis to be bigger and some women would like it smaller. It is simply a matter of taste because, anatomically, a woman’s most sensitive regions are well within reach of even the smallest penis. The clitoris, labia and outer third of the vagina are the most richly innervated areas, while the inner third of the vagina is less sensitive. So if you have 2 inches, you have enough to do the job.
So. Is his package up to it?
Actually, don't answer that. This is the love that dare not speak it's name.
Please...
posted by tbogg at 11:40 AM
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Lots...
of good new stuff over at Media Whores Online.
Why are you still here? Go!
posted by tbogg at 11:25 AM
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Apparently Kissinger wasn't available for this gig either.
Rep. Christopher Cox, a senior member of the House GOP leadership, will head the newly created homeland security committee.
You may remember Cox from his work on the China technology issue, back during the Great Presidential Fellatio Crisis. The Cox report was, well, it was a bit over the top when it came to accusations on how the Chinese were able to acquire missle technology, particularly when it came to technologies that were "stolen" during the Clinton administration.
Reagan...never heard of the guy.
I'm sure that Rep. Cox will limit his review of what went wrong with "homeland security" to the years 1992-2000. Because that's when all the bad stuff probably happened.
posted by tbogg at 10:26 AM
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Proof that the people get the government that they deserve....
Apparently a major growth industry in Texas is cranking out dumbass Governors. Rob at Get Donkey reports on Gov. Perry who makes the previous guy look like a braniac.
And we know better...
posted by tbogg at 10:06 AM
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Southern Strategy Redux
Self Made Pundit on the Pickering re-nomination.
posted by tbogg at 9:58 AM
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"Okay. One million dollars and we throw in a copy of the Muffy The Vampire Layer "
Clarence Thomas has a book deal with Rupert Murdoch's Random House for "seven figures". Those figures are reputed to be Jenna Jameson, Christi Lake, Syndee Steele, Stephanie Swift, Jacklyn Lick, Jewel De'Nyle, and Maria the SnakeBabe.
Chu presented editors at the major publishing firms with a 125-page manuscript Thomas drafted over the last year. Thomas later met with those who showed serious interest, spending over two hours with at least one prospective publisher. The project received a mixed reception -- with reactions tracking the polarized reception the justice evokes from the public generally.
Those publishers who bid on the book, which includes an emotional, detailed account of Thomas's early years on the streets of segregated Savannah, saw it as a readable personal saga that would appeal to conservatives and African Americans, two of the strongest segments of the book-buying public.
snip
But others found Thomas's writing inadequate and questioned whether the book could sell well enough to justify the advance Chu sought. Also, in a business dominated by liberal-leaning New Yorkers, some editors recoiled at working with Thomas.
"At least one house I talked with told me they wanted nothing to do with him," said Michael Cader, editor of the online newsletter Publishers Lunch.
"The word I was given was that it wasn't a free-flowing book, it had some difficulties -- and it was him," said one executive from a publisher that passed on the book. "To pay a million dollars, you have to believe you can sell 250,000 hardcover, and that's a lot. You've really got to believe you've got a person and a story and a whole publicity track."
The working title is " Original Intent, Natural Law, and Why I Like Big Butts", but is subject to change depending on what he sees on the Spice channel the night before it goes to press.
posted by tbogg at 9:31 AM
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That would be the empty chair...right over there...
Today in Washington:
— 11:00 am, Congressional Black Caucus holds press conference on Judge Pickering and other Bush judicial nominations
I wonder what the black Republican Congressmen will have to say? Oh, wait.......
posted by tbogg at 9:10 AM
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The bandersnatchulous Frum
David Frum gets Kakutani'd in the NY Times.
What is surprising about "The Right Man" is how tired, disingenuous and knee-jerk so many of its arguments are. The book serves up a handful of personal observations about the president: for instance, Mr. Bush's "id seems to have been at least as powerful and destructive as the Clinton id" but had been "captured, shackled and manacled, and locked away" by the time he entered politics.
The volume as a whole, however, is less an insider's view of the Bush White House than a shrill polemic about the administration's response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and its campaign against Saddam Hussein. It is a polemic that exults in the president's shucking of "half a century's worth of conventional wisdom about the Middle East and the world," a polemic that celebrates the younger Bush as the right man for his job.
...and then the finishing stroke:
Mr. Frum's penchant for facile analogies and bellicose language underscores the dogmatic, hectoring tone of this book, a book that plays solely to readers who already share all of his certainties and that makes no effort to persuade others through historical knowledge, foreign policy acumen or simple logic
Man. That's gonna leave a mark....
posted by tbogg at 9:07 AM
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The door is open...now go through it.
With his announcement that he will not be running for President, Tom Daschle has assured himself of one sure thing. Everytime he criticizes one of the Republican's policies, he won't get that snide "Daschle, who is running for President..." attached to his every utterance, as if the only reason he was saying anything was because it would help his election bid. Now he has the opportunity to just be the Democratic leader he's supposed to be, and oppose the Bush policies that are destructive to this country as well as the world (which is pretty much all of them). The only question is: will he step up and play hardball?
posted by tbogg at 8:40 AM
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Welcome to...
A couple of new blogs to the hot links. The Sideshow, which I should have had listed for months. And a special welcome to David Neiwert at Orcinus. David wrote one of my favorite books, In God's Country, about the militia movement in the Northwest, and is one of the last of the honest journalists in America. Put him right up there with JM Marshall, Joe Conason, and Eric Alterman (but without all the Springsteen worship).
posted by tbogg at 8:18 AM
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Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Cartoonists do what journalists won't
Ben Sargeant
Tom Toles
Boondocks
posted by tbogg at 11:19 PM
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A new style of class warfare — the affluent afflicting the afflicted
Looks like Mo Dowd has had enough:
But at their convention in New York, they can produce a hip-hop show that camouflages their hip-G.O.P. policies. Just as they did in Philadelphia in 2000, when they put on a minstrel show for the Babbity white guys in the stands.
A black woman sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," a Latino activist yelled "Puerto Rico, I love you!" Hispanics wore sombreros and a woman spoke who had won the Miss America pageant with an insulin pump under her evening gown.
This urban pageant was meant to signal suburbanites that W. was not scary, even if he had made that pilgrimage to Bob Jones U. — where the minorities on stage wouldn't even be allowed to hold hands with the white delegates.
The Bushies are giving tax breaks to the wrong Americans, hyperventilating over the wrong country and the wrong villains, and labeling the wrong Pakistanis terrorists.
snip
The gangs of New York have nothing on the gang in the White House.
posted by tbogg at 11:04 PM
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Welcome back........................(dickheads).
Democrats Who Backed Tax Cut in '01 Balk Now
A number of moderate Senate Democrats who were instrumental in helping President Bush pass a tax cut in 2001 said today that they opposed eliminating the federal tax on dividend payments, clouding the Congressional prospects for the central feature of the new Bush economic plan.
In 2001, President Bush was able to garner enough bipartisan support in the thinly divided Senate to pass his $1.35 trillion tax cut package. This time, however, even the president's Republican supporters predict a tougher road.
"There are a number of Democrats who voted with him on the last tax cut, and also a number of Republicans, who are not willing to just accept this one as a fait accompli and take it as it is," Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, said in an interview, adding that the dividend tax cut would have to be "replaced and/or dramatically scaled down."
The support of Mr. Breaux is considered crucial to passage of any economic stimulus legislation by the Senate, where Republicans have the barest majority. In 2001 he helped the White House win 12 Democratic votes for tax cuts.
snip
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who voted for the 2001 tax cut, described the president's plan as "a nonstarter."
"Right now," Mrs. Feinstein said, "I don't know of any Democrat who's going to vote for it."
They seem pretty cowed by that November election that made President God I Need A Drink, the Titan of the 21st Century.
With the English balking at a early start to Operation Inigo Montoya, it looks like its going to be a long year for Bush..
heh heh heh
posted by tbogg at 10:33 PM
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I hear the Nissan Flaming Pustule kicks ass...
All the good car names are taken.
One of the oddest named vehicles at the Detroit show was Volkswagen AG's Touareg SUV, which takes its name from a Nomadic tribe of the Saharan desert.
"The name may sound strange but we wanted to differentiate the vehicle from everything else," said Jens Neumann, a VW board member who is responsible for the U.S. operations of Europe's largest car company.
Fharfrompronounceable....
posted by tbogg at 10:22 PM
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Wealthiest .0001% of Americans praise Bush economic package.
Andy Borowitz.
posted by tbogg at 10:18 PM
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Get it on, on the bus, Gus.
Two Silver Lake students had sex on a school bus as other students cheered, Kingston police said.
The incident took place Dec. 12 in Kingston as the bus was on the way to Silver Lake Regional High School in Kingston and Silver Lake Regional Junior High School in Pembroke, authorities said.
The two students allegedly involved in the sex act were a 16-year-old male high school student and a 15-year-old female junior high school student, police Lt. David Griffiths said.
Three students cheered while the girl performed oral sex on the boy, he said
Where is Erika Harold when you need her? Isn't she a role model for teens?
No. Not really....
posted by tbogg at 10:15 PM
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I love him...I love him not...I love him....
Howard Fineman can't make up his mind whether he still loves George W Bush.
BUT ONE PIECE of war prep is missing: a clear, comprehensive rationale for the role in the world America will assume the moment the smart bombs start falling on Saddam’s armored palaces. President Bush — by nature a doer, not an explainer — thinks he’s said enough to prepare the nation and the world for war. He hasn’t. The clarity of purpose that seemed so evident after 9/11 has been lost. He needs to re-explain things, to his own people and to the planet.
But then he snaps back to his essential Howardness:
At various times, he’s played the presidency as Dirty Harry, Emperor Augustus, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Dag Hammarskjold.
???????
More like Count Rugen, Harry Dunne, Irwin Corey, Shemp, and this guy.
posted by tbogg at 10:05 PM
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Stop me before I blog again
Now that Andy Sullivan has managed to shake the money tree to pay for his blogging I guess he feels compelled to write even when he's unprepared. That must be why he has taken to starting his posts with a disclaimer:
THE ECONOMIC PLANS: To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what benefits an end to the tax on dividends might (or might not) bring to the economy.
or
NORTH KOREA: I haven't written much about the most recent events because I don't have anything new to say.
...and the he proceeds to say it.
posted by tbogg at 8:21 PM
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Well, if you won't sleep with women, somebody has to do it...
The Virgin Ben, keeper of a faith that is clean and pure and wholesome and godly in that blinding-white-light-avert-your-eyes-kind-of-way, and also doesn't require a strap-on, nipple clamps, and copious amounts of lubricant, is getting all squicky about..you know....chicks, like (snicker) doing it, with other (giggle, snort) chicks.
Goblin Queen e-mailed me angrily about my Rolf Eden post, saying that as a woman, she should know about the state of womanhood. If she's any example of modern womanhood, it's safe to say that modern womanhood is in decline. Explore her website, and read about her desire to sleep with a woman as a man. If that's modern womanhood, it's surely in trouble.
No, Sparky. The minute women decide they would rather sleep with other women is the day you are screwed, or not screwed as they case most definitely will be.
posted by tbogg at 1:51 PM
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"This stimulus program will put Americans back to work by --- oooooo! Pudding!"
See The Forest directs us to this excellent Robert Reich column that is so easy to understand that even George Bush could figure it out...if it were condensed to one page...with bullet points...and short easy-to-say words...in a large font...and he wasn't distracted by something shiny in the room...and he was sober...and Howard Fineman wasn't blowing him at the time...and there wasn't a baseball game on.
I'm sorry where was I? Oh yeah:
The president calls it a "jobs and growth" plan, but it's neither.
His latest round of proposed tax cuts won't create jobs and won't grow the economy. It will only do more of what his last round did -- make the rich even richer.
posted by tbogg at 1:24 PM
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Georgians given chance to disgrace themselves again in '04. "Yeehaws" are heard back in the piney woods...
So Zig-Zag Zell Miller is going to take a walk after 2004. (link from Atrios) Part of me is happy (guess which part!) because he was basically a doormat for Bush anyway, but then again, after the shameful antics of the Georgians in '02 when they booted war hero Max Cleland for Chickenshit Chambliss, you have to wonder who will take Miller's place.
I guarantee you Ralph Reed has been working on this for Bush dating back to last November. Klansmen may apply, but only compassionate Klansmen...
posted by tbogg at 12:25 PM
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I see blogger is screwed up again today. Ads are back and you might get "defense tech" which is not exactly my thing...
posted by tbogg at 12:15 PM
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Maybe they could do an anti-ecstasy ad to run during that Army recruiting gay porn show....
There has been a rash of anti-drug ads on TV lately, and not cool ones where a hottie busts up a kitchen with a frying pan. busybusybusy takes on the most annoying one.
posted by tbogg at 10:49 AM
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Vintage whine from a Great Presidential Fellatio Crisis survivor.
Gary Aldrich (remember him...FBI guy turned Clinton stalker) is upset because Time Magazine gave the Man of the Year Award to "whistleblowers" and he thinks he should get an award too, since he blew first. And blow, he does:
My candidate for “Hypocrite of 2002” has to go to Time magazine for suddenly discovering the dangers and benefits that come from whistleblowing. The cover of a recent issue features their “Persons of the Year” – three women who blew the whistle on corporate and government incompetence or wrongdoing.
I don’t want to discourage whistleblowers or those who choose to ride on their coattails; surfacing the truth about corporate and government wrongdoing is usually considered a good thing.
But I find it difficult to understand how we can turn truth “on” and “off” like a switch.
snip
But, when my best-selling book, “Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House” was published, Time had a field day – along with the rest of the national media – destroying my credibility on the say-so of the Clinton White House. My book was 98% about the national security breakdown inside the Clinton White House and 2% about the ill manners of some liberal Democrats. Nevertheless, national media like Time scoffed at the well-documented claims of a senior FBI Agent who had been working in the Clinton White House, full time, for more than two years.
They preferred to believe that somehow I had lost my mind. History unfolded, however, has vindicated me. The lack of “DNA” evidence for Clinton’s reckless womanizing, as described in my book, is hardly ever mentioned these days. What is recalled is that I was a serious whistleblower who tried to surface wrongdoing, abuse, and corruption occurring in the White House right under the nose of the national media.
Back then, Time thought differently about whistleblowing. They went on to ignore or demonize every single whistleblower that bravely stepped forward to describe Clinton’s shameful conduct or Clinton administration corruption. Most of these whistleblowers were women, like RTC investigator Jean Lewis, or Linda Tripp, or Juanita Broaddrick, or Paula Jones, or Kathleen Willey, or Gennifer Flowers. All were attacked and dismissed as bimbos and liars.
