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Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Getting them up for the big game...
It's all a game to Andy Sullivan, and why not? He's gets to sit on the curb and wave his little pom poms while American soldiers go off to die. And if they didn't have enough incentive other than keeping the world safe for power glutes, well, he's got just the clipping to put on the clubhouse barracks wall:
The second thing I learn is that Osama still under-estimates American military power. He writes that America's fundamental weakness are:
---fear and cowardice and absence of the fighting spirit among American soldiers. Those soldiers are completely convinced about the injustice of their government and its lies, and they lack a fair cause to fight for. And they are rather fighting for the capitalist and interest hoarders, and weapons and oil merchants, including the criminal gang at the White House, which harbors crusader hatreds and personal hatreds from Bush the father.
If I were Tommy Franks, I would post that statement in every barracks I could find, alongside a picture of the World Trade Center. If that doesn't mobilize the troops, nothing will.
Um, yeah. And if that doesn't work we should go toilet paper their campus....
And people actually sent this guy $80,000 for crap like this? In a country that spends good money on Left Behind books and trips to Branson, why do I still find this suprising?
posted by tbogg at 11:50 PM
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Una vez más, pero en inglés
Speaking in reference to candidato del stealth Miguel Estrada, President MBA had this to say:
President Bush complained to reporters today: "A handful of Democrats in the Senate are playing politics with his nomination. And it's shameful politics." He said he wanted Mr. Estrada "to get fairer treatment than he's getting from those who are really against the spirit of the United States Senate."
White House reporters dutifully wrote that down, turned it in to their editors and then went and got gloriously drunk secure in the knowledge that America is being governed by a slightly retarded howler monkey.
posted by tbogg at 11:32 PM
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Maybe if I just diagramed the sentence out....
Okay. Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s because it’s late and I’m tired, but see if the Virgin Ben is saying what I think he is saying:
But the sight of Iranians seeking freedom convinced me that President Bush's mission to bring democracy to the Middle East could be successful.
If Western Europe has its way, this will never happen. France, Germany and their other accommodation-minded cohorts are in the palms of Middle Eastern Islamic dictatorships. For these countries that never experienced the tyranny of Communist rule during the Cold War, the idea of evil is anathema.[my emphasis]
Is college student Ben saying that Germany never “experienced the tyranny of Communist rule during the Cold War”?
Does he take the short bus to UCLA?
If he is saying what I think he is saying...does Townhall employ editors that let stuff like this go through?
posted by tbogg at 11:19 PM
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Germany's Mr. Tough Guy vs America's Mr. Not So Tough Guy
Michael Kelly can't find fault with Germany's Joschka Fischer when it comes to Fischer's reluctance to be a good soldier and just do what President Ich bin Ein Dumbass wants him to do. Kelly has probably forgotten what Germany remembers all too well about being the soldier who just follows orders. Either way, Kelly goes to great pains to remind us of what a bad bad man Fischer was as he was growing up.
But for the formative years of your political life, you were no man in a blue government suit. You were a man in a black motorcycle helmet. That is what you were wearing on that day in April 1973 when you were photographed, to quote the New Left historian Paul Berman, "as a young bully in a street battle in Frankfurt."
In 2001, Stern magazine published five photographs of you in action that day. What these pictures depicted was described by Berman in a deeply informed 25,000-word article, "The Passion of Joschka Fischer" (The New Republic, Sept. 3, 2001). The photos showed you, Mr. Fischer, inflicting a "gruesome beating" on a young policeman named Rainer Marx: "Fischer and other people on the attack, the white-helmeted cop going into a crouch; Fischer's black-gloved fist raised as if to punch the crouching cop on the back; Fischer's comrades crowding around; the cop huddled on the ground, Fischer and his comrades appearing to kick him . . ."
Then there is this:
As Berman reported, Mr. Fischer, you rose in public life as an important figure in the anti-American, anti-liberal, neo-Marxist, revolution-minded German radical left of the generation of 1968. This was the left that produced and supported the Baader-Meinhof Gang (or Red Army Faction), which, as Berman wrote, "refrained from nothing," including "kidnappings, bank holdups, murders." You were not a terrorist yourself, but you were a good and active friend to terrorists, weren't you, Mr. Fischer?
And, of course, Fischer didn't belong to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, but that doesn't stop Kelly from doing a little smear by association that he is so good at (see his whining about ANSWER). Kelly indulges in this a bit more with references to Fischer's "old friend", "housemate", and "Frankfurt colleague" along with gratuitous references to the "Revolutionary Cells", "Red Army Faction ", "Carlos the Jackal ", and the "PLO", because we know that if any of these people or groups did anything bad...it was all Fischer's fault.
In a turbulent time, Fischer was involved in revolutionary activities in Germany. Rightly or wrongly, he was a particpant in the political movements of his time. Yet the good people of Germany seem to have no problem with him speaking as their foreign minister. He is the product of his times who tried on ideologies to see what fit his world view. If he were a Republican we would call these "youthful indiscretions".
But what about our own "leader"? What was he doing at the same time that Fischer was searching for his place in the world?
Mainly snorting coke, staying drunk, screwing underaged Mexican hookers, blowing his Dad's friend's money on failed businesses, ducking out on his military commitments, and waking up in a pool of his own vomit secure in the knowledge that his politician dad would buy him out of any jam.
See? You do get the government that you deserve...
posted by tbogg at 10:30 PM
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The more flexible... the more easily screwed
You can usually tell when the Bush Administration is getting ready to screw someone over. Suddenly they want "greater flexibility" in a government program, leaving decisions up to those who are shielded by their respective departments. "Greater flexibility" is code for "Do what you want to the public. We'll look the other way". Case in point. Cut taxes on the rich, take more from the poor:
The Bush administration is proposing to increase rents charged to thousands of poor people who receive federal housing aid.