Um, yeah. 98% about 'national security...then he goes on to mention Lewis (Whitewater...dismissed), Tripp (sex...ewwww), Jones (sex...ewww, again), Broaddrick (sex...never happened), Willey (sex...looking for a job), and Flowers (sex...again).
That is his collection of "whistleblowers". Lots of blowing...not many whistles to be found.
posted by tbogg at 10:34 AM
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Whoops! I did it again.
Looks like Michelle Malkin, who doesn't like anyone unless they are white like her, got suckered in by the terrorists-from-Canada-who-don't-exist-story, and now she's stamping her dainty little feet.
So the FBI was apparently fooled into hunting for five non-existent, Middle Eastern fugitives smuggled in from Canada. It now looks like a weasel named Michael John Hamdani made the whole thing up to avoid facing old document forgery charges.
Gee, Michelle, looks like you got fooled too. And then wasted an entire column (yeah, yeah...I know...they're all a waste) on creating a scenario for the fictional swarthy-evildoers (who aren't white like you) to enter the country. But the upside was that you got to promote your Regnery Press ("If it's shit...we can get it on paper!") book, Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists Criminals & Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores with a phony story. How very Cassie Bernal of you.
Then again...the fact that you have, well I guess that's egg, all over your face hasn't deterred you from your appointed rounds:
Hamdani may have pulled a fast one, but our air, land and sea ports of entry are still sieves -- and the continuing hunt for fugitive terror suspects is no joke:
...and off she goes again, tracking down evildoers who aren't white like her.
.
posted by tbogg at 10:12 AM
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Looks like the stimulus package got right to work today.
Dow down 60 points.
(Added at 12:30 PST) Dow down 144 points. The Bush economy working overtime....
...and
Don't bank on companies rushing to offer dividends
Now the tax on dividends is set to be eliminated, some investors may be waiting for companies to step up and dole out the cash. But Steven Bank, tax law professor at UCLA, warned investors not to expect a dividend gold rush.
Bank told Squawk Box that is history's any guide, companies really don't care about the tax rates of their shareholders when making decisions on whether to pay dividends.
"Each time (a cut on dividends) is brought up, managers have quietly lobbied it away," Bank said. "They prefer other (tax cuts or incentives) which benefit their bottom line rather than the shareholders bottom line."
He said he expects the tax cut on dividends to have a reinvestment option in the final bill -- that's where management will be able to offer a dividend but have the option to put it back into the company rather than give it to shareholders. This way the company can boast about offering a dividend but use the cash however it wants, he added.
Bank said he does expect a few new dividend payments, but the question is whether they will come from new companies, or whether traditional dividend companies will just up their payouts.
posted by tbogg at 8:47 AM
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Signs of a spine
Chuck Schumer.
New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer will announce this morning that he will filibuster the nomination of Charles Pickering to a place on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.More to come later today.
That's a start...
posted by tbogg at 8:34 AM
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When he gets out of jail, he'll get his Eddie Eagle Marksmanship Award
N.C. man hit by stray bullet shot half a mile away
Every year between Christmas and New Year's, Burke County authorities say, residents hear guns popping and sometimes find bullet holes in their cars, storage sheds and homes.
Last week, a Burke County man was shot in the leg by a 17-year-old half a mile away. The boy had received a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle as a Christmas present, sheriff's deputies said.
snip
Deputies planned to consult this week with prosecutors, who will decide whether to charge the boy, sheriff's Lt. John Suttle said. Authorities declined to identify the boy pending the decision.
They also urged people to keep close watch on young people when they're shooting.
"They're new, they're toys, they want to play with 'em," Suttle said. "If you're just some idiot shooting into the trees or just shooting at a target in your yard, you're being negligent, in my opinion. But there's no charge for stupidity. I wish there was."
If there was a charge for stupidity, Suttle would be arresting himself for referring to a .22 caliber rifle as a "toy".
posted by tbogg at 8:18 AM
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Now is the time for the Democrats to grow a spine
As pointed out over at Eschaton, President Uniter/Divider has renominated Charles Pickering for a federal judgeship even though he is an unreconstructed racist, much like his sponsor, Trent Lott. The fact that Bush, religious cultist Orrin Hatch, and Bill the Cat Killer Frist also support Pickering can only indicate that they support his way of thinking and implies that they accept his racist leanings.
In addition, Bush has renominated thin-lipped, tight-assed, Enron-whore Priscilla Owen, and stealth candidate Miguel Estrada.
Each of these candidates should be filibustered until withdrawn. If the Senate comes to a standstill...so be it.
Charles Schumer, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Patrick Leahy, John Kerry...this is your cue.
...and John Edwards....if you have any desire to be the Democratic nominee for President...it's time to step up to the plate and be a man.
Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, will probably roll over on his back and pee on his belly.
posted by tbogg at 8:03 AM
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Tuesday, January 07, 2003
I am an Army of One....I am also a hot throbbing hunk of manhood.
Looks like the Army is trying to get enlistments up again.
Television viewers in Webster were startled Monday night when a community access show about the U.S. Army was interrupted by roughly 20 minutes of explicit gay pornography.
snip
The unscheduled programming found its way onto the air on Webster Cable Access 12 between 8 and 9 p.m., apparently during the middle of Army Newswatch, a program produced by the U.S. Army.
By the time Auger was able to get to the office last night, the pornography was off the air. Supervisor Cathryn Thomas said residents have told her the station apparently reverted back to Army Newswatch.
Callers to the Brother Wease morning show on WCMF-FM said that the gay porn program seemed to have a German military theme to it involving an older officer and younger men.
I remember that Hogan's Heroes episode. It was something about Major Hochstetter, Newkirk, and a tunnel...
posted by tbogg at 2:34 PM
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Driving Miss Daisy Lott
Looks like Trent won't have to get behind the driving wheel.
The Senate this week will take up a measure allowing former Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., to keep his taxpayer-subsidized car and driver, senior Senate sources from both sides of the aisle told Fox News.
However family retainer, Rochester, may have to go, news of which has caused Miz Lott to take to her chambers with the vapors where she will consume an appropriate dosage of laudanum sent over by Miz Laura who has moved on to heavier barbituates and absinthe since the girls went off to college and she doesn't have to share anymore.
posted by tbogg at 1:49 PM
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Okay. They can sit at the lunch-counter, but they have to keep their hands off the white women.
Journalists! What are you going to do with their kind? Looks like three of them were acting all uppity in Texas
A small group of journalists invited to tour the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas, last Thursday "limited themselves to small talk" for 90 minutes, as one of them put it, after White House officials suggested Bush might otherwise cut short the tour. But another group of reporters was not so compliant. Three journalists, suspecting Bush would pay a visit to the Crawford Coffee Station on New Year's Eve, strolled over for lunch in hopes of being there if he arrived. A White House staff member appeared, wrote down their names and urged them to leave, telling them Bush "has said he won't come if you stay." The scribes stood by their cheeseburgers. "We told him that we were paying customers and had no intention of leaving," said Rachel Graves of the Houston Chronicle. The White House backed down, and Bush got his burger
Those obstreperous little scalawags wouldn't have gotten away with this if Trent Lott were still alive, by cracky....
(thanks to Jon for this...)
posted by tbogg at 1:10 PM
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That was then, this is now.
Yesterday Republicans mouthpieces said the stock market surge was because of President Can't Count To Twentyone With His Pants On's impending stimulus plan. Today he announced it....Dow down 30 points.
...and uggabugga asks a question that, you know the press would never, ever, ever ask:
From the White House website:
"This is a plan that provides tax relief to the working citizens. It's a plan that is a very fair plan."
So why is it that half the cost of the plan will come from eliminating taxes on dividends - an income stream you get without working?
D'oh!
posted by tbogg at 12:56 PM
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M-I-C-K-E-Y F-R-A-U-D
Ted Barlow does a good job on Mickey Kaus who really should be spending his peri-menopausal years reviewing hot fast cars and the latest in hair replacement technologies, and not economic policy.
posted by tbogg at 12:41 PM
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Now that's the kind of math George Bush can understand...
From The Hampster:
AL FRANKEN
No, no, those were, those were great. I'm going to misuse one now. In the six years, about six years of both Bush administrations, the elder and the younger, there has not been one net new job created, and so here . . .
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) Private sector.
AL FRANKEN
No, not one net new job, just in the whole economy. So this is, extending that logically, that means that if the Bushes had run the country from its inception to the present, no one in this country would have ever worked. We'd be the poorest country, we'd be poorer than Somalia.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS
(Off Camera) I don't think the Columbia Economic Department is gonna be hiring you any time soon.
AL FRANKEN
Numbers don't lie
posted by tbogg at 12:27 PM
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Dildos, Free Markets, and Ben Shapiro
I have to admit that Ben Shapiro became my favorite rightwing punda-loon only after the SD Union dropped the columns of Joseph Perkins. Perkins, for those who never read him, was a former aide to ex-VP Dan Quayle. Perkins managed to parlay that "insider" gig into one that allowed him to rewrite Heritage Foundation press releases into profoundly fact-challenged columns that the UT found fit to publish. The fact that Perkins was black and conservative, making him rarer than a George Bush deep thought, allowed the UT editors to bite their collective tongues and ignore the many sarcastic Letters to the Editor that inevitably followed a Perkin's column.
But then I discovered Ben, the Hey Arnold! of conservative punditry and I knew I had discovered a new source for twisted conventional wisdom, a narrow minded outlook, and stunted social development. Much has been made of Ben's failure to dabble in the conjugal arts (he claims religion, but I think we all know better), and he wonders why everyone is so obsessed with his " sexual status".
Maybe it's because of columns like this from the Daily Bruin:
UCLA has entered the zone of no return. The Zone d'Erotica, that is.
Zone d'Erotica is a sex shop located just 375 feet from Gayley Terraces. This store, offering the only kind of deviancy UCLA lacks, adds a great deal to the campus: a place to buy assorted pornographic videos, sex toys and lingerie. Just what the homeowners, students and faculty need...
There are limits to capitalistic enterprise, and this is one of them. While the government should keep involvement in the workings of the free market to a minimum, the sex industry is one market that shouldn't be too free. It is an illegitimate, unfortunate function of the market that distribution centers exist for such twisted items, and while the government cannot ban them, it can restrict them. Gayley Avenue is a good place to start.
The Westwood Homeowners Association has every right to protest this travesty. Would you want a sex shop opening across the street from your home? If you had a five-year-old child, would you want him to ask "Mommy, how much is that vibrator in the window?"
Sex shops happen to have a certain, less-than-reputable audience. Such stores gather a very exclusive, perverted clientele likely coming from near and far to find such a treasure trove. Must we wait before the shop is already established to realize that sordid men walking around Westwood holding Wicked Enterprise videos will make the area look bad?
snip
Any paper equating a Christian bookstore with a pornographic sex shop is not worth the paper it is printed on. This is another disgusting example of an attempt to strip away stable values and implement a set of "subjective, tolerant, diverse" values.
Anyone who believes that a Christian bookstore promoting God, love and morality is as offensive as a sex shop promoting animal lust and the degradation of sexual intimacy into a merely hedonistic act is quite simply a disgrace to the human capacity for knowledge and reason.
The Westwood Homeowners Association has the moral and intellectual high ground. The kind of situation that would allow a child to be exposed to pornography mandates some sort of action, governmental or otherwise. There is no benefit to having this sort of smut in any decent neighborhood.
For those keeping score at home, sex involves "deviancy", and is "twisted", "perverted", "sordid", and involves "animal lust and the degradation of sexual intimacy into a merely hedonistic act"...but only if done right, I might add.
I think that we can safely say that young master Shapiro's "sexual status" indicates the soul of Carol Ledoux trapped in the body of a young, male, socially inept, poli-sci undergrad.
Now that's twisted....
posted by tbogg at 12:10 PM
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The Sally Quinn Suicide Watch
DC Social life is deader than Bob Dole's dick with President Cartoon Network at the helm.
The capital's most glamorous annual evening, the Kennedy Center Honors, was far from over. The gala finale, a stirring rendition of "America the Beautiful," led by James Taylor, was still under way — and the supper dance had yet to begin — when Karl Rove, President Bush's political mastermind, darted out of the center's Opera House last month.
Mr. Rove had a good reason: his boss was leaving, too. "The security aide came and said, `Mr. and Mrs. Rove, it's time to move now,' " he recalled. Last fall, at a Kennedy Center concert commemorating the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the finale was taped for television at the end of the first act, so the president could leave early, stranding the live audience to sit through the rest of the show
Apparently that was the night of a "very special episode" of Boy Meets World.
"Well, it's difficult to make a judgment, because these are serious times," said Buffy Cafritz, a veteran Republican hostess. "The Reagan years were more joyous, and people were out more. President Clinton could stay up and keep my hours, 2 and 3 a.m. in the morning. The town is just different. If it's not Iraq, it's the market. There isn't a lightness as there has been in the past."
Looks like Buffy the Vampire Hostess misses Big Bill.
posted by tbogg at 10:00 AM
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Tax code gives hummer to owners of Hummers
This is just grotesque:
You see SUV's on the road everywhere these days, but sport utility vehicles are some of the least efficient and most expensive vehicles out there-- unless you get an unusual tax break that will save you plenty.
Karl Wizinsky just bought a giant Ford Excursion, even though he says he doesn't really need it.
"You certainly get a good view of the road," he says.
But he admits that he bought it because of the big break he can get on his tax return.
snip
At a time when the nation's priorities are to improve gas mileage and reduce dependence on foreign oil, the government has instead provided an incentive for just the opposite -- the biggest, least efficient SUVS available.
Here's how:
The incentives were designed to give tax breaks to small business owners buying trucks for construction or farming. But the tax code was amended before the very largest class of SUVs -- those over 6,000 pounds, existed. The SUV's carry the classification "light truck" even though they are used almost exclusively as passenger vehicles.
As a result, people whose business involves hauling nothing more than themselves reap huge benefits buying Land Rovers, Cadillacs -- even Hummers.
A new Land Rover, for example, with a sticker price of nearly $72,000 will cost only $50,000 after the tax break -- a savings of more than $21,000.
"I don't think the intent of the law was large luxurious SUV's," Jenkins said. "But that's been exactly what's happened."
posted by tbogg at 9:30 AM
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Daschle says "No thanks"...If only Joe Lieberman would follow suit
The very uncharismatic Tom Daschle has decided to take a pass on running for President since Gephardt has already filled the "no-chance-to-win" slot.
posted by tbogg at 9:22 AM
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Chain, chain, chain, Cheney's a fool.....
JM Marshall talks about the total screw-up in the Bush Administration...and it's not the usual suspect.
Cheney's bad judgment is akin to Trent Lott's ugly history on race: Everyone sort of knew it was there, only no one ever really took notice until it was pointed out in a way that was difficult to ignore.
posted by tbogg at 9:16 AM
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You scratch my yellow stripe, I'll scratch yours....
Looks like noted chickenhawk and flag-draped coward Saxby Chambliss is settling into his new role in Washington. And he found a friend who has a lot in common with him:
"I value his advice on terrorism," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Chambliss at a March campaign rally in Atlanta. "He's sound when it comes to counterterrorism. He's been in the Oval Office to give me sound, solid advice. And I've listened to it every time he's come in there."
Maybe President Cowardly Lyin' will invite Mr Chambliss to fly on Air Force One with him to Nebraska during the next terrorist attack so they can hide out together at Offutt Air Force Base which has been recently code-named Chicken Coop 1 by the Secret Service.
posted by tbogg at 8:04 AM
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Take my advice...don't take my advice
"Focus group moderator" Frank Luntz, who has given up any appearance of non-partisanship, has some advice for Republicans.
Since 9/11, there has been a sea change in the mindset of America. As a focus group moderator, I hear a very different voice of a very changed America. In these uncertain times, people are no longer content to subsist on the sound bites, sloganeering, and other stratagems of political gamesmanship.
Then he says:
As long as Republicans make a show of cutting waste, fraud and abuse, they will be forgiven for a little red ink.
They just need to be sure to not use sound bites, sloganeering, and stratagems of political gamesmanship while they make a show of cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
This looks like a job for ...Karl Rove.
posted by tbogg at 7:49 AM
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Monday, January 06, 2003
Like an anti-semite.... Touched for the very first time
The Virgin Ben pulls out what few rhetorical tricks he has in response to the Rittenhouse Review. He claims he is being called a "nazi" when it didn't happen, and then points out that refering to him as a virgin, besides being "lame" is also......wait for it....."anti-semitic".
Who knew?
I hope non-Gentile Ben (also referred to by my good friend Will as the Original Wanksta) eventually gets someone to touch his pee-pee soon since the last time it was handled by foreign hands was at his bris.
Then again, considering his........ Ben-ness....maybe that's asking a lot.
posted by tbogg at 11:34 PM
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No time for lunch, I have "Doing Your Daughter-In-Law" at 1, with "Suicide is Painless...To Me" at 3.
Snotglass is not available since he is attending a George C. Roche III "family values" conference at Hillsdale College.
You remember George Roche III. The guy who was humping his daughter-in-law and drove her to suicide? Yeah, that "family values" guy.
Hope Snotglass (named after the Apostle the Bible doesn't like to talk about) picks up some valuable tips...
posted by tbogg at 11:10 PM
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The Winter of Our Disconnect
Iraq has no nuclear weapons and is not even close to having them. They are threatening no one. What few allies we have left aren't too interested in war but Bush can't wait to go after them.
North Korea is close to having them, continually threaten their neighbors, and are desperate enough to do it. A million people could die and the world economy could be shattered. The administration can't get together with more of our allies who could be the most affected by war. Bush won't talk to the North Koreans and changes his mind on policy like he's explaining away his insider trading days again.
We are so screwed.
posted by tbogg at 10:51 PM
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It is class warfare.
As Paul Krugman shows, the Republicans are engaging in class warfare and the mainstream "journalists" are afraid to call them on it.
Nonetheless, the faithful laud our glorious leader's wisdom. For a variety of reasons, including the desire to avoid charges of liberal bias, most reporting is carefully hedged. And the public, reading only praise or he-said-she-said discussions, never grasps the fundamental disconnect between problem and policy.
And so it goes with the administration's "stimulus" plan
posted by tbogg at 10:32 PM
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Why I love the Freepers....
It's irritating that Noonan (a great writer and good conservative who's nonetheless occasionally too saccharine for my taste) would perpetuate the myth that Bush "wobbled" for a few hours after the Twin Towers were hit. He did not wobble! As the leader of the nation he was forced to be very careful about his personal security at a time when multiple unknown factors existed about the resources and intentions of the enemy.
He behaved prudentially, and exactly as he should have! Noonan should know this.
3 posted on 01/06/2003 6:42 AM PST by beckett
I'd get me a freeper for a pet, but it wouldn't be prudential.
posted by tbogg at 3:54 PM
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New batty time, same batty Peggy
I think that the Wall Street Journal moved Noonan the Loon to Mondays because The Bachelorette is on Wednesday nights and poor Peg just couldn't concentrate on that Thursday deadline, what with all those cute guys after just one woman. But that's okay, because Peggy has found her Mystery Date, a steady guy as comfortable as an old shoe. He's uncomplicated by deep thoughts, a religious man, a family man, and best of all, he's not a cow's head suspended in formaldehyde. He just: George.
The whole world was watching, and America was watching with keen concentration, when he did his best work: his visit to ground zero and "I can hear you; the world hears you"; his Oval Office interview a few days after the attack when he said, "I am a loving man, but I have a job to do"; his speech to Congress in which he described the nature of the menace we face and spoke of American resolve; his spectacular live question-and-answer session with children when Vladimir Putin was meeting with him in Texas, in which both took questions from kids and Mr. Bush's humanity shined through; and a host of other public moments. The boy done good.
Yup. He was pretty "spectacular" handling those tough probing questions from those eight and nine year olds, and live no less. But wait, there's more...
But with Mr. Bush things aren't a big emotional drama. He seems stable. This is a relief. You get the impression he's like what he of course was, a businessman. When things work, good; when they don't, change. It's not personal. It doesn't have to be messy. It's not Shakespearean.
...and he's still that bright-eyed, fresh-faced businessman, doing the same thing to the country that he did to his businesses...plunging them into debt and chaos. You've got to admire that kind of steadfastness, that blinkered tenaciousness.
Peggy then clues us into why liberals just haven't taken the steady, rock-solid, emotionally vacant, George Bush to our collective bosoms:
Liberals like their leaders interesting. I always think this may be because some of them have not been able to fully engage the idea of a God, and tend to fill that hole in themselves with politics and its concerns. If the world of government and politics becomes your god, and yields a supergod called a president, you want that god to be interesting.
Well, I wouldn't say that we make government and politics a god (especially those of us that are atheists...which would be...kind of absurd) but we do tend to like our leader, also known as the " Leader of the Free World", to sometimes have deep thoughts or express an interest in something other than reading baseball box scores or avenging the the near asassination of his dad ("After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad."). We see the world as a kind of complex place that sometimes requires complex answers. We're funny that way.
Peggy finishes with a flourish:
Conservatives, on the other hand, don't look for god in government, for part of being a conservative is holding the conviction that there is no god in government. They like complicated personalities in their TV shows and from actors and opera singers, but they want steadiness and a vision they can agree with from their presidents. Actually I think conservatives want their presidents the way they want their art: somewhere in the normal range. They don't like cow's heads suspended in formaldehyde and don't understand that as high art; by 1998 they thought Bill Clinton was the political version of a cow's head in formaldehyde, and they didn't like that either.
And so my liberal friends say: Why do people like Mr. Bush? And they want an interesting answer. But I do think part of the answer is: Because he's not complicated and perhaps not even especially interesting as a person. We just love that.
"Bill Clinton was the political version of a cow's head in formaldehyde"
Just roll that phrase around in your mouth. Mull it over. Think about it.
It's somewhere in the Peggy Noonan "normal range".
Enter at your own risk.
**************************************
No More Mr. Nice Blog on Peggy
Jesse at Pandagon on her too
Looks like a Peggy pile-on. She wishes...
posted by tbogg at 1:33 PM
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What I didn't learn in law school....
Mona Charen, who, for some reason gets paid to write columns, takes on John Edwards:
John Edwards, the handsome, and comely and attractive senator from North Carolina (well, those are his chief assets) has announced plans to seek the Democratic nomination for president. A relative newcomer to politics, Mr. Edwards has caught the eye of party elders due to his, well, his looks.
Mr. Edwards does start with one big disadvantage, though. He's a trial lawyer, and while this allows him ready access to the deep pockets of his fellow trial lawyers, it causes many Americans to wrinkle their noses. Clearly, Mr. Edwards has been working on how to spin the trial lawyer handicap, and he's decided to frame it this way: His multimillion-dollar business mau-mauing companies out of large settlements is really being "a champion for regular people."..... (my emphasis)
The law school-educated Charen makes the assertion that Senator Edwards was " mau-mauing" companies . for big settlements. She doesn't explain the term 'mau-mauing' and I assume it's not a legal term. I do know that the expression is a favorite of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, so I guess it involves some feminine, right-wing Mandingo fantasy that must keep Trent Lott up at night, dampening his sheets. Anyway, since she brought it up, what kind of settlements did he manage to 'mau-mau'?
According to The Washington Monthly:
The defining case in Edwards' legal career wrapped up that same year. In 1993, a five-year-old girl named Valerie Lakey had been playing in a Wake County, N.C., wading pool when she became caught in an uncovered drain so forcefully that the suction pulled out most of her intestines. She survived but for the rest of her life will need to be hooked up to feeding tubes for 12 hours each night. Edwards filed suit on the Lakeys' behalf against Sta-Rite Industries, the Wisconsin corporation that manufactured the drain. Attorneys describe his handling of the case as a virtuoso example of a trial layer bringing a negligent corporation to heel. Sta-Rite offered the Lakeys $100,000 to settle the case. Edwards passed. Before trial, he discovered that 12 other children had suffered similar injuries from Sta-Rite drains. The company raised its offer to $1.25 million. Two weeks into the trial, they upped the figure to $8.5 million. Edwards declined the offer and asked for their insurance policy limit of $22.5 million. The day before the trial resumed from Christmas break, Sta-Rite countered with $17.5 million. Again, Edwards said no. On January 10, 1997, lawyers from across the state packed the courtroom to hear Edwards' closing argument, "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen," recalls Dayton. Three days later, the jury found Sta-Rite guilty and liable for $25 million in economic damages (by state law, punitive damages could have tripled that amount). The company immediately settled for $25 million, the largest verdict in state history. For their part, Edwards and Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service
I can see how a case like that would offend all right-thinking Americans.
Maybe this is why Charen writes bad columns instead practicing law before a jury.
posted by tbogg at 11:36 AM
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Let the blog-god sort them out.
Steven Den Beste over at USS Clueless feels that the best way to solve the Palestinian problem is just to kill them all.
But increasingly I'm finding myself feeling as if the world would be better off if someone went in and shot every damned one of them and piled the lot in an unmarked grave
snip
I know that's wrong. I know it could never happen, and that it will never happen, and that it should never happen, and I would never actually advocate anything like that. But what I'm finding is that every time I read about a Palestinian being killed by the Israelis, my first emotional reaction is, "Good riddance." I've reached the point where I feel nothing at all when I read about them dying. I have reached the point where I don't care at all, not even slightly, about their pain and hardship. They have ceased to be persons to me. I'm no longer even interested in hearing their side of the story.
He later uses the unfortunate term: final solution.
I suppose not, but as time goes on it is harder and harder for me to tell myself that it is the wrong answer. In any war, there is one way to positively settle the issue, and that's for everyone on one side of it to die. Whatever else you might say about that, it is at least a final solution.
You have to read the whole thing (sorry) to understand his point, but I still find it odd that someone who can go on and on about the most mundane matters in his blog can be so exhausted by a war in which he has no vested interest.
posted by tbogg at 9:44 AM
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Tax the poor, feed the rich
Seeing the Forest explains the Give Steve Forbes a Hard-on Act of 2003.
Remember, your Social Security retirement money was given away to the really rich in the 1980's, through tax cuts. Now the money you currently pay into the Social Security system is also being handed to the rich through even more huge tax cuts. And the portion of the tax money that you pay that goes out as interest on the debt is also being given to the rich in the form of debt interest payments. A lot of the military budget is handed to wealthy corporations. The pension money that you would have received if you worked at a corporation was handed out to the rich in the 1980's in the form of increased stock price when pensions were stopped, and you were instead told to save your own money through an IRA or a 401K account.
posted by tbogg at 8:22 AM
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Sunday, January 05, 2003
The man fromn Ar-busto.
This is not a joke.
He, on the other hand, is.
posted by tbogg at 11:12 PM
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Pay no attention to that floundering economy behind the curtain
Looks like those five terrorists from Canada may not be terrorists... or even exist.
posted by tbogg at 10:50 PM
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Can he just keep her from making movies?
Antonio Banderas says " no" to anymore Melanie Griffith surgeries.
posted by tbogg at 10:43 PM
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Too Much Time On My Hands Watch
While there is a certain humor factor in the notorious CAP Alert reviews, you've got to hand it to Ken Waight over at Lying In Ponds who has come up with a way to quantify the partisanship of newspaper columnists.
...and wouldn't you just know it that Paul Krugman came out on top as the most partisan of all columnists. Not Michael Kelly or Bob Bartley. Of course he only reviewed the The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times. Not that conservatives like Andrew Sullivan will point this out when refering to the rankings. This implies that Krugman is somehow more partisan than columnists like Ann Coulter, Rich Lowry, or Cal Thomas, who don't write for those publications, but are syndicated.
Seems dishonest doesn't it? And dishonesty is so hard to quantify...
posted by tbogg at 10:38 PM
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Welcome back
Media Whores Online is back....tan, rested, and ready to overthrow the dominant media paradigm or, more to the point, shine a spotlight on the toads in the journalistic pond.
Be sure to vote for Whore of the Year. Warning...it has sound. Additional warning, Howie Kurtz isn't even nominated. That is an oversight.
posted by tbogg at 9:27 PM
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"Duh" story of the year.
Reuters discovers the concept of "freeping".
Democrats and Republicans alike turned to the Internet for news during last fall's elections, but conservatives were more likely to weigh in on online polls, according to a study released on Sunday.
snip
Nearly half of Republicans who went online for election news said they liked to register their opinions in online polls, compared with 28 percent of Democrats
Of course online polls are the kind of "sound science" that conservatives believe in...as long as they reflect their views. Kind of like "intelligent design".
posted by tbogg at 9:21 PM
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Let's not kid ourselves...
The Virgin Ben 'splains why he is a virgin.