The increase would be accomplished by changing three little words in federal law. The minimum rent for tenants, which is "not more than $50" a month under current law, would have to be "at least $50" a month under President Bush's plan.
In budget documents sent to Congress last week, the administration said the proposal was "intended to promote work" by people who live in federally subsidized housing.
Some local authorities have a minimum rent of zero or $25 a month. Under Mr. Bush's proposal, they would have to charge $50 a month and could set the minimum much higher for some or all tenants.
Housing officials in New York, Philadelphia and Tacoma, Wash., said they did not have minimum rents. On average, they said, tenants pay 30 percent of their incomes in rent for their subsidized units.
The proposal is the latest example of what critics describe as onerous requirements placed on poor people by Mr. Bush's budget. Under it, families would face more difficulties in obtaining hardship exemptions from the minimum rent requirement.
Then...here it comes:
An assistant secretary of housing and urban development, Michael Liu, said today that the minimum rent proposal was "a reasonable way to promote work and responsibility."
Mr. Liu said some people who lived in public housing or received rental aid in the form of Section 8 vouchers could afford to pay much more than $50 a month.
"We wanted to provide flexibility to the local housing authorities," he said.
...and then there is this:
Local agencies might need to raise rents because Washington recently told them that their operating subsidies could be cut by up to 30 percent in the first quarter of this year. Federal officials said the cuts might be necessary because of a $250 million shortfall that resulted from government accounting errors and miscalculations.
Remember when they said that the "grown-ups" were back in charge? What kind of grown-up puts people on the street so they can have a nice shiny war to get re-elected? What kind of grown-up gives the money that they take away from housing and gives it to churches so they can build...more churches? If you didn't already know that the Bush Administration was made up of some the most evil bastards to ever roam the Earth...welcome to the new reality. The terrorists have not only won, they're running the government.
posted by tbogg at 1:22 PM
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If I tell you I'll have to kill myself...or something like that....
Good to hear that President Lowered Expectations picked a real braintrust in Tom Ridge. Reader Issac writes in:
Last night's Daily Show had a clip of Matt Lauer interviewing Tom Ridge and
asking, in effect, just what people are supposed to do with the sort of
vague warnings that Vaterland Security has been issuing.
Ridge replied (as well as I can remember), "We receive general information
and specific information. The specific information contains no details about
time or place, means or methods."
I can't take much more of this.
-Isaac
posted by tbogg at 9:19 AM
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Places to go...links to click on and read.
I've got a busy day today and a basketball game to go to tonight (SDSU vs UNLV) so blogging will be light, which gives you all the more time to check out the following:
Lisa at Ruminate This has some thoughts and an important link on the rightwing's assault on academia.
The fabulous David E has a morbidly fascinating timeline of uber-freak Michael Jackson's doings.
The Daily Kos keeps us up to date on the Democratic horserace...which is all it is these days.
Jeanne D'Arc poses and answers at lot of questions
Matt Bivens over at The Nation points out that Rumsfeld wants to get himself some of that knock-out gas that killed the Moscow theater-goers, since he gets off on collateral damage.
David at Orcinus points out that Howie Kurtz lies almost as much as Ari...or he doesn't do his research. One of the two.
The Washington Post piles on she-male John Lott/Mary Rosh who would fake a person but not a survey. (Thanks Maia)
Also important news about clown funerals, a couple of African Americans setting back the cause with a truly frivolous lawsuit, and the Pentagon ordering five times more body bags for Operation Inigo Montoya than they did for Gulf War I.
...and remember...this Friday Ben Shapiro will be 19 years and one month old....and still... a virgin.
posted by tbogg at 9:08 AM
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If you are looking for it...
Here is a list of the Academy Award nominees....
A couple of quick notes:
Director Peter Jackson ( The Two Towers) can't catch a break (no nomination), but then he's no Polanski. Hell, he's no Rob Marshall.
The supporting actor nominees along with the best actress nominees may be one of the best groups ever.
There will be plenty of complaints because My Big Fat Stereotype Wedding was pretty much shut out. Shut up and count your money.
...and The Two Towers will not win best picture. There is not a big enough nerd vote in Hollywood.
posted by tbogg at 8:19 AM
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Monday, February 10, 2003
The blaming of the shrew
Phyllis Schlafly, role model to young right-wing harpies everywhere, wades into the Title IX discussion and proves that any woman in America can be just as big an ass as a man if she puts her mind to it. She starts with a brief history of Title IX...and then goes off the deep end:
During the Clinton administration, Title IX was aggressively used to abolish college men's sports as well as to create women's teams. In line with feminist ideological goals, the teams abolished were those where men excel, i.e., men's wrestling, men's gymnastics, men's golf and football. [my emphasis....please note that men also excel at men’s baseball, men’s basketball, etc. Women have been known to excel at women's gymnastics, women's golf, women's basketball,...you get the idea]
Colleges have eliminated 171 wrestling teams (40 percent of the national total) plus hundreds of other sports in which men excel, many of them trophy-winning teams. The evidence is overwhelming that Title IX has been turned into a tool to punish men.
"to punish men". Really? Care to explain why?
Phyllis obliges:
The effect on men's sports, and specifically on wrestling teams, is not an unintended consequence. The feminists' intention is to eliminate everything that is masculine or macho, and to pretend that women are equal to men in physical prowess and desire. [my emphasis. again]
Oh.
Now, taking a few steps backward we are asked to connect the loss of men's golf and men's gymnastics* teams because they are too "masculine and macho"?