Yes, I am a virgin. Being an Orthodox Jew, I am required by halacha (Jewish law) to remain abstinent until marriage. If calling me a virgin is supposed to be an insult, than it is a poor attempt at an one. It makes me wonder why the Rittenhouse Review is so concerned about my virginity. Then again, they are oversexed whores who enjoy the bedtime company of pigs, so I shouldn't wonder at all
As I have said before: some people choose abstinence, some have it thrust upon them.
Like many, I'm not concerned with the Virgin Ben's sexual status so much as his misogynistic and sniggering attitude regarding women. Regardless of Shapiro's sexual status, his attitudes towards women is medieval at best. Whores or saints.
Here is the deal, I refrain from discussing Orthodox Judaism since I don't know anything about it, Ben should do the same about women.
posted by tbogg at 8:51 PM
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Thursday, January 02, 2003
Nothing is sacred.
Using Zeppelin to sell Cadillacs. London Calling selling Jaguars. Now, Morphine's Buena to sell MGD.
Oof.
posted by tbogg at 9:14 PM
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But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house
Rain is wet.
Reese Witherspoon is cute as a button.
The Bush White House is kinda secretive.
A telling example came in late 2001 when Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the new policy on the Freedom of Information Act, a move that attracted relatively little public attention.
Although the new policy for dealing with the 1966 statute that has opened millions of pages of government records to scholars, reporters and the public was announced after Sept. 11, it had been planned well before the attacks.
The Ashcroft directive encouraged federal agencies to reject requests for documents if there was any legal basis to do so, promising that the Justice Department would defend them in court. It was a stark reversal of the policy set eight years earlier, when the Clinton administration told agencies to make records available whenever they could, even if the law provided a reason not to, so long as there was no "foreseeable harm" from the release.
Turn on the lights and they scurry back under the couches.
Duh.
posted by tbogg at 9:09 PM
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If John Ashcroft has wet dreams, this is one of them. Except for the "sorry" part...
Police 'sorry' for porno raid
posted by tbogg at 8:48 PM
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Woohoo! Three-peat fror Houston! We're #1! ... We're #1! ...We're #.....(huff huff) I gotta sit down....
Put down that deep dish, Chicago. Houston has you beat again for America's Fattest City. The Ten Worst. Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, St Louis, Cleveland, Atlanta, Columbus, Dallas, Charlotte.
Congratulations Texas and Ohio with two cities each. Have a Little Debbie on us.
I'm disappointed. San Diego has dropped from #1 to #3 to #5 in three years as the Fittest City. I blame it on the transplants.
posted by tbogg at 8:42 PM
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...and Omar was saved. But what about Billy's grandpa?
With logic like this, how could they possibly hate us?
Oh, that's right. We gave the world Family Circus. We had it coming.
posted by tbogg at 8:24 PM
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More painful than watching Bush on Jeopardy...
Noted potatohead Michael Kelly atempts to be droll and witty.
Carter Returns Nobel Peace Prize
'Too, Too Ridiculous,' Ex-Prez Says
PLAINS, Ga., March 17 -- In a move that stunned veteran narcissistic personality disorder observers, a smiling Jimmy Carter today announced that he had decided to return the coveted Peace Prize awarded to him last year by the Nobel Committee.
"I may be the most vainglorious, self-regarding, preachifying old coot since Henry Ward Beecher, but even I know when a joke has gone too far," said Carter
Sadder than a Ben Shapiro pick-up line.
posted by tbogg at 8:12 PM
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It all makes sense now.
After LOTR The Two Towers made $200 million in it's first 12 days, the comment was made that the dollar amount was extraordinary since no one who saw it had a date.
Then I did a little checking with our good little buddy, the Virgin Ben. According to Master Shapiro:
And about $25 of that is from me. I have now seen LOTR: Two Towers three times, and it improves with repeated viewing. I can't be happier that in less than two weeks, Two Towers is hitting $200 million. The message of the movie is so great! I won't quote any of the lines here (I'm not going to spoil it for you), but the concept is completely in sync with the tack we need to take in the War on Islamism.
Moving on, Ben thinks we should get going on that war.
Kofi Annan and his band of anti-American, anti-Semitic morons are proclaiming that there's no reason to attack Iraq. He says they're fully cooperating. One anonymous inspector said they haven't found "one iota of concealed material." Well of course not, you stupid fools! That's why they're concealed! How tough is this? They sent in 12,000 pages of garbage pretending it's a report. They deny that they have any bio or chem weapons. We know they do. There it is, reason for war.
...but you know Ben won't be fighting. But he would, you know, except that he's really not " "interested".
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) voted against the resolution to authorize the use of force in Iraq. But in an op-ed in the NY Times, Rangel is now calling for re-institution of the draft. Personally, I have no problem with the draft. I am not all that interested in joining the military as a volunteer, but if I were called upon to serve, I would do so.
Rangel wrote:
But as a combat veteran of the Korean conflict, I believe that if we are going to send our children to war, the governing principle must be that of shared sacrifice. Throughout much of our history, Americans have been asked to shoulder the burden of war equally
To which our Ben replied:
This is fair enough. But when the army calls for the re-institution of the draft, I'll listen, not when some semi-pacifist New York representative thinks so.
Buck-buck-buck-bacaw.....
It would be a shame in the third installment of LOTR opened next year and Ben were off fighting Islamo-facists.
posted by tbogg at 12:06 AM
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Wednesday, January 01, 2003
Giving President Shut-In the respect he deserves.
Dana Milbank is either getting punchy or he is finally admitting that he is covering the greatest PR campaign for a village idiot ever.
Of course, Bush, even when hidden from view and clearing endless brush, continues to work the phones and do his day job. Still, his aides feel compelled to remind the public of this. "The president immediately engaged on this issue," Powell told Tim Russert on Sunday regarding North Korea. "President Bush has been engaged from the very beginning."
The administration has found it useful to provide such reminders, at regular intervals, that the president is paying attention to the issues of the day.
International environmental concerns? "The president has already been very engaged in these issues and plans to be engaged," Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for global affairs, said in August. The India-Pakistan standoff? "The president is fully engaged," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said in June. The review of military resources? "The president has been engaged," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld attested last year. The China spy plane crisis? "He has been very engaged," said a senior Bush aide, briefing reporters.
This president, it would seem, has been engaged more often than Elizabeth Taylor.
posted by tbogg at 11:34 PM
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Misanthrope or mysoginist?
Ann Coulter doesn't like anyone, but you really have to marvel at a column where she attempts to defend some of her more offensive utterances only to start it off with the title: Journalism: Where Even The Men Are Women. I'm sure, in her usual ham-handed way (has anyone ever used the phrase "What I meant was..." more than Ann?) she seems to want to attack journalists by somehow inferring that they are "women" as if there is something wrong with that. As an alleged woman herself, is this a sign of self-loathing?
Should we care?
posted by tbogg at 11:02 PM
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I swear...
I did a couple of long posts yesterday, only to have them go bye-bye when I went to post and publish. I got so frustrated, because they were works of genius (I swear) that I haven't posted since then.
Good news, though. The brilliant Digby has started his own blog at Hullabaloo, and you should check it out on a daily basis. He rocks.
posted by tbogg at 9:52 PM
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Monday, December 30, 2002
I'm back....
Just returned from Indian Wells where I was unable to make a decent connnection with my laptop to the Internet (mainly because I didn't feel like doing any reformatting...I was on vacation, dammit!) so instead I spent a great amount of time by the pool reading books (remember those?) and watching my daughter order virgin daquiris and charge them to the room.
It appears that during my absence I received about 25 e-mails regarding an altercation between zizka & tapped which I still haven't read through (I'm still on vacation, dammit) and it also looks like I had my 100,000th visit to tbogg as of today, which is kinda cool since I started this back on 9/19.
Since I didn't look at a newspaper, watch the news, or have access to the internet, it's going to take me a day or two to get caught up, but I expect to be back to full-time blogging by tomorrow.
posted by tbogg at 5:47 PM
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Wednesday, December 25, 2002
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.
Dr. Laura is a bad bad person...but we already knew that.
Maybe someday she'll open herself up to "the benign indifference of the world". Than again. Maybe not.
posted by tbogg at 6:45 PM
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If Sir Isaac Newton were alive today he would almost be as old as Barbara Walters...
Happy 360th Birthday, Ike. On the count of three, everybody fall down...1, 2,......
posted by tbogg at 5:29 PM
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Comicbook guy voice: "Worst Christmas gifts ever"
The Seattle PI runs a column with readers writing in about their worst Christmas gifts ever.
My favorite:
My father got me the complete works of William Shakespeare. I was 7 at the time. Another Christmas, Dad gave me a diet book, an etiquette book and a book on how to attract men with a card that said "with the hope you'll grow into a proper young lady." I was 24.
posted by tbogg at 5:26 PM
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Bring me the hand of Bill Gates...
Suppose you endured the checkout line at the grocery store only to find that you were short on cash, or you'd forgotten your wallet. What if you could settle the bill with just the touch of your finger?
Kroger Co. (NYSE:KR - news), the largest U.S. supermarket chain, is offering some customers just that opportunity, testing finger imaging as a method of payment in three of its Texas stores.
A machine scans the index finger, matching the customer's unique fingerprint with the individual's account.
posted by tbogg at 5:11 PM
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Mickey is busy sitting shivah. But Goofy can do the service right after he's done hearing confession...
The Happiest Place on Earth doesn't want to be the Most Christian Place on Earth.
Walt Disney World doesn't advertise its theme parks as the holiest place on earth -- just the happiest.
Still, some religious leaders are dismayed and disappointed that, after today's popular Christmas services at the Contemporary Resort, the next organized Christian worship at the resort will not take place until Easter.
Citing space problems and concerns about fairness, the giant resort has stopped the regular Sunday services for Protestant and Catholic visitors that had been held at the Polynesian Luau area since 1975.
Christmas and Easter services will continue.
"It no longer seemed appropriate to only offer two options for worship to our guests," said Rena Callahan, a Disney spokeswoman.
Also being discontinued are the Teacup baptisms and the Mr. Toad's Wild Bris.
posted by tbogg at 5:04 PM
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We need a cognitive dissonance check on register 7, please....
Wal-Mart.
There's no room for a pregnant Midge at Wal-Mart.
The world's largest retailer pulled Mattel's pregnant Midge doll from store shelves. The doll is being sold as part of the "Happy Family" set that included husband Allan and a son doll Ryan.
"Customers said they were not happy with the pregnant Midge doll so Wal-Mart removed the entire Happy Family set," said Melissa Berryhill, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart. The sets were pulled two weeks ago.
The pregnant Midge doll wears a pink skirt and has a removable stomach, within which sits a baby. The box says "Mommy loves her new baby." The dolls come with a cradle and other baby gear.
Okay. I have been in a Wal-Mart exactly once in my life and it appeared to my untrained eye that every woman in the store had at least six kids, in varying states of undress, in tow. So when I read this, I have to wonder how the average Wal-Mart shopper can be offended at a pregnant doll since the Wal-Mart demographic seems to dominated by breeding factories who seem to know as much about birth control as they do about causal anomalies in Kaluza–Klein gravity theories .
Of course the next question is: what will Mattel do with all these returned, knocked-up Midges? Maybe Operation Rescue will buy them up and save them.
posted by tbogg at 4:53 PM
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John Ashcroft dodges a theological bullet.
We know that over the past year and a half, Attorney General John Ashcroft has been arresting guys that look like this.
Had Ashcroft attempted to have this guy picked up and held incommunicado, as he has been known to do, he would have undone a whole lifetime of sucking up to the Big Guy.
Here's why.
posted by tbogg at 4:21 PM
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Christmas greetings from San Diego...
...where it was a brisk 41 degrees this morning which is like -10 degrees to those of us who are native to this sunny climate. I know everybody didn't get their Christmas wish because I hear this guy didn't resign in shame over having blown the surplus as well as putting us on the cusp of WWIII.
Retail sales were down this Christmas which is suprising since you would think that people would have run up their credit card debt to the max which they may not have to repay, since President Decline of Western Civilization still has two years to destroy everything that is good and worthwhile about America before the Canadians come down and pick through the rubble.
I got a baseball autographed by Brooks Robinson. What 'chu get?
posted by tbogg at 4:14 PM
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Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Merry Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Festivus, and other pagan rituals.
I have family duties today, so no blogging (although I intend on blogging Christmas day because snark never sleeps...). So I leave you with a gift from Club Top 5:
The Top 18 Signs the Santa at the Mall Is Nuts
18. Shaves head and beard, then insists on being called "Santa Kurtz."
17. Tells kids about the comparative kill ratio of the AK-47 over the Daisy Air Rifle.
16. Those nasty chewing tobacco streaks in his beard.
15. Has a complimentary tray of North Pole "Tundra Oysters" ready for the toddlers.
14. After every child's request, asks, "Wouldn't you rather have a nice big bag of clams?"
13. The twinkle in his eye and the twitch of his nose are due to a lack of medication.
12. Every so often, snaps into a Slim Jim and growls, "You've been bad and now you're going down, punk!"
11. Actually enjoys it when small children urinate on his lap.
10. Promises children O.J. will be cleared of all wrongdoing.
9. Caught drinking red wine with fish during break.
8. "Hey kid, bet I can wet my pants faster than you can!"
7. Insists on blowing his nose in children's hair.
6. Despite massive photographic evidence to the contrary, claims to have never worn white gloves or shiny black boots.
5. That snowy beard? Nothin' but nose hair.
4. Answers every child's toy request with "Dream on, pee wee!"
3. When a child wets on his lap, he returns the favor.
2. Instead of a candy cane, gives each kid a pack of Marlboros and a homemade venison pie.
and the Number 1 Sign the Santa at the Mall Is Nuts...
1. While it's admittedly a nifty trick, blowing smoke rings out of his tracheotomy hole is just scaring the hell out of the kiddies.
Happy holidays from tbogg...
posted by tbogg at 2:08 PM
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Monday, December 23, 2002
How much do want 2+2 to add up to?
The check is in the mail. I'll call you. Yes, I'll respect you in the morning. No, that doesn't make your ass look big. The Bush Administration uses "sound science".
All lies.
Read this.
When psychologist William R. Miller was asked to join a panel that advises the National Institute on Drug Abuse, he thought he had been selected for his expertise in addiction. Then a Bush administration staff member called with some unexpected questions.
Did Miller support abortion rights? What about the death penalty for drug kingpins? And had he voted for President Bush?
Apparently, Miller said, he did not give enough right answers. He had not, for example, voted for Bush. He was never appointed to the panel.
Researchers are complaining with rising alarm that the Bush administration is using political and ideological screening to try to ensure that its scientific consultants recommend no policies that are out of step with the political agenda of the White House.
Administration officials say they are merely doing what their predecessors have always done: using appointment powers to make sure their viewpoints are well-represented on the government's scientific advisory boards, an important if unglamorous part of the policy-making process. There are more than 250 boards devoted to public health and biomedical research alone, composed of experts from outside the government who help guide policy on gene therapy, bioterrorism, acceptable pollutant levels and other complex matters.
But critics say the Bush administration is going further than its predecessors in considering ideology as well as scientific expertise in forming the panels. A committee that merely gives technical advice on research proposals, as opposed to setting policy, has even been subject to screening, something the critics say was unheard of in previous administrations.
"I don't think any administration has penetrated so deeply into the advisory committee structure as this one, and I think it matters," said Donald Kennedy, past president of Stanford University and editor of Science, the premier U.S. scientific journal. "If you start picking people by their ideology instead of their scientific credentials, you are inevitably reducing the quality of the advisory group."
The government has been taken over by by theological thugs and American industry whores
Thanks again, Ralph.
posted by tbogg at 10:54 PM
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Multiple wars mean more employment opportunities. See: "Cannon fodder" in your local classifieds.
Now that Bill Frist has wrestled the conch shell away from Trent Lott, the Republicans are going to be a lot nicer to African-Americans.
The GOP is working on an agenda designed to highlight its commitment to minorities without reversing positions on issues such as affirmative action, The Washington Post reported.
Among the issues being considered are school choice initiatives, more assistance to inner-city charities and increased funding for minority programs. However, Republican sources told the Post that that agenda is not expected to offer many new ideas, but will rather repackage old ones to show how they help minorities
Same wine...new Senate Majority Leader.
Other ideas to help out minorities include eliminating taxes on dividends, a permanent tax break for the richest 1%of Americans, drilling in ANWR, and appointing Charles Pickering to the US Court of Appeals.
I sure that Charlotte Beers is already busily "re-branding" these issues for Karl Rove and Senate Majority Leader Cat Killer Bill.
posted by tbogg at 4:13 PM
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Where would Jesus park?
In Texas they have found the No Parking Sign of Turin.
A “No Parking” sign posted to keep the street in front of a South Alpine home clear of unwelcome vehicles has done just the opposite, with many local residents claiming to see the face of Jesus Christ in dark patterning on the sign.
posted by tbogg at 1:56 PM
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Bob Graham thinks about taking the plunge
Sen. Bob Graham said Monday he is seriously considering running for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, saying he is not satisfied with President Bush's leadership as the country faces "unprecedented" economic and military problems.
The fact that so many Democrats are thinking of making a run at President Brain Deficit, even with his high popularity ratings, makes you wonder what their internal pollsters are telling them. I like Graham, vene though he's kind of a stiff on the stump, but he would make a nice VP candidate with Kerry at the top of the ticket, and he should bring along Florida's electoral votes. The Democrats are all but assured of having the big states (you know, the ones with people actually living in them) like New York, California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. Florida would be a nice addition.
I look forward to seeing what the Daily Kos will have on this.
posted by tbogg at 9:14 AM
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I guess he decided to go....
Joe Strummer is dead.
This is really sad. When the Clash released London Calling back at the beginning of 1980, music basically sucked. Styx, The Knack, Village People, and Do Ya Think I'm Sexy-era Rod Stewart. Although the Sex Pistols were getting all the attention for Never Mind The Bollocks, it was the Clash that reminded everyone that you could not only make noise, but you could make noise with a hook: London Calling, Clampdown, I'm Not Down, Wrong 'em Boyo, and the unlisted pop gem Train In Vain.
Paul Simonon, Mick Jones, Topper Headon, and Joe Strummer pulled music out of the doldrums.
posted by tbogg at 8:56 AM
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Sunday, December 22, 2002
Bush didn't do well in the swimsuit competition either....
Time magazine gives Time Man of the Year to three women who showed uncommon bravery and an understanding of honesty and ethics.
Karl Rove is still looking up those words here...
posted by tbogg at 11:29 PM
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Well, if they had worn those neat SS uniforms I would have gone....
Roger Ailes ( the not corrupt one) points out that chickenhawk Pat Buchanan doesn't like be called on the carpet...
ELLSBERG: By the way you weren’t in the White House during those years. You were draft age and you didn’t manage to...
BUCHANAN: That’s bull shit.
posted by tbogg at 12:58 AM
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Hearts and minds redux.
Remember the Viet Nam war? The one we lost because we didn't win their hearts and minds?
Well. We're starting out on the wrong foot again.
What Nahla Mohammed remembers from that day, however, is not the sirens or the jet planes, but running into her son on the street just after she finished shopping for supper. He asked what she would fix, she recalled. Meat, vegetables and soup, she answered. He headed off, anticipating the family meal.
Ten minutes later, according to a cousin who was there, a powerful blast slammed him to the ground as metal shards sliced through his body. Mohammed Sharif Reda, a 23-year-old mechanic married just two months and planning to build a house for his family, was among four people who Iraqi officials said were killed Dec. 1 in what they call an “undeclared war” being waged here in southern Iraq.
These are the people that are supposed to welcome us with open arms when we overthrow Saddam and take over the oil wells. But don't worry about them. They're just collateral damage. George Bush isn't losing any sleep over them, and he won't be part of the occupying force. Go back to sleep.
And if militant Islamists decide to restart attacks here in America, you can rest assured that George Bush will survive as he is whisked off to Nebraska or some other American backwater while the citizens of this country cower and die. All because he wants America's oil that is under their sand, and he wants to gain revenge for his dad.
Everyone besides George Bush suffers because he has no heart and he has no mind.
Thanks again Ralph....
posted by tbogg at 12:50 AM
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Friday, December 20, 2002
Trent says:
May all your Christmases be white.
posted by tbogg at 8:20 PM
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We'll get rid of the logo...but we won't give up our decoder rings...
I guess the idea that convicted felon John Poindexter is heading up the Bush administration's domestic snooping service was creepy enough. Now it looks like they got rid of the all-seeing eye logo.
Best known for his starring turn in the Iran Contra Affair, Poindexter is now the man in charge of the Information Awareness Office—a data-mining/snooping project the Pentagon is developing via The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Perhaps you’ve noticed their delightfully creepy logo staring at you from this page.
The logo, in fact, must have been a bit too creepy. It’s no longer visible on the official IAO website
Not that this means that they will do less snooping. Thye just won't wear the screened t-shirts and carry the tote bags with the logo on it anymore.
I feel better already.
posted by tbogg at 8:05 PM
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Somewhere on the AM band...
Caller: "Hi Dr.Laura, I'm a long time listener, first time caller. I really love what a straight shooter you are, and the way you make people own up to their mistakes and turn their lives around"
Dr Laura: "Why thank you. Someone has to take the bull by the horns and tell people to straighten up and live right"
C: "I agree. Maybe you can help me."
D.L.: "I'll sure try. Talk to me.."
C: "Well, my mother was just found murdered in her apartment.."
D.L.: "That's awful! You poor woman. You have my deepest sympathy."
C: "Yeah, thanks. Actually we haven't been that close for some time. In fact, it appears that she has been dead for months and nobody knew."
D.L.: ".......You never attempted to talk to your mother during this time?"
C: "No. We don't get along, and I have a very busy career and I just didn't take the time. Besides we had some differences."
D.L: "....such as...?"
C: "Well first of all, we are a devoutly religious family..."
D.L.: "That's good..."
C: "But I got divorced and that didn't settle well within the family..."
D.L.: "Didn't you try and work it out? Do you have kids? You should have tried to save it for the kids..."
C: "But I wasn't happy. Anyway, then there were those naked pictures of me all over the Internet..."
D.L.: ".................."
C: "All and all it was a pretty bad situation..."
D.L.: "Let me get this straight. Your mother was murdered months ago in her apartment and you had no idea until they just found the body. You're deeply religious and have kids but still got divorced because you were too selfish and self centered to do what was right. On top of that, you willingly posed naked for a bunch of pictures that ended up all over the internet. Am I correct so far?"
C: "Yeah....I guess so..."
D.L. "You filthy ignorant slut. Have you no shame? You're not fit to be a mother. You disgust me. You are a horrid person with no redeeming qualities and should have your children taken away. You know nothing about having a healthy relationship with your family. You obviously didn't love your mother and your actions prove that you don't give a damn about your own kids. How did you become this monster? I have to go throw up now....."
posted by tbogg at 7:50 PM
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Welcome Interesting Times
Now, go get the bad guys....
posted by tbogg at 6:22 PM
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Please show your Kool Kid Kard to enter...not so fast, Mickey...
Apparently Mickey Kaus hasn't made the A-team quite yet. Now there are two errors in Arianna Huffington's lastest Salon column; one bad, the other, well, funny. The bad error is her attributing the "power of the people" that brought down Trent Lott to, as she puts it:
It was in cyberspace that scores of bloggers -- including Josh Marshall of talkingpointsmemo.com, Glenn Reynolds of instapundit.com, Mickey Klaus of klausfiles.com, and Andrew Sullivan of andrewsullivan.com -- continued hammering away at the story, and eventually succeeded in moving it out of the shadows into the political spotlight.
Now we know that it was Atrios, Josh Marshall, and Tim Noah who did the bulk of the heavy lifting after The Note noted the remarks. Reynolds blew it off, Kaus and Sullivan came on board later. As for the funny error:
"Mickey Klaus"
Who's the leader of the blogs, and no one knows his name? M-I-C-K-E-Y K-L-A-U-S.
Back to the kid's table Mickey, looks like you're not welcome past the velvet ropes...
posted by tbogg at 4:02 PM
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Parody...or not?
Ashcroft responded sharply to critics who charge that the Bill of Rights no longer safeguards certain basic, inalienable rights.
"We're not taking away personal rights; we're increasing personal security," Ashcroft said. "By allowing for greater government control over the particulars of individual liberties, the Bill of Rights will now offer expanded personal freedoms whenever they are deemed appropriate and unobtrusive to the activities necessary to effective operation of the federal government."
The Bill of Rights.
posted by tbogg at 11:10 AM
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Neo-Con vs. Paleo-Con Smackdown.
Krauthammer vs Goldberg.
Outside of the fun of watching the conservatives beat each other up, who cares? Anyway you slice it, the whole philosophy is still a big con job.
posted by tbogg at 9:58 AM
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Trolling for troglodytes.
Albumen abuser Matt Drudge uses a headline to mislead the dimwitted regarding Sen. Patty Murray's comments on Bin Laden:
SENATOR GOES WILD:NOTES BIN LADEN BUILT SCHOOLS, ROADS IN THIRD WORLD...
Of course, what Murray was actually doing was asking students why Bin Laden remains so popular in the Middle East despite his terrorist activities.
"We've got to ask, why is this man (Osama bin Laden) so popular around the world?," said Murray, who faces re-election in 2004. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries … that are riddled with poverty?
" He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that.
"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"
Pretty inflamatory stuff, eh? But it doesn't quite achieve the Trent Lott threshold now, does it?
Don't tell the freepers though. Faced with the propect of Senate Majority Bill Frist who makes his fortune sucking the brains out of babies (as Ann Coulter would oh so delicately put it), they need something to lock and load about.
Experience the hooting...experience the spittle...visit Free Republic.
posted by tbogg at 9:48 AM
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Peggy the Powerbroker
Although I think La Noonan should have written the Christmas column I diagramed for her below ( see Lubed Up...since I can't link right now), she instead chose to denigrate Trent Lott ('denigrate isn't what you think it is, Trent...) causing him to resign this morning.
Of course that didn't stop her from jumping in and telling us what Bill Clinton was thinking again:
You could almost see Mr. Clinton's mind whirling as Jonathan Karl interviewed him. Hmm, I could be high-minded and speak thoughtfully during what amounts to a public crisis, or I can play gut-ball politics and slam the enemy. No contest. Way to go, Bill, and happy holidays from a grateful nation.
This isn't the first time that she has used her awesome mind-reading abilities on a Clinton. If only she would use her powers for the good of mankind, like figuring out why people purchase CD's by those assclowns called Creed. I mean, what are they thinking?
posted by tbogg at 8:58 AM
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A boy resigns in hardtime Mississippi...
Trent Lott is calling it quits as Senate Majority leader.
Republicans to elect rich-boy sadist and cat-vivisectionist Bill Frist.
Believe it or not, that's a step up for Republicans.
posted by tbogg at 8:37 AM
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You try doing quadratic equation in a thong.
Social scientists have long known that women’s preoccupation with their physical appearances can lead to low self-esteem, eating disorders and other problems. Fredrickson and her colleagues wondered if it might have an even broader mental effect. So they gathered a group of undergraduate students, 40 men and 42 women, for a test. One at a time, the students were asked to try on either a sweater or a swimsuit in a makeshift dressing room with a full-length mirror.
They were told that the idea of the test was to measure whether or not they liked the garment better after wearing it for 15 minutes. So, rather than let those 15 minutes go to waste, they were then asked to take a 20-question advanced math test, supposedly as part of a separate study.
When the results were in, the researchers found that the men did about the same on the math test whether they were wearing a swimsuit or a sweater. In fact, the guys did slightly better in swim trunks. The women, however, had significantly lower math scores if they were wearing the swimsuits. The authors published their findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Additionally, on the essay question, all the women indicated a preference for world peace if selected as Bathing Suit Math Student of the Year.
posted by tbogg at 8:28 AM
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The cafeteria lady wants to know if she can have the heart after the performance. She's making meatloaf.
Human Sacrifice At The Bizarre Bazaar
Pleasantville Elementary School officials canceled a school event that was scheduled for Tuesday night because some parents objected to its subject matter.
The school's third- through fifth-grade students had planned to present a performance called the "Bizarre Bazaar."
But the principal of the Venango County elementary school says parents were upset that the show included a discussion about human sacrifices and Egyptian myths.
posted by tbogg at 8:22 AM
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The groom's still waiting at the altar
J-Lo (the meagerly talented Jennifer Lopez to those who don't read People magazine) has called off her wedding to preppy cardboard cutout, Ben Affleck.
Jennifer Lopez has called off her wedding to Ben Affleck - after a row with his best man.
The Latino singer was furious when Ben's best friend Matt Damon tried to talk him out of it, claiming she was a "serial bride".
In addition Lopez was furious after an evening of trying on clothes when Affleck commented, "Jesus, J. Everything makes your ass look big."
Affleck is expected to take up with the much more sensible Lisa Marie Presley...
posted by tbogg at 8:16 AM
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I could have told you Vincent, this world was never meant for someone as boneheaded as you...