Yup. Nothing like a steroid-pumped, testosterone soaked, strapping young male carding a birdie on a particularly difficult par 3 to get the coed's swooning with, well, not desire, since Ms. Schlafly insists they can't match men when it comes to desire (speak for yourself, Phyllis). I have to confess she lost me right there, probably because she has no idea what she is talking about. Where she sees conspiracy, I see opportunity. Where she sees cheerleaders, I see athletes.
The fact is that female high school athletic participation is at an all time high and growing because sports have been encouraged for girls and because Title IX has made the possibility of a college education available to some whom might not have had a shot, financially or grades-wise. A popular argument is to point out the fact that there are more male high school athletes than girls, therefore girls aren’t as interested, while neglecting to point out that there is no female sport at the high school level that carries as many athletes as a football team (40 -60 players) at as many as three levels (varsity, JV, freshman). With a 120-180-person head start, is it any wonder the numbers look skewed?
I was at a recent tryout for the girl’s basketball team at a 4-year high school with 1300 students. Over one hundred and thirty girls, one tenth of the student body, showed up for spots on three teams (varsity, JV, freshman) that will carry a combined thirty-six players. The number of girls at basketball tryouts didn't include the 140 girls who were trying out for soccer, a sport that runs concurrent with basketball. I'm coaching a middle school girl’s basketball team this year with a class of 17 eighth grade girls eligible for varsity. I have 13 who have signed up to play and will play.
Phyllis Schlafly wouldn't know desire if it smacked her in the face with a behind-the-back pass.
*(Disclaimer: I was a two-time letterman in gymnastics in high school and taught gymnastics through the City Parks and Rec. department while going to college. I know first hand the perception of men's gymnastics. "Macho" doesn't leap readily to mind)
(Added: here is starting first baseman Casey in the Pony League championship game last year. Yeah. A girl. The only one in the league. Tell me again about ability and desire.)
posted by tbogg at 11:13 PM
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Can Tony borrow a cup of Powell?
Looks like the Poodle of 10 Downing hasn't made the case in Merry Olde...
The Times/Populus poll, undertaken between last Friday and Sunday, shows how much Mr Blair still has to do to win over voters and how public attitudes are closely linked to his ability to win support for a second United Nations resolution. This further underlines the importance to Mr Blair of this Friday’s report to the Security Council by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector.
The public believes that President Saddam Hussein is a threat to Britain and has weapons of mass destruction. But they do not think that the case for war has been made.
Nearly nine out of ten voters think the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to establish whether Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, as France, Germany and Russia have urged. Meanwhile, just a third think that Britain and America have so far put forward a convincing case for military action against Iraq.
More than half of the public says their view of Mr Blair has changed because of Iraq, a third less favourably.
Support for Labour has slipped two points over the past month to 35 per cent. Apart from the fuel protest month of September 2000, the last time Labour support was this low was in 1992.
...when another Bush was in office.
Imagine that...
posted by tbogg at 9:59 PM
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Ron Ziegler is no longer operative
Hell. I didn't even know the lying little weasel lived in town.
On the other hand, Ari Fleischer makes Ziegler look like George Washington when it comes to the truth.
posted by tbogg at 9:48 PM
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Meet the new wimp...same as the old wimp
Remember when the first George Bush (the one who was elected...later fired) got called a wimp? If you don't, hey, don't worry, just like previous Bush-era high unemployment and Middle Eastern sabre-rattling, the "W" word is making a return visit
George W. Bush's admirers often describe his stand against Saddam Hussein as "Churchillian." Yet his speeches about Iraq — and for that matter about everything else — have been notably lacking in promises of blood, toil, tears and sweat. Has there ever before been a leader who combined so much martial rhetoric with so few calls for sacrifice?
Or to put it a bit differently: Is Mr. Bush, for all his tough talk, unwilling to admit that going to war involves some hard choices? Unfortunately, that would be all too consistent with his governing style. And though you don't hear much about it in the U.S. media, a lack of faith in Mr. Bush's staying power — a fear that he will wimp out in the aftermath of war, that he won't do what is needed to rebuild Iraq — is a large factor in the growing rift between Europe and the United States.
posted by tbogg at 9:39 PM
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Omigod! Run!...It's loaded with boobs..and they look like they're going to explode!
Porno for theocrats.
Scranton, Pa., police say it wasn't funny.
A suspicious package found at the federal courthouse Saturday turned out to contain pornographic material and a note to Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The briefcase-size box was examined by the bomb squad, which decided to destroy it.
Sgt. Dave Benway said the note suggested the package was dangerous. He said he expects charges to be filed.
Last year, two partially nude statues in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice were covered up. A Justice Department spokesman said it was done for aesthetic reasons, but there were reports that Ashcroft didn't like being photographed in front of them.
After hearing that the porn was destroyed, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas burst into tears, sobbing, "Oh, the humanity...".
posted by tbogg at 4:12 PM
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Woof.
Around our house we like to refer to the Super Bowl as the Westminster Dog Show for big fat guys...and that is what we will be watching tonight.
Go bassets.
posted by tbogg at 4:06 PM
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Bill & Tim's excellent conjecture
Tim Dunlop has some wise words from the last elected President...and a few wise words of his own.
posted by tbogg at 12:52 PM
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Two birds...one stone
Ann Telnaes
posted by tbogg at 11:24 AM
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My favorite story is "The Bastard Grandchild and the Check That Never Came"
Roger Ailes directs us to this wonderful collection of childrens tales...personally selected by William F. Buckley Jr.
Includes such favorites as:
The Princess and the Pea and the Forged Prescription for Oxycontin
The Three Spinners: Fineman, Woodward and Noonan
The Robber Supreme Court
The Juniper-Tree, Laura, and the Gift of Gin
The Two Kings' Children and the Wonderful Fake ID
The King's Son Who Feared Nothing Yet Hid At Offut Airforce Base
The Shroud Over The Boobs
Faithful John Who Feared Cats and Dancing...and Dancing Cats.