Jim at Rittenhouse Review gives Norah Vincent a good slapping.
When I read Vincent's column the other day, I was suprised that the LA Times even bothered to run it. While I thought it was a perfectly normal piece of blog-style writing, I didn't see it as the type of piece that the Times would carry since it was so blatantly self-referential. In fact, take away the name and you would swear it was one of Sullivan's off-hand blog entries.
The Times can do better than that, although I'm not sure Vincent can.
posted by tbogg at 8:07 AM
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Archives are apparently archived
Blogger has been having a problem with the archives so if you are looking for something old...bummer for you.
I'll keep trying to put them back up.
posted by tbogg at 7:55 AM
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They say it never rains in Southern California.
Bull shit
posted by tbogg at 7:52 AM
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Thursday, December 19, 2002
Ad free at last! Ad free at last! thank God Almighty, we are ad free at last!"
Regular readers of tbogg as well as people who are preternaturally perceptive may have noticed that the tbogg blog is now sans ads, depriving you of the opportunity to find lost classmates, entering free computer sweepstakes, and getting cel phones real cheap. This is because of a grant made possible by The Rittenhouse Foundation whose motto is " A better future through smarter thinking and less annoying flashing ads".
Many thanks to Jim Capozzola for the unexpected gift of non-commercialism and allowing me to no longer have to work for "the man".
posted by tbogg at 9:38 PM
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Time to start lubing up...
It's Thursday, which means it's Noonan time tonight. What will catch her fancy this week? Let's see, she did Lott & racism last week. And she probably won't do a Reagan tribute right now since he hasn't surged ahead of Strom in the 2003 Ole Yeller Sweepstakes.
I think a Christmas column may be in order. Something about God speaking to the Virgin Marisleysis about bearing his son, Jes-elian who will be born in a Miami bodega built by strapping young shirtless construction workers misted with a sheen of fine manly sweat. Later they will be visited by the Three Wise Dolphins who will warn her against swarthy, hard-eyed men from the Mideast bearing camcorders and unpaid breakfast checks from Shoneys. Then it will snow; big tumbly white flakes of white snow that make us say This is snow because it is, and it's good because good is what it should be, and strangers will stop each other on the street and read each others minds and they will say yes, the snow is white and cold and good and there is a higher force who makes this good, cold snow that is white and is now snowing on the firemen with their tight uniforms clinging to their brave and well defined bodies, and their hoses that are full of goodness, and are taut with the expectation of meeting a middle-aged Catholic divorcee who is thinking I put my arms around him and yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes and I could really use a cigarette right about now...
Then she will wish us all a very Merry Christmas and go have that cigarette....if Michael Bloomberg doesn't mind.
posted by tbogg at 2:16 PM
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This just in...
"There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like."—Washington, D.C., Dec. 11, 2002.
Yeah. He's a moron....
posted by tbogg at 10:50 AM
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Do you have the director's cut of Dude, Where's My Car? in stock?
You can buy a DVD of Crossroads with Britney Spears, Footloose with Kevin Bacon, and the crapulent St. Elmo's Fire, but you can't get Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Robert Altman's California Split, Daniel Petrie's Resurrection, Warren Beatty's Reds, or the Cohen brother's Miller's Crossing.
The terrorists have won.
posted by tbogg at 10:33 AM
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The whine of the valkyrie
Aryan Princess Ann Coulter is upset because the "liberal" media are keeping a shameful secret from the American public: both Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond used to be (gasp!) Democrats. Yup. Back in the day, before we had all these "problems", as Trent would put it, they were proud Democrats who respected black people...as long as they knew their place. Let's allow Ann to explain:
What the Lott incident shows is that Republicans have to be careful about letting Democrats into our party. Back when they supported segregation, Lott and Thurmond were Democrats. This is something the media are intentionally hiding to make it look like the Republican Party is the party of segregation and race discrimination, which it never has been.
In 1948, Thurmond did not run as a "Dixiecan," he ran as a "Dixiecrat" – his party was an offshoot of the Democratic Party. And when he lost, he went right back to being a Democrat. This whole brouhaha is about a former Democrat praising another former Democrat for what was once a Democrat policy.
Republicans made Southern Democrats drop the race nonsense when they entered the Republican Party.
When did Strom become a Republican? Well, that would have been in 1964...the same year that the Civil Rights Act passed. What did Strom have to say about the Civil Rights Act? I'm glad you asked. According to the defenders of white majority rights over at American Renaissance, Strom said:
He called the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, “the worst, most unreasonable and unconstitutional legislation that has ever been considered by the Congress.”
...and the Republican Party welcomed him with open sheet-clad arms, because he was no longer welcome in the Democratic Party which had just gone too liberal on him. Hence the genesis of Richard Nixon's " Southern Strategy".
Oh. And by the way, here's a parting shot at Strom from the good ol' boys at American Renaissance:
Indeed, times do change, and so do people. But can even Sen. Thurmond forget the predictions he made of what federal arrogance, forced integration, and intrusive government would bring – predictions that have largely come true? Of course, for nearly 40 years, he has been on the payroll of a body he used to call tyrannical. For nearly as long, he has faced a press that heaps abuse on all his old principles and praises every step towards abandoning them. He has also grown old. Age, money and respectability are powerful forces, sometimes powerful enough to blind a man to the wisdom of his ancestors.
I bet Ann wishes she had written that...
posted by tbogg at 10:08 AM
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Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Substitute teacher night
It's been a busy day at work and on the domestic front (Mrs. tbogg's unnatural needs, don'cha know) so I thought I would share a little something from the ever popular Club Top 5, just to get you in the holiday spirit. If you don't already have a membership, well, you really ought to get one.
Anyway, here are some of the submissions for The Top 20 Excerpts from Badly Written Holiday Stories:
The first of the Wise Men spoke: "Who is this most divine child?" "He must be the Son of God!" exclaimed the second. "And he shall be the King of Kings, as the Lord intended," said the third. But then the Supreme Court got involved.
*****************
Mrs. Claus trembled at the sight of Binky's swelling elfhood. "I may be short, Mrs. C.," he said huskily, "But I stand tall where it matters most."
*****************
"You sold your chocolate to buy me peanut butter!" he moaned. She responded with a shocked, "You sold your peanut butter to buy me chocolate!"
*****************
When little Billy saw on his globe that there is no land at the North Pole, he knew that Santa couldn't possibly have a workshop there. It was then that Billy realized that everything good in a child's life is a hollow lie intended to curb curiosity, and adults are wretched vermin who thrive in their authority -- authority based only in the filth and squalor of empty falsehoods. Through a haze fraught with ennui, angst and unbridled umbrage, Billy finished his cookie and drifted off to sleep.
*********************
Mark my words, the Lakers will be back or I'm not Larry King... Jesus Christ: class act... Eggnog tastes just as good in July... Remember this name: Jack Black... Last time I hung an ornament was '76... I finally saw Smallville, and it's one smart show....
**********************
And he vowed on that cold Christmas Day that he would do everything in his power, given the limits of his impaired depth perception, to get even with the Daisy Air Rifle Company.
***********************
It was a dark winter night at the North Pole. I was after a poacher with a big-bore gun and a taste for venison. Naughty or nice, it doesn't matter to me -- a criminal is a criminal, and it's my job to bring them in. The name is Boxie, and I'm the senior elf in homicide division.
***********************
Rudolph was hurt bad and knew it. Lurching forward one yard at time, he fought to stay awake. It was the only way he could control his nose. Step by painful step, the plucky reindeer ploughed forward, but it was hopeless; he had lost too much blood. As he slipped into unconsciousness, he felt his nose glowing like a lighthouse beacon. His last mortal sight was the circle of grinning Ewoks, spears held aloft, closing in.
***************************
Santa never knew what hit him. A .22-caliber hollow-point double tap to the back of the head ended forever this semi-religious demagogue's heretical revolution of gifts for free. Sam Walton could finally rest in peace.
***************************
The children used coal for its eyes, and a button for its nose. Then little Johnny placed the magic surgical mask upon its mouth and the eerily white snowman came to life! "Jacko the Snowman, at your service!" he said. "You kids ready to play?"
posted by tbogg at 9:46 PM
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New additions to the Hot Links
PLA and Pandagon. I read them everyday, now I don't have to hunt for the links anymore.
duh.
posted by tbogg at 5:27 PM
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Last elected President pees on Republican hornet's nest.
Former President Clinton said Wednesday it is "pretty hypocritical" of Republicans to criticize incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for stating publicly what he said the GOP does "on the back roads every day."
"How do they think they got a majority in the South anyway?" Clinton told CNN outside a business luncheon he was attending. "I think what they are really upset about is that he made public their strategy."
He added: "They try to suppress black voting, they ran on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina, and from top to bottom the Republicans supported it."
Click here to watch them go into a frenzy.
(Warning: Initiate spittle shield before entering and watch out for the feces throwing...)
posted by tbogg at 3:12 PM
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Dr Lichter and Mr. Kelly
Looks like Michael Kelly's new best friend, Robert Lichter has a lots of financing from people who lean right because their wallets weigh so much.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs was founded in the mid-’80s by Robert and Linda Lichter, two academics who have made a career out of claiming to document leftist bias in the news media. Their stated mission was "to conduct scientific studies of how the media treat social and political issues," and they put great stress on their claim to non-partisanship. "It’s not in a scholar’s blood to have an ideology," Robert Lichter told the Washington Post (2/10/92).
The Lichters’ funding and history belie this stance of objectivity. From 1986 to 1988, Robert Lichter was a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. Fund-raising letters for the launch of the Center for Media and Public Affairs contained endorsements from leading right-wing figures like Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Ed Meese and Pat Robertson.
Robert Lichter’s writings and public statements also indicate a conservative worldview. At a conference sponsored by Accuracy In Media after the Gulf War, according to an AP report (4/27/91), "He said he was disappointed in statements by [Peter] Arnett upon his return from Baghdad that he was in the enemy capital on behalf of all CNN viewers, not just Americans. ‘I see a trend toward journalists seeing themselves as citizens of the world’ rather than patriotic Americans, Lichter said."
Funding for the Center has come from the most prominent foundations of the right, including Smith Richardson (at least $298,000), Olin Foundation ($250,000), JM Foundation ($100,000) and the Coors Foundation ($55,000). (Smith Richardson gave the Center $40,000 in 1987 for its study on PBS.) These foundations also contribute heavily to more overtly right-wing media pressure groups like Reed Irvine’s Accuracy In Media, L. Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center, and David Horowitz’s Committee on Media Integrity.
The Scaife Foundation, another major right-wing funder, gave the Lichters money for their book, The Media Elite, which argued that journalists’ personal political biases made their work unreliable. (The same argument, of course, could be made about academics like the Lichters.) The study featured in the book, based on interviews with journalists conducted in 1980, was widely criticized by scholars for methodological flaws. (See Columbia Journalism Review, Nov/Dec ‘85, March/April ‘87; Journalism Quarterly, Winter ‘87; Journal of Communication, Spring ‘88.)
Can you get any more "non-partisan" than this?
(thanks to the many who sent me this link...Joe Conason will have more on this tonight, I have heard)
posted by tbogg at 2:49 PM
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A lump of coal in the shareholder's stockings...
I see Dick Cheney's gift to the Halliburton shareholders arrived early.
Representatives for the Houston-based oilfield-services company once led by Vice President Dick Cheney were in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Pittsburgh on Wednesday to settle most of the pending asbestos cases against the company and one of its former subsidiaries.The proposed settlement payment would include $2.8 billion in cash and 59.5 million shares currently worth about $1.2 billion.
Halliburton had said in recent weeks it was close to a multibillion-dollar deal that would settle the 300,000 asbestos-related personal injury claims against it.
Most of those claims were inherited four years ago when Halliburton — which also operates a huge engineering and construction business — acquired rival Dresser Industries Inc. for $7.7 billion. Cheney ran Halliburton at the time of the purchase.
That's okay. Dick will make it up in military and oil services contracts in a couple of months.
posted by tbogg at 2:01 PM
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Relationships 101...his side of the story
I got Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About emailed to me the other day. When you have some time...read it and see if anything sounds familiar.
posted by tbogg at 1:12 PM
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Once you have eliminated Professor Plum, the rest becomes elementary
Poor Mickey Kaus. He is just fixated on the belief that Sid Blumenthal is behind all this Trent Lott brouhaha...and nobody believes him. That's what happens when your Clue cards say "Sidney Blumenthal...in the library...with an email".
posted by tbogg at 1:07 PM
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Half-assed or half-vast.......it's all the same to Michael Kelly.
Following last weeks pathetic shot at addressing the serious issue of media bias, Michael Kelly provides us with another half-assed attempt to make his point that the media is "liberal". As I pointed out last week, there is an enormous body of conservative commentators who seem to be making ends meet by explaining all the gory details about us nasty liberals and why we hate America. Being a "word" guy and not a "numbers" guy, Kelly believes that by introducing a bunch of numbers in a column the reader will become so numbed by it all, you can get them to believe anything.
This week Mr. Kelly introduces us to S. Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs who says:
"The essential argument by the media is that, yes, most mainstream journalists may be left of center, but they operate in the tradition of objectivity, so this doesn't affect their coverage of the news," notes S. Robert Lichter, president of the independent Center for Media and Public Affairs. "What this argument fails to grasp is the way bias works in people. Yes, journalists tell the truth -- but, like everyone else, they tell the truth as they see it."
As Lichter has written, "Even the most conscientious journalists cannot overcome the subjectivity inherent in their profession, which is expressed through such everyday decisions as whether a topic is newsworthy or a source trustworthy."
To which we say, fair enough, even though he seems to disregard the use of editors as well as such mundane journalistic standards like fact checking, multiple verification of sources, and those niggling little libel and slander laws. Anyway, he provides Kelly (ironically an editor himself) with a few choice tidbits:
As to fact: In 17 years of news content analysis, especially of network evening news broadcasts, Lichter's Center for Media and Public Affairs has consistently found evidence of liberal bias, and this has not changed in the past few years.
• "Only 43 percent of all on-air evaluations of George W. Bush were favorable" in Bush's first 100 days in office (compared with a similarly negative 40 percent for Clinton in his first 100). In his first 50 days, Bush received 48 percent positive coverage, but only 36 percent was positive in his second 50. Only 29 percent of on-air evaluations from nonpartisan sources (anchors, reporters, experts, citizens) were positive to Bush.
• Bush did get a terrific bounce from the rallying effect of Sept. 11. From that day through Nov. 19, 2001, Bush "received the most positive coverage ever measured for a president over an extended period of time'' -- 64 percent positive to 36 percent negative. But Bush's high of 77 percent positive that September was down to 59 percent within two months.
• Coverage of the Bush administration's consideration of a military strike against Iraq, as seen in the network newscasts and in front-page New York Times stories from this July 1 through Aug. 25, was 72 percent negative.
Please note the selective use of dates as well as random use of specific "media" in order to make his point. No numbers are provided by Kelly for the period during the Clinton administration known as the Great Presidential Fellatio Crisis where the "liberal" media was apparently asleep at the wheel (I know I never heard anything about it until much later...). Kelly & Lichter would have us believe that Bush's decline from a 9/12 high of 77% dropping to 59% in two months is somehow the fault of the media, without noting that Bush's popularity prior to 9/11 was sub-50% when his administration was, admittedly, stumbling around. Perhaps Mr Kelly believes that the 77% was sustainable, in which case we offer our condolences for his blunt head trauma.
And what is up with this statement by Kelly?:
Is there nothing at all to the liberal complaint? No, there is something. As the above data suggest, the media are generally more negative toward public figures (including Democratic ones) than they used to be. And while right-leaning media such as talk radio have not, as my colleague E.J. Dionne argues, produced "a media heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians," they have produced a media universe where anti-establishment right-wingers (and also anti-establishment left-wingers, such as Michael Moore) are able to bypass the establishment media and to create a far more diverse national conversation.
That may be one of the stupidest statements Kelly has ever made. "right-leaning media such as talk radio" have not produced "a media heavily biased toward conservative politics and conservative politicians" but have produced a "media universe where anti-establishment right-wingers" can "bypass the establishment media". Hunh? All of these people are cheerleaders for the conservative Bush administration. How are they "anti-establishment"?
And wht are we to make of Kelly's one source for media bias, Dr S. Robert Lichter? Well if you really want to see him in action, why not turn on Fox News.
Dr. Lichter also directs the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the quality of news involving statistical or scientific information, and he serves on the Statistical Committee of Voter News Service. A regular commentator on the Fox News Channel and co-host of “What’s the Story?,” a nationally syndicated radio show, he has testified before Congress and served as an expert witness on media content and effects.
I'm sure he has cured himself of all that nasty "subjectivity" that inflicts the common working journalist...at least right after he cashes that check from Fox's Roger Ailes (the evil, bald one).
After all, he's a doctor.
( Added: Want to know where Dr. Lichter gets his house payment? Try the Smith Richardson Foundation
Financed by the Vicks Vaporub fortune, this foundation is estimated to have assets of about $250 million. Became active in supporting conservative caues in 1973 when R. Randolph Richardson became president. Funded the early "supply-side" books of Jude Wanniski and George Gilder. The Richardsons are estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $870 million, making them one of the country's richest families.
Sounds pretty "non-partisan" to me....
(Added: See above for more on Dr Lichter)
posted by tbogg at 12:09 PM
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Carlyle strikes again...
Is there anything involving this administration where they don't have their fingers?
Joe Conason reports.
posted by tbogg at 11:24 AM
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Tuesday, December 17, 2002
The Generals are revolting.
Paul Wolfowitz is having trouble with those pesky guys who actually serve and have fought in the military.
With war possible soon in Iraq, the chiefs of the two U.S. ground forces are challenging the belief of some senior Pentagon civilians that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein will fall almost immediately upon being attacked and are calling for more attention to planning for worst-case scenarios, Defense Department officials said.
In addition, the plan calls for some armored units, instead of traveling a predetermined distance and pausing to allow slow-moving supply trucks to catch up, to charge across Iraq until they run into armed opposition and then engage in combat, officials said.
Those aspects of the plan, which appear riskier than usual U.S. military practice, worry the chief of the Army, Gen. Eric Shinseki, and the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James L. Jones, defense officials said.
Shinseki and Jones, who as service chiefs are members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have questioned the contention of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and other top officials that Hussein's government is likely to collapse almost as soon as a U.S. attack is launched, the officials said.
The two generals are concerned that the Wolfowitz school may underestimate the risks involved, the officials said. They have argued that planning should prepare thoroughly for worst-case scenarios, most notably one that planners have labeled "Fortress Baghdad," in which Hussein withdraws his most loyal forces into the Iraqi capital and challenges the United States to enter into protracted street fighting, perhaps involving chemical or biological weapons.
In an interview last night, Wolfowitz rejected the view that he has been overoptimistic in his views. He said he also believes that, "You've got to be prepared for the worst case." He added: "It would be a terrible mistake for anyone to think they can predict with confidence what the course of a war is going to be." In discussions of the war plan, he said, he has repeatedly emphasized the risk of Hussein "using his most terrible weapons."
Wolfowitz is relying his own military experience consisting of repeated viewings of The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, and An Officer and A Gentleman (which still gets him all teary-eyed at the end) to plan the upcoming war, as well as relying on the advice of America's most honored military strategist; novelist and insurance man Tom Clancy.
In an effort to win the approval of President X Box, Wolfowitz has supplied the President with a copy of Ghost Recon in order to better dramatize what the fighting will be like. The President recently commented that the fighting action was "wicked cool" leading many Pentagon Generals to start drinking earlier in the day than usual.
posted by tbogg at 9:33 PM
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Bomb Iraq with daisycutters...falalalala lala lala
Like a child on Christmas Eve who begs " please just let me open just one present?” President Premature Invasion is shifting from foot to foot anxious to command, " Let's roll" and give off the musky scent of vestigial manhood.
The White House is expected to declare on Thursday that Iraq has violated the United Nations resolution requiring it to disclose all its weapons of mass destruction, senior administration officials said today.
At a national security meeting scheduled for Wednesday morning, President Bush will consider whether to declare Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations, the officials said.
snip
Senior White House officials insisted tonight that the principal advisers, who include Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, had made no specific recommendations to Mr. Bush.
Asked if the group had agreed that Iraq was in "material breach" of its obligations, Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said, "No such decisions have been taken by the United States government at any principals' meeting, whether today or at any other time."
Rumsfeld said," Hey, what the heck. Might as well attack Iraq, I got nothing better to do during the holidays."
Cheney just sat there rubbing his hands together, hissing "yesssss", and thinking of all the lovely oil within his reach, until he achieved a massive erection which he quickly hid from Lynne who was sitting behind him, crushing the skulls of baby capuchin monkeys with her powerful mandibles and making simpering noises.
Meanwhile Bush kept his head down, studiously coloring in his White House lunchtime placemat illustrated with pictures of happy slaves picking cotton under the paternal but watchful eye of Strom Thurmond.
Looks like it time to Get Your War On.
posted by tbogg at 8:54 PM
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So much for that last little iota of integrity.
Pollster and Republican nematode Frank Luntz decided to discard that little sliver of non-partisanship he liked to claim on Hardball last night. The non-evil and dashingly handsome Roger Ailes reports.
posted by tbogg at 8:24 PM
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Ten year old eco-terrorists come to school armed
Not really. I'm just auditioning for a job over at World Net. Actually the kids did this:
Fifth-graders here took metal silverware in hand and marched into the school cafeteria to protest the school district's money-saving switch to plastic utensils.
Three weeks later, the students claimed victory when their campaign caused the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau school board to reverse its decision, agreeing with protesters that the metal utensils were more environmentally friendly.
posted by tbogg at 5:41 PM
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Dude. Wanna wanna come over and do some bong hits and watch Matlock really loud?
A criminal investigation into how two dozen residents of a county-run nursing home wound up testing positive for marijuana use continued Monday as hospital officials insisted the initial test results were incorrect.
The probe began last Thursday when the family of a male patient at the Claiborne County Hospital and Nursing Home became concerned about a change in his medical condition. They took him to the hospital's emergency room, Lovin said.
A physician ordered a drug screen after examining the man, and his family contacted police when the test was positive for marijuana, Lovin said.
He was generally mellow, smiling, wanted pudding, and requesting that they play Estimated Prophet...
posted by tbogg at 2:15 PM
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The soft bigotry of low expectations
When it comes to boneheaded, arrogant comments from the Administration, I'm not sure anyone can top Donald H. Rumsfeld :
President Bush said Tuesday he has decided to begin deploying a limited system to defend the nation against ballistic missiles, its first components operable by 2004. Though the first parts of the system will be put into use while more advanced technology is still being developed, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said it will likely stop “a relatively small number of incoming ballistic missiles, which is better than nothing.”
Gee thanks, Don. So, how many billions are you going to waste to stop "a relatively small number of incoming ballistic missiles"? Estimates run from $24 to $60 billion above what has already been invested. Who gets the money? Lockheed, TRW, Boeing,and Martin-Marietta.
Then there is this:
Bush’s announcement came six days after the latest test of the system failed when an interceptor rocket did not separate from its booster rocket and destroy a Minuteman II intercontinental ballistic missile as planned.
Three of eight tests of the ground-based system since 1999 have been judged failures by the military.
Followed by:
“Our missile-defense program since 2001 has demonstrated that missile technology, in particular hit-to-kill technology, actually works,” Wolfowitz said in his October speech. “We actually can hit a bullet with a bullet.”
Where do they get these guys?
$60 billion? I guess it's better than nothing to an administration that thinks that 5 out of 8 is success when it comes to nuclear weapons..
(Added: RichP thought we would like this oddly appropriate little snippet from Dr. Strangelove:
GENERAL BUCK TURGIDSON: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed -- but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops -- depending on the breaks.")
posted by tbogg at 1:34 PM
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Would you like fries with the overthrow of Mayor McCheese and his running dog lackeys?
McDonalds show that, if you can't beat'em, become one of them:
With anti-American sentiment on the rise, international markets have become perilous for U.S.-based multinationals. But that's just business as usual for McDonald's (MCD). During the last decade, the Illinois-based chain has been the target of political protests in more than 50 countries. Alas, preventing Ronald McDonald from taking bullets intended for Uncle Sam often means using marketing tricks that would never play in Peoria.
Egypt 2001
Problem: Anti-American boycott sparked by U.S. support for Israel.
McSpin: Local outlets introduce the McFalafel, rolled out behind an ad jingle sung by Shabaan Abdel Rahim, best known for his chart-topping hit "I Hate Israel."
posted by tbogg at 12:27 PM
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The Cannibal Bar is now open
Boy. The New York Times just doesn't get it:
Conservatives Led the Way in Criticizing Lott's Remarks
First of all, as has been well documented elsewhere, it was people like Atrios and JM Marshall who led the way on this. To say the Sullivan or Kruathammer were the leading lights is ridiculous.
Secondly, there is this, well, stupid assertion:
Mr. Sullivan, on his Web site, and Mr. Krauthammer, writing in The Washington Post, are among those who have called on Mr. Lott to resign. Others, like Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel and the radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, have said the remarks were indefensible but were not necessarily reason enough for Mr. Lott to step down. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal stopped short of a direct call for Mr. Lott's ouster, but named three Republicans it preferred in the post.
The responses by conservatives have provided a marked contrast to the contention — put forth most recently by former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore — that the nation's conservative news media acts as a monolithic Republican support system.
Let's be honest for a moment. Although the Republicans were embarassed by Lott's gaffe (remembering that "a gaffe is just a politician speaking honestly") the only reason that they are trying to dump Lott is because he is an ineffective leader. The guy is an embarassment. The White House would like to blame him for the Jim Jeffords debacle when it was really the fault of Andy Card and Karl Rove. Going forward, everything that has gone wrong under George Bush will be blamed on the failure of others within the Republican party or administration. Hence, Bush stands by now, watching Trent twist slowly in the bloviating Conservative backwash. Bush is in full Bart Simpson "I didn't do it" mode....
It was said after the Cold War ended that conservatives would turn on the people within our own borders because they needed an enemy in order to justify their existence and survive. And so they turned on women, gays, Hispanics (hello...Pete Wilson!) and America's "values". Now that they hold the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the time has come to turn on their own. O'Neill, Lindsey, and Pitt were just appetisers. Trent Lott is just the rube du jour.
Bon appetit!
posted by tbogg at 11:34 AM
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Tom Toles
...on the plot to distract us from Trent Lott.
Ben Sargent
on John Ashcroft's America.
posted by tbogg at 9:53 AM
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Monday, December 16, 2002
Well there's Mississippi racism and then there's Oklahoma racism...
Looks like Don Nickles, the man who wants Trent Lott's corner office has the same civil rights voting record as old HelmetHead.
The NAACP says that over the past decade, Nickles and Lott have voted the same on almost every issue deemed important by the civil rights community. And in almost every case, their votes were contrary to the wishes of that community.
On the other hand, both Nickles, of Oklahoma, and Lott, of Mississippi, win the highest ratings from conservative groups. In 2000, the American Conservative Union gave both 100 percent ratings on key votes.
So basically Okie Don is just another 'Trent Lott Republican'. Looks like the Republican "big tent" is just a bunch of white sheets sewn together.
posted by tbogg at 9:40 PM
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Man thinks he's in Michael Bay movie...
A 15-year-old suspected car thief who was chased and shot by the car's owner over the weekend died Monday morning.
The 33-year-old man who pursued James in an attempt to retrieve his 1985 Pontiac Grand Prix was scheduled to appear in court Monday afternoon.
Tacoma police spokesman Jim Mattheis said Sunday that if the boy died, the 33-year-old could be charged with murder.
That would never happen to Nicolas Cage, although it should have after Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Gone in Sixty Seconds.
posted by tbogg at 9:23 PM
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Things I don't want to see on my Christmas vacation
The whole tbogg family, minus Satchmo the Wonder Basset, will going be to Palm Springs for our Christmas holidays in order to relax and work on our tans and incipient skin cancer. While we are there we don't want to see the Nude Bridge.
By the way, I will probably continue to blog through the holidays depending upon how much those bastards at the Esmeralda want to charge me for in-room access.You know, for almost $200 a night, you'd think they could pop for some free access.
posted by tbogg at 9:11 PM
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A trend that has yet to affect me.
Companies cutting back on Christmas parties.
Longer Lunches founder Liz Kiley, who was surprised by the robust turnout, says she decided to throw the event after discovering that many of the clients from her marketing business weren't celebrating the holidays.
"I must have hit 100 companies and they all said we're not doing a party this year," says Kiley. "It's kind of sad, what's going on."
With the recession prompting many firms to forgo the traditional holiday party this year, many employers and workers are seeking alternatives to boost employee morale. Some 64 percent of companies surveyed by Lincolnshire, Ill.-based human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates said they were holding holiday parties this year, down from 67 percent last year, when the Sept. 11 attacks put many company festivities on hold.