Little Snow-White and the All White Party
The Peasants Wise Daughter...and the Other Lesbian One He Doesn't Mention
and
The White Bride and the Black One Who Owned Lots of Porn
(With my apologies to los hermanos Grimm)
posted by tbogg at 11:05 AM
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Hey, you didn't want those freedoms anyway....
The First Amendment rights of anti-war demonstrators have not been violated by the city's decision to block them from marching past the United Nations on Saturday, a federal judge ruled Monday.
Citing "this time of heightened security," U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones said the city's need to protect the public outweighs the right of demonstrators to proceed with plans to march past the UN.
From Jimmy Breslin (via Atrios):
Free speech comes from Madison and Jefferson and Paine and people went to jail over it and were shot in wars to protect it. You can see how precious, how fragile such a blessing is by the way in which it is embroiled and disputed and can be threatened by the most modest of opponents.
During a break, I went up to one severely dressed young man and he identified himself as Andrew O’Toole of the United States Attorney’s office. He was there to make a statement or file something to remind the court that the UN was the responsibility of the city. He was pleasant. The people who sent him over did not tell him to say “Ashcroft.” He didn’t have to. He was at the city’s table and a United State Marshal who had arrived with him and was holding a hand radio stood at the door.
*****Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances*****
From funding religion, aka "faith-based organizations", to creating "First Amendment zones" to gutting the Freedom of Information Act...this has been one busy admistration.
posted by tbogg at 10:35 AM
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RIP Mongo Santamaria
Passed away on Feb. 1
posted by tbogg at 9:37 AM
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Did I mention the furrowed brow?
Mickey Kaus is still stalking Kerry
They called kf irresponsible for pointing out Sen. John Kerry's gross characterological deficiencies before Kerry had a chance to display them on the campaign trail.
Here's Mickey not being irresponsible.
What is it that makes so many people, myself included, intensely dislike Sen. John Kerry? This is the great mystery surrounding his 2004 presidential campaign. I don't think "aloof and arrogant," the traditional Kerry negatives, are exactly it -- he may be aloof and arrogant, but there are plenty of aloof and arrogant people I don't rule out instantly due to their gross characterological deficiency, which is what I do with Kerry. It's not just his "long record of opportunism," though again that's part of it. ... I say we harness the power of the Web to solve the mystery! A copy of Kerry's undoubtedly riveting book, The New War, to the kf reader (or non-kf reader) who most precisely describes the root of Kerry's loathsomeness. ...(References to descriptions of Kerry by others may also qualify for the prize .) ... My own attempt: I think it starts with the phony furrowed brow. Perpetually furrowed and perpetually phony. It's been furrowed for so long I doubt he could unfurrow it now even if his advisers convinced him that would be a good tack to take!
Now I will cut Mickey some slack when it comes to furrowed brows, since Mickey is a bit of a brow expert himself, with so much brow, in fact, that his hairline starts at the back of his head. But let's face it, Mickey finds Kerrey "loathsome" and has so stated. Now he has to make a political case to cover for his "hair" envy. My guess is that there is another kind of envy involved here too, but who wants to go there?
posted by tbogg at 9:21 AM
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Damn those French, Germans, and Belgonians
President Stumped By Geography, who is supposed to be a uniter and not a divider, is managing to break up NATO.
Warbloggers are working overtime to find something they can criticize Belgium about. French = cowards, Germans = Nazis, Belgians = hmmmmmm, chocolate? Brussels? brussel sprouts?
posted by tbogg at 9:07 AM
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We have a winner.
David Appell of Quark Soup has found a warblogger who has put his money ass where his mouth is. The un-named blogger at Virtual Sanity has enlisted.
I'm 30 years old. Why the hell am I enlisting in the Army?
Believe me, this is a question I've asked myself many times before actually signing up and taking the oath a few weeks ago (Sept 12, 2002). Basically, it all comes down to what I saw with my own eyes last Sept 11, and what I think I can contribute to the cause of making this country safer for the people I love.
I took a long time thinking about what I wanted to do. Last winter, I sent in job applications to the CIA, NSA, FBI, and DIA. None of them offered me a position. It was readily apparent that some experience was necessary as they were being flooded with applications. The military seemed the best way of getting that experience. After figuring things out, I decided to take the language diagnostic test and found out I was very well suited for learning foreign languages (I knew this already as I am already fluent in French, and started picking up German very quickly after), but I needed the test to get the goverment to give me a chance. I am not guaranteed to get a specific language, but with my score on the test, I should get my first choice. After I start language school, I will determine which specific job I will persue(sic).
Now granted, Mr Virtual Sanity isn't running to be first on the frontlines, but at least he has the honor to back up his words with actions.
So, Mr Appell, look for your copy of Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media in the mail in the next week. Congratulations. And good luck to PFC Sanity.
posted by tbogg at 8:54 AM
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Making it up as they go along
Georgie Ann Geyer has some questions for the Bush Administration:
The real questions, the ones lying somewhere in the shadows outside the war fever that has seized this administration, are whether the Iraqi dictator was behind 9/11 and whether he and al-Qaida are banded together in terrorism. (You do remember back that far, don't you, when those were the supposed reasons for going to war?) Those questions remain unanswered.
posted by tbogg at 8:39 AM
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Sunday, February 09, 2003
1st Lt. Buck Bacaw...not reporting. Sir.
Democratic Veteran points out that resume padding can get you into a lot of trouble.
South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford accepted a commission in the USAF Reserve as an officer and now wants out claiming that he just can't do it, since he's governor.