Faced with two company Christmas parties every year, I go to sleep at night praying to a god I don't believe in to give me the power to put myself in a coma for about four hours, which is about the duration of the average party. Just wake me up when it's over.
So far, no dice. So much for faith.
There is a nice touch in the story though:
Financial news provider Bloomberg, known for holding extravagant holiday bashes in venues like New York City's Museum of Natural History, has decided to skip the tradition in favor of a week dedicated to working on charitable causes.
Called BOB week (for "Best Of Bloomberg"), the program allows its employees to take time off from the workday to participate in charity events. In New York City, Bloomberg set up a special tent to host different activities during the week. For example, the company gave workers a $25 voucher for Toys 'R Us, where they bought presents for the wish lists of children from various charities and went back to the tent to wrap them.
Bloomberg started doing charitable events in lieu of a holiday party last year out of respect for the victims of Sept. 11, and has since decided to make BOB week an annual event, says company spokeswoman Chris Taylor.
"I think that everybody felt good about doing this last year, and we thought, why not going forward do this for the holidays, making it more festive and organized," she says.
That is pretty cool....
posted by tbogg at 9:03 PM
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You were screwed by the record companies....
I mean besides the fact that Sigue Sigue Sputnik didn't turn out to be the next big thing. But what did happen is that the record companies conspired to control the pricing on CD's between the period of January 1, 1995, through December 22, 2000. If you bought a CD within the period, you may be able to collect $20 in damages by going here.
Keep in mind though, that to collect your $20 you may have to admit to having purchased that Blind Melon CD just because of that little girl in the bee costume. I don't know if $20 is worth that kind of humiliation....
posted by tbogg at 8:53 PM
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The George Brett entrance was a little tight and watch out for the polyps in the Reagan Wing.
Colossal Colon Tour coming to your town!
The Colossal Colon is accompanied by an array of interactive stations with educational games. Increase your knowledge of colorectal cancer facts and win prizes!
posted by tbogg at 3:58 PM
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WWMKD: What Would Mary Kay Do?
Authorities say a woman was driving erratically as she tried to put on her makeup - and it led to her arrest on a felony warrant.
Amy Wery, 32, of Bismarck, N.D., who's also known as Amy Howe, was wanted in Bismarck for failing to appear in court in response to a subpoena in the murder trial of her former boyfriend
The Minnesota State Patrol said she was trying to apply her makeup while driving on Interstate 94 in the Fergus Falls area Sunday afternoon. The Patrol said three other drivers called authorities to complain about her erratic driving
snip
Wery is the mother of a 15-month-old girl who died of head and spinal cord injuries in October. Her boyfriend, Michael McClary, is due to stand trial in March.
Your boyfriend kills your daughter, so you blow town and try and disguise yourself as Katherine Harris.
There ought to be a law.
posted by tbogg at 3:49 PM
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Just give us the oil and nobody gets hurt....
Secretary of State Colin Powell is assuring the Arab world the Bush administration's demand for regime change in Iraq aims at disarmament, not ousting President Saddam Hussein.
Did we mention it's Clinton's fault?
"If he cooperates, then the basis of changed-regime policy has shifted because his regime has, in fact, changed its policy to one of cooperation," Powell said in an interview with a London-based Arab newspaper released Monday by the State Department.
Powell said the policy of regime change in Baghdad was inherited from the Clinton administration by the Bush administration.
"We came into office in 2001 and kept that policy because Saddam Hussein had not changed," Powell told the newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi by telephone last Thursday.
posted by tbogg at 3:42 PM
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The Unbearable Banality of Michael Medved
Paul Harris at Yellow Times does a pretty good job deriding Michael Medved's latest, and explains why Medved will always be on the "C" team, why smart people avoid him at parties or any other place people go to enjoy themselves, and why he needs to smacked upside the head with Ann Coulter's strap-on.
(Oh great. Here come all the Ann+Coulter+strap-on google hits. Give it up, Spencer@usdoe.gov).)
posted by tbogg at 3:16 PM
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Do a little dance, make a press release, get down tonight
In order to combat the charges that Republicans are a bunch of sheet-wearing-race-baiting-Papist-slapping Grand Kleagles, they need some good old fashioned Black organizations to stand up and say, "Why yes, our black brethren and sistren do support Senator Hoodhead. We will not be a part of the liberal plantation and where is our Town Hall or World Net columnist contract?". With Congressman Watts leaving for the private sector where he can make more money to raise his kids as soon as he figures out how many he has, Republicans are desperate for a black voice, any black voice to speak on their behalf.
Which brings us to the Rev Jesse Lee Peterson and his Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND). The Rev Jesse exists mainly to combat the evil Jesse Jackson and any attempt he may make to help African Americans, but sometimes he rents himself out to people like Trent Lott.
***STATEMENT OF REV. JESSE PETERSON REGARDING SENATOR TRENT LOTT: "DON'T GIVE IN TO RACIST DEMOCRATS!***
"As the head of a nationally recognized nonprofit black organization BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, my organization and I accept Senator Trent Lott's apology regarding his remarks at Senator Strom Thurmond's birthday celebration. I encourage the Senator to not give into the demands of racists who want to keep blacks on the Democratic plantation.
snip
Black and white Democrats alike who continue to demand that he [Lott] step down are doing so only for political reasons. And Republicans who fail to support him are displaying cowardice. Lott should not step down; he should not offer any more apologies-this matter is done! We should judge people based on their hearts and actions, and unlike many of his detractors, Trent Lott has no history of being a racist."
In an effort to appeal to his black brothers, the Rev. Jesse has brought on noted African-American media star, Sean Hannity to the BOND Advisory Board, because Sean knows how to "keep it real and is down wif da boyz in da hood, yo". Here is a picture of Sean with the rest of the gang at BOND as they get ready for an appearance on Soultrain as a KC and The Sunshine Band cover band.
Thats the way, un huh un huh, he likes it, un huh un huh....
posted by tbogg at 2:55 PM
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I don't believe this is what Ralph Ellison meant by the "Invisible Man"...
Atrios provides us with a link to Grover Norquist's African American Republican Leadership Council, a place that I have never visited before. So I'm, like, checking it out and I decide to go check out the Black GOP in Congress Hall of Champions. Boy, was that one quiet room. Of course every page needs a little padding to give these guys the look of "Somethings happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear", so they decided to list all African-Americans in Congress, not just the GOP list which would be embarassingly small and about to become non-existant with the departure of JC Watts. Now I won't list all of the former black members of Congress, only the current ones, because, well, it's very informative:
Rep. Major Owens(D-NY)-- 1983-present
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY)-- 1983-present
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)--1987-present
Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ)-- 1989-present
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)-- 1991-present
Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)-- 1991-present
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)-- 1991-present
Rep. Eva Clayton (D-NC)-- 1992-present
Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA)-- 1993-present
Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL)-- 1993-present
Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC)-- 1993-present
Rep. Cleo Fields (D-LA)-- 1993-96
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)--1993-present
Rep. Earl Hilliard (D-AL)--1993-present
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX)-- 1993-present
Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-- 1993-present
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL)-- 1993-present
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA)-- 1993-present
Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC)-- 1993-present
Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD)-- 1993-present
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS)-- 1993-present
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)-- 1995-present
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)-- 1995-present
Rep. Julius Caesar Watts ( R-OK)-- 1995-present
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL)-- 1995-present
Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-CA)-- 1996-present
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD)-- 1996-present
Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN)-- 1997-present
Delegate Donna Christian-Christensen (D-VI)-- 1997-present
Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL)-- 1997-present
Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN)-- 1997-present
Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI)-- 1997present-
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY)-- 1998-present
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)-- 1998-present
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH)-- 1999-present
Rep. William Clay, Jr. (D-MO)-- 2001-present
One of these things is not like the others, can you guess which one?
posted by tbogg at 2:20 PM
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Leave a burning cross in the window. I'm coming home.
Trent Lott-Republican David Duke is coming home to Louisiana to face the music.
David Duke has returned to the United States and will be talking with federal prosecutors about a plea bargain to criminal charges, his attorney said Monday.
Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who ran for governor and the U.S. Senate a decade ago, has been visiting his seriously ill father in New Jersey and plans to return to his home in Mandeville, north of New Orleans , defense attorney James McPherson said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"One of the reasons David came back is to see if we can cut a deal," McPherson said. "It's hard to negotiate when your client is out of the country."
snip
Duke had just started a speaking tour in Russia in January 2000 when federal agents raided his home in Mandeville. A search warrant, based on testimony from confidential informants, alleged Duke took hundreds of thousands of dollars he solicited from supporters and gambled the money away at casinos.
Wonder how Duke will fit in with the inmates at Angola prison? He should be quite popular during their annual rodeo as part of the Ride the Wild Klansman event.
posted by tbogg at 12:55 PM
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Something that is thankfully not about Lott or Gore
Lisa at Ruminate This has links and observations on the 34 Million Friends Campaign.
posted by tbogg at 9:30 AM
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Let your freak flag fly
The Flaming Moderate on the Confederate flag.
I await his pronouncement on the ubiquitous Dale Earnhardt #3 sticker in truck rear windows....
posted by tbogg at 9:27 AM
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Iceberg ahead...rats begin packing their bags
Looks like Joe Allbaugh is joining Mary Matalin in the unemployment line as the exodus from the good ship USS Chimpy McCokespoon continues. Unlike the female members of the administration who want to spend more time with their families, Allbaugh wants to have more time to spend on his hair style which has drawn the admiring glances from Mickey Kaus and Ari Fleischer.
posted by tbogg at 9:15 AM
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The President who drove old Dixie down...
Looks like some of the Red states are feeling a little blue.
Across the South, the economic landscape has turned upside down. Atlanta, where all arrows once pointed up, is hurting most: 61,800 jobs were lost in the 12 months that ended in October — more than in any other city in the country, according to the federal Department of Labor. And the job losses are continuing.
Even North Carolina's powerhouse area, Raleigh-Durham, which is normally all but immune to hard times thanks to a largely tenured work force of university and state government employees, has seen its unemployment rate double this year. In Hickory, N.C., and the surrounding area, entire fiber-optic cable factories have been mothballed in recent weeks, and 3,200 jobs have been cut since spring 2001.
In Louisiana, where the oil-and-gas industry typically buoys the state during national recessions, anxieties about a conflict with Iraq appear to have held up new investment — and job growth.
Faced with his father's fate, what do we suppose old President Tax the Poor is going to do to rescue his base?
"The president is making the case that people who earn between $50 [thousand] and $75,000 a year should be paying a third more taxes," Matsui said.
That is, of course, if they still have jobs.
The Bush Economy redux......
posted by tbogg at 8:38 AM
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Ted Rall
has the Bush economic plan in hand.
Ben Sargent
on the " New GOP".
posted by tbogg at 12:03 AM
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Sunday, December 15, 2002
By Rove! I think he's got it!
Rich Procter gets ahold of a Karl Rove memo.
posted by tbogg at 11:41 PM
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Who's your daddy?
Out-going Congressman JC Watts has a new book out just in time for Christmas, What Color is a Conservative?. Although the index has listings for cultural values (pg. 151), Fellowship of Christian Athletes (pgs. 107, 137), Hollywood accountability (pg. 233), Paula Jones (pg. 222), and Monica Lewinsky (pgs. 210-213, 221), I couldn't find any references to illegitimate children, born out of wedlock, bastards, or frontin' for the man.
Apparently his book isn't as well footnoted as Ann Coulter's.
posted by tbogg at 11:19 PM
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It's not that they didn't do their job. It's that they just don't care what anyone thinks.
Does anyone really think that the White House didn't do their homework on Henry Kissinger? Just like John Poindexter and Eliot Abrams, they thought they could get away with it. The fact that they now are thinking about appointing Bob Dole, the complete insider who is one of the most compromised of all former Senators, shows that they don't give a damn if this commitee ever gets off the ground. If Jerry Ford hadn't already been on the Warren Commision, he would probably be the next in line.
Meanwhile Warren Rudman sits by the phone...
posted by tbogg at 10:30 PM
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Let's hope they don't get together and breed...
Lonely cat-obsessed women beat out nerdy teenage virgin boys in movie opening steel-cage deathmatch.
posted by tbogg at 10:23 PM
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Out with racist...in with the homophobe.
Please, please, please make Don Nickles the new face of the Republican party.
Due to everything that is spilling out of Trent Lott's closet, there is going to be a media frenzy looking into Mr. Nickles every utterance. As my friends back at Table Talk used to say; pass the popcorn.
posted by tbogg at 10:17 PM
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Al Gore steps aside
Like a lot of people I am of two minds about Al Gore's decision to not run in 2004.
On the one hand I feel that America was denied a President with the potential to be one of the truly great ones. Few candidates have ever run for the office with the background, knowledge, and, yes, even the humanity of Al Gore. Alone among many in Washington DC, Al Gore is one of the few with an eye towards the future and what the world demands of it's citizens. Too many of our decision makers are locked into the philosophies of the 50's and 60's, and, unfortunately, the Reagan 80's. Gore's grasp of our environmental needs as well as his interest in technology and its applications could have had an enduring effect on the world. The fact that he was denied the office that he rightfully won, is one of our country's darkest moments.
Having said that, I am glad that he has chosen not to run. Gore sustained too much damage during the 2000 campaign from the Republican attack squad aided and abetted by a press that treated the campaign less as a contest of philosophy, than as a horserace. We now can see what happens when we have a press more concerned with personality than with policy; the country suffers. Those of us who are political junkies are at the mercy of those who base their poltical decisions on soundbites, Leno jokes, corporate financed bald-faced lying hit pieces, and people who preface their opinion with the phrase "Well, Rush said....". All of these, combined with mainstream "journalists" who fail to do their homework before making on-air pronouncements, applied a coating of failure, dishonesty, and insincerity to the wrong candidate simply because they didn't like him on a personal level. Al Gore got smeared and nothing will ever make these highly paid, ego-driven talking heads admit that they failed to do their jobs. Another run by Gore would just be a rehash of all the lies again because, hey, its easier than actually doing a little footwork or research. They destroyed a good man.
Going forward we start to look at darkhorse Howard Dean, absolutely can't win Dick Gephardt, front-runner John Kerry, not ready for primetime John Edwards, charisma-free Tom Daschle, and the worst of all possibilities: Joe Lieberman. Since I have been old enough to vote (starting in 1972) I have voted in every Presidential election for the Democratic nominee. If Lieberman is the candidate, I'll sit the next one out, thank you very much. It's going to be interesting to see how this next one plays itself out.
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