Doesn't he know there's a war on? Actually, he does....
(Update: Looks like Sanford will serve...but he's got a bad back now. Ducking and running for political cover can cause that. Really. It can....)
posted by tbogg at 11:57 PM
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My evening with Jar-Jar Gollum
Being a little slow on the pop culture curve, La famiglia tbogg finally got around to seeing LOTR: The Two Towers last night. I may have confessed this before, but I have never read the trilogy, and having tried again last year, can confidently state that I never will. I'm just not a fantasy, good v. evil, Ye Olde Renaissance Faire kinda guy. I can say that I thought the picture was...just fine. I didn't see the Bush vs terrorists allegory that some of the warbloggers saw when it came out, but then I don't think that many of them saw the homoerotic sexual tension between Frodo and Sam that is so there on the screen.
Nice cameo by John Ashcroft in the role of Gríma Wormtongue, though.
(Additional note: No Virgin Ben sighting at the screening, but then it was Saturday night which is date night and, well...you know.
posted by tbogg at 11:10 PM
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Shoot for peace
Alert reader Ken sends in another person for the Freepers to boycott: Dallas Mavericks All Star Guard Steve Nash:
On Friday, as players decked out in gold and diamonds spoke of playoffs and slam dunks, Nash didn't hesitate to voice his feelings on the United States' impending war with Iraq.
'' I just think that Iraq has been terrorized by the sanctions the United Nations have put on them for 13 years now,'' said Nash. ''They're a depleted and hurt country, there are 5,000 children under the age of five dying each month directly due to the sanctions the U.N. have imposed.
''The mothers and the fathers in that country must just be dying with their children every day.
''For us to go to this depleted country, and to go to war with them is a horrible thing to do, when it's really just one mad leader that we need to curb.''
posted by tbogg at 10:44 PM
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George Costanza Bush's "Human Fund"
In an old Seinfeld episode, George Costanza wants to avoid giving Christmas gifts to the people he works with. In typical Costanza fashion he makes up holiday cards stating that he has made a contribution to the fabricated "Human Fund" in the recipient's name. So what does this have to do with our current 'president"? Peggy Noonan, in her weekly public self-humiliation relates a story about what a giving and generous person President Costanza is:
Some people have been put off by, and some people are inspired by and grateful for, the degree to which the president's Christian faith seems to play a part in his leadership. A New York media person or intellectual will say, Bush thinks God put him in the presidency "at a time such as this," and that gives me the creeps. This reflects a misunderstanding about Mr. Bush's faith. He actually prays for guidance, for wisdom, for strength. Mr. Bush told an audience the other day that he thinks the most generous gift one person can give another is a prayer. He said, "I pray for strength. . . . I pray for forgiveness. And I pray to offer my thanks for a kind and generous Almighty God." This doesn't make him strange. It puts him in the normal range of Americans.
While I would be the first to say that Bush has much to be forgiven for (and it adds up on a daily basis, sometimes hourly) you have to wonder why a man who has prayed so much, and has yet to be given the gift of wisdom, strength, and, hell, let's even throw in compassion, would still believe in the power of prayer. Maybe because it sells to people like Peggy Noonan who depend upon their faith to make themselves believe that George Bush is a wise and caring leader...all evidence to the contrary. Call it the dumb leading the blind and never mind that cliff up ahead.
posted by tbogg at 10:36 PM
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Saturday, February 08, 2003
What Would You Say
Add Dave Matthews to the Freeper List of People I Will Boycott Which Isn't Hard Since I Only Buy Toby Keith Cassettes Anyway, Yeehaw... Hyuk Hyuk:
Dave's statement:
I hope this letter finds you all well and that in these uncertain times you find moments to be joyful.
I want to speak my mind about this war with Iraq, or I will choke on my conscience.
What is the motivation? Regime change? Shouldn't that be up to the people of the region and the people of Iraq? The only real threat from Saddam Hussein is to his neighbors and none of them support a U.S. invasion. Is it to stabilize the Middle-East? Wouldn't it only do the opposite by causing further death and suffering in a country that has had more than its share?
Is it to weaken Al Qaeda? Saddam Hussein is a genocidal maniac but he is not Al Qaeda. He is certainly more visible though. Is he our target because he is easier to identify than the illusive terrorist network? Surely it is more likely that an attack on Iraq would only strengthen Al Qaeda by feeding Anti-American sentiment. Putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. It is certainly not to liberate the people of Iraq who suffer under Hussein's rule, unless we call killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis liberation.
Saddam Hussein is a barbaric murderous dictator. I wish the world were free of him. But the answer is not to bomb this great culture of Iraq out of existence to stop him. Why must the children of Iraq die by the thousands to stop a tyrant? It is not justice. And if we kill him what will we achieve? We will have taken the most unpopular leader in the Middle East and turned him into the greatest martyr radical Islam has ever had. The U.N. weapons inspectors must be allowed to do their job thoroughly and any military action should be internationally agreed upon. We must not allow our government to turn us into a rogue nation.
I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.
Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American.
Peacefully submitted,
Dave Matthews
posted by tbogg at 3:50 PM
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"I don't think the president had to pay a penny when he went to AA..."
Washington -- Fremont Rep. Pete Stark, whose caustic comments directed at fellow House members have provoked anger in the past, took aim Thursday at President Bush's past problems with alcohol.
The comment came during a heated hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee as Democrats grew increasingly annoyed at Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson for not divulging more details about the administration's plan to provide prescription drugs to seniors through Medicare.
Democrats oppose the administration's efforts to give religious groups money to provide drug treatment, while at the same time providing prescription drug benefits only to seniors who opt out of the traditional Medicare program.
Stark, a liberal Democrat who has represented the East Bay since 1973, complained to Thompson that he had spent "89 words in your written testimony on a [Medicare] drug benefit and a full page on a faith-based benefit for drug treatment."
Then he added: "I don't think the president had to pay a penny when he went to AA, and my impression is that it's still free."
Bush has acknowledged that he drank heavily as a youth, and that he abruptly quit all alcohol shortly after his 40th birthday. He has never said he is an alcoholic, or that he attended Alcoholics Anonymous.
The White House declined to comment on Stark's statement. And Stark was not apologizing.
"I'm happy he's recovering," Stark said after the meeting. "Some members of our committee are recovering alcoholics and I have great respect for them.
"This is a president who has cut back on the social safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable people in our country. Then he's saying: 'let's take money and give to the churches.' Why should we throw money at them while we're taking money away from people who need it."
Stark attributed the proposal as "fanaticism to force (Bush's) right wing Christian religion on the rest of the country."
For Stark, it is not the first time his pointed barbs have made news.
Two years ago, during a hearing at which Republicans were pushing abstinence, Stark sarcastically noted that the idea was coming from the right place since two former GOP House leaders -- Speaker Newt Gingrich and Speaker- designate Robert Livingston -- had confessed to extramarital affairs, and Republican Conference chairman, Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma had "children (who) were all born out of wedlock."
In fact, one of Watts' five children was born prior to his marriage, prompting an apology from Stark's office "if he overstated the number of children involved."
A few years earlier, Stark called Rep. Nancy Johnson, R-Conn, a "whore" for the insurance industry, and referring to her marriage to a doctor, said: "The gentle lady got her medical degree through pillow talk."
posted by tbogg at 10:58 AM
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Notes from the New Theocracy
The devil Jesus is in the details at the Education Department.
Schools that don't allow students to pray outside the classroom or prohibit teachers from holding religious meetings among themselves could lose federal money, the Education Department said yesterday.
The guidance reflects the Bush administration's push to ensure that schools give teachers and students as much freedom to pray as the courts have allowed.
[snip...]
"Public schools should not be hostile to the religious rights of their students and their families," Education Secretary Rod Paige said. "At the same time, school officials may not compel students to participate in prayer or other activities."
The instructions, released by the department late yesterday, broadly follow the same direction given by the Clinton administration and the courts. Prayer is generally allowed provided it happens outside the class and is initiated by students, not by school officials.
The department, however, also offered some significant additions, including more details on such contentious matters as moments of silence and prayer in student assemblies. And for the first time, the burden is on schools to prove compliance through a yearly report. [my emphasis]
"Public school districts that accept billions of dollars each year in federal education funds should be expected to respect students' constitutional rights," said Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee. "This is basic common sense."
Bush and Congress ordered the department to release the new guidelines as part of an education overhaul signed into law last year. But one leading critic said what emerged is a partisan push for more school prayer, not an attempt at clarification.
"They took the Clinton-era regulations, which just stated what the law was, and turned them into a wish list of what this administration wants them to be," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
posted by tbogg at 10:06 AM
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Friday, February 07, 2003
Whoever said that orange is the new pink was seriously disturbed!
Well, we're at Code Orange (Danger Tom Ridge! Danger!) and it doesn't seem like anyone is taking it too seriously. Some polls are saying that 70% of the public aren't going to let it affect them or their plans. Went down in the valley tonight with my daughter for dinner and there was a wait everywhere...even Hooters. Typical Friday night. People aren't cowering, people aren't hiding in their homes (although the number of posts on the warblogs will probably be up, but those guys never have dates anyway). So have we reached the point where the public is no longer taking Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft seriously?
With plans for a Patriot Act II (The Right Amends Your Rights) in the works at the More-or-Less Justice Department you have to wonder if, just if, the Government is going to allow a teensy weensy little act of terrorism happen to make a reluctant public get with the government plan. Call me Alcoa Boy, but I still believe that the administration knew that something along the lines of 9/11 was going to happen (based on Condoleeza Rice's post 9/11 comments), but that they believed that it was going to be a typical hijacking, that they were going to use to start the Iraq wardrums. Not being an imaginative group, I think they were stunned by massive coordination/destruction of it all.
So what's it going to be? A mall attack? A movie theater. Five will get you ten it's going to happen in a blue state.
posted by tbogg at 8:50 PM
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Base personal gratification before political action
No More Mr Nice Blog mentions an incipient boycott of Pepsi (like hiring Britney Spears wasn't enough) because they fired Ludacris (bad language) for Ozzy (bad f*****g language).
Obviously, this is hypocrisy on Pepsi's part -- but remember that Pepsi dropped Ludacris only after being browbeaten by Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly (who, as G. Beato pointed out last year, published a quite racy novel in 1998 and is thus also a hypocrite).
Simmons and his group should apply the pressure where it belongs -- on Fox. Fox's big-budget movie Daredevil opens a week from Friday. Simmons should announce a boycott of this and everything else Fox produces
Much as I would like to agree with Steve.... but....but.... Daredevil's Jennifer Gardner in tight leather clothes? Like I'm going to pass on that?
Let's just boycott Pepsi.
posted by tbogg at 1:38 PM
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You check for change in the car ashtray, I'll look in the couch
Ugga Bugga points out that some of our "New Europe" allies are a bit light when it comes to military budgets.
$3.3 billion. That's slightly less than the budget for police department of New York City ($3.5 billion) [page 52 in the 2004 budget
Looks like all the "old money" is still in "Old Europe".
posted by tbogg at 1:09 PM
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Are you ready for some terrorism? Some Monday Night terrorism...?
As a public service, here is the link to FEMA guide to citizen preparedness called Oh Shit! Now Look What Else Bush Caused. Run! Run! Aiiiieeeee!. that provides a step-by-step outline on how to prepare a disaster supply kit, emergency planning for people with disabilities, how to locate and evacuate to a shelter, and even contingency planning for family pets. Man-made threats from hazardous materials and terrorism are also treated in detail.
The chapter on being attacked by giant robot flying monkeys is a real nailbiter...
posted by tbogg at 1:00 PM
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Well we can still watch "Little House on the Prarie re-runs----oh crap....
Those culture warriors over at Free Republic (www.bump_lol_ping_hyukhyuk.com) are busy making a list and checking it twice of celebrities they are boycotting. Of course, it's all that much easier since few of them are regulars on pro wrestling or 6-Week Body Makeover infomercials. Anyway, here is the latest list of the pro-Saddam, Marxist, multi-cultural, PC, possibly negro, Communistic, homosexual, atheistic, soddomites:
1. Martin Sheen 2. Alec Baldwin 3. Jessica Lange 4. Sean Penn 5. Susan Sarandon 6. Ed Harris 7. Woody Harrelson 8. John Cusak 9. Mike Farrell 10. Robert Altman 11. George Clooney 12. Barbara Streisand 13. Tyne Daley 14. Ed Asner 15. Bradley Whitford 16. Danny Glover 17. Casey Kasem 18. Sally Kirkland 19. Oliver Stone 20. Sheryl Crowe 21. Michael Moore 22. Harry Belafonte 23. Jane Fonda 24. Tim Robbins 25. Kevin Spacey 26. Steven Earle 27. Gillian Anderson 28. Kim Basinger 29. Ed Begley, Jr. 30. Jackson Browne 31. (REM)Peter Buck and Michael Stipe 32. Diahann Carroll 33. Don Cheadle 34. Jill Clayburgh 35. Peter Coyote 36. Lindsay Crouse 37. Matt Damon 38. Vincent D’Onofrio 39. David Duchovny 40. Olympia Dukakis 41. Charles S. Dutton 42. Hector Elizondo 43. Cary Elwes 44. Mia Farrow 45. Laurence Fishburne 46. Sean Patrick Flanery 47 Bonnie Franklin 48. Jeananne Garafalo 49. Melissa Gilbert 50. Elliott Gould 51. Robert Guillaume 52. Ethan Hawke 53. Ken Howard 54. Helen Hunt 55. Anjelica Huston 56. Samuel L. Jackson 57. Jane Kaczmarek 58. Melina Kanakaredes 59. Tea Leoni 60. Wendie Malick 61. Camryn Manheim 62. Marsha Mason 63. Richard Masur 64. Dave Matthews 65. Esai Morales 66. Ed O'’Neill 67. Chris Noth 68. Alexandra Paul 69. CCH Pounder 70. Bonnie Raitt 71. Carl Reiner 72. Tony Shalhoub 73. Gloria Steinem 74. Marcia Strassman 75. Loretta Swit 76. Studs Terkel 77. Lily Tomlin 78. Blair Underwood 79. Dennis Weaver 80. Bradley Whitford 81. James Whitmore 82. Alfre Woodard 83. Noah Wyle 84. Moby 85. Robert Redford 86. Kathleen Turner 87. Joan Cusak 88. Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream 89. Dustin Hoffman
Actually there is lots more, but it's so hard to update a good blacklist when the country lurches between fear and loathing during an Orange Alert.
Of course they are peering deep within their souls (which takes about a second) and pondering the boycott of the next two Matrix pictures since Laurence Fishburne is in them.
Hmmmmm. What Would Morpheus Do?
posted by tbogg at 11:14 AM
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Corinthians is sooo heavy when you're stoned.
Dude.
A raid at two mobile homes led to the arrest of 31-year-old Jesus Santana, who was caught rolling marijuana cigarettes with pages from a Bible, Limestone County authorities said.
"When we arrested him, he made the comment that `I guess God got y'all to get me,"' said Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely.
-For if I make you sorry, who then is he that maketh me glad but he that is made sorry by me?
Whoa.......way cool......
posted by tbogg at 10:05 AM
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The seven million AOL CD's stacked up in her closet are the reason for AOL's recent problems.
Winnipeg police have charged a Canada Post employee with theft of mail after thousands of pieces went undelivered, dating back to August.
Police say the female letter carrier simply "got tired" of delivering the mail and stashed the mail bags in her house.
"It seems she [the letter carrier] would get tired and just dump bags at her house," said Constable Bob Johnson. "There doesn't seem to be any other motive other than laziness.
posted by tbogg at 9:54 AM
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Members of Mr. Mister and Night Ranger are still sifting through the evidence....Press conference later today
If this doesn't change get Saddam to comply, nothing will.
Rickey Medlocke has got Colin Powell's back.
Medlocke, a founding member of both Lynyrd Skynyrd and Blackfoot, earlier this week told us that he was reserving judgment until he saw some more concrete evidence than the government had been willing to offer to justify going to war.
In the wake of Secretary Of State General Colin Powell's speech at the United Nations on Wednesday (February 5), Medlocke said he fully backs the administration. "Now I think we got all the proof that we need," Medlocke said. "Of course, the Iraqis are saying, 'Oh, Powell's lying,' but you know what? I think that Colin Powell is probably the most trustworthy guy in there. I will believe Colin Powell before I believe anybody. I have a lot of respect for that guy, and I trust him."
Freeeeeeeee Bird! woo-hoooo! Freeeeeeee Bird.......
posted by tbogg at 9:48 AM
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An exciting one time offer....
I will send a copy of Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media to the first person who can point me in the direction of any warblogger who has truthfully announced that they are enlisting in the US military to go fight Islamofascism. I mean, the Secretary of State's presentation was sooooooooooo powerful....
Anyone? Anyone?
(...sound of crickets....a dog barking the distance.........the sound of snow falling...)
posted by tbogg at 9:32 AM
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Sure he's already got an XBox and and a Playstation 2...but he wants the Gamecube now. And then there's the new games....
Citing the high price of mindless entertainment for the mindless these days, President Gimme Gimme Gimme, is asking for a 9.3 % increase in White House "Operations" funding in the new budget, while everyone else is being asked to cut back.
For the Executive Office of the President, the broad category including most White House operations, the administration has requested $341.2 million for fiscal 2004. That compares with a request of $312.2 million for fiscal 2003 -- excluding $16.8 million for the White House Office of Homeland Security that was switched to the Department of Homeland Security budget for 2004.
[snip...]
Even without the $16.8 billion from 2003 that the White House is shifting elsewhere in fiscal 2004, Call said various "security related" factors have increased costs for 2004.
"I wouldn't want to say it's the bulk, but it certainly is a contributing factor," she said.
President Bush has proposed holding discretionary spending (excluding programs such as Social Security and Medicare) to $782.2 billion, a 4.1 percent increase.
"I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by 4 percent next year -- about as much as the average family's income is expected to grow," the president said in his State of the Union address last month. "And that is a good benchmark for us. Federal spending should not rise any faster than the paychecks of American families."
He lied.
posted by tbogg at 9:21 AM
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What do you mean ole Yeller dies at the end?
Jonah Goldberg, the pudgy, mama's boy buffoon/columnist, thinks that Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory has come over to President Inigo Montoya's side.
No, all I'd need to see is the op-ed by Mary McGrory in the Feb. 6 Washington Post. McGrory, a columnist and fixture of the Beltway since the Kennedy Administration, wrote an article with the succinct headline, "I'm Persuaded."
[snip...]
She begins her confession by saying, "I don't know how the United Nations felt about Colin Powell's `J'accuse' speech against Saddam Hussein. I can only say that he persuaded me, and I was as tough as France to convince."
Now, I don't mean to say that as McGrory goes, so goes the nation. Even to suggest she has that kind of influence would disqualify me from operating heavy machinery. Rather, if McGrory's convinced that means Powell convinced pretty much everybody capable of being convinced, at least in Washington.
Unfortunately, or fortunately in his case, Jonah neglects to link to McGrory's column. There is a reason for that. He must have been distracted by the last Ding-Dong calling to him from the box, and he didn't read the last paragraph.
I wasn't so sure about the al Qaeda connection. But I had heard enough to know that Saddam Hussein, with his stockpiles of nerve gas and death-dealing chemicals, is more of a menace than I had thought. I'm not ready for war yet. But Colin Powell has convinced me that it might be the only way to stop a fiend, and that if we do go, there is reason. [my emphasis]
If the purpose of Powell's speech was to convert the nay-sayers to the dark side of war, then I would say that, in McGrory case, he failed to "seal the deal".
posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM
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House Republicans say "no" to President Cartman
A key element of President Bush’s ambitious tax-cutting agenda — his proposal to create new tax-free savings accounts — has virtually no chance of passing and should be replaced with a bipartisan proposal to expand existing retirement programs, House Republican leaders have told the White House.
So Bush stamped his little feet and now...
WE ARE AT CODE ORANGE
Gasp!....yawn.
Ashcroft and Tom Ridge to talk about it later.
posted by tbogg at 8:36 AM
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Thursday, February 06, 2003
Jenna Bush can beer-bong a half-rack of Coors Lights and then belch all the names of the Supreme Court justices who scammed her dad into office
You look like you could use some Mark Morford today.
Suddenly you hear that one of the adorably vacuous female finalists on that noxious "Joe Millionaire" reality show you swear you're not watching, even though your normally wicked-smart girlfriend is addicted to the damnable media beast and drags you into its black void of tepid giddy shrillness every week, you hear that blond finalist Sarah who claims she's 29 yeah right but is probably actually closer to 36 and who on the show is clearly all high maintenance and snotty and totally in it for the money and no one likes her blech blech yuck, well, it turns out she's a spanker.
...enjoy.
posted by tbogg at 1:43 PM
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Great things found through tracking
I found this while checking out where people were coming from to get here. The writer is Bruce Garrett and he picks up from a link I posted about a Sullivan reader's email regarding "bush loathing" Great quote here from Garrett:
I came of political age during Watergate, and back then Nixon's media cheerleaders, the Andrew Sullivans of their day, used to wonder rhetorically why so many of us loathed him. The political cartoonist Herbert Block, writing in his book Herblock Special Report, said of Nixon that he had a "Multiple Bad Things Advantage", that is, there was so much that was wrong with the man and his political career, that when his cheerleaders demanded to know what his critics thought was wrong with him, it was hard for his critics to know where to begin, and they often came across seeming incoherent for that reason.
Go read the whole thing.
posted by tbogg at 1:10 PM
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Ann-ti semite
Once you have gotten through the lack of sympathy for the shuttle explosion, the bitterness over being single and childless, and the overall nastiness that explains why she is single and childless, New Caanan's very own fashion victim and reputed "woman", Ann Coulter reminds us that she moonlights as an anti-semite too.
At least the Times could count on stability and permanence from John Hartpence Kerry. Poor Kerry was just on the verge of figuring out whether he was for war with Iraq or against war with Iraq when he was told he hadn't figured out his own last name. Kerry was shocked to be told that, despite years of allowing himself to be passed off as an Irish Brahmin, both his paternal grandparents were Jewish and his real name is Kohn. Upon reflection, however, Kerry said there were signs he missed, such as his longtime, recently requited desire to marry a rich shiksa.
Oh wait. That's also a cry for help about her inability to land a man because she has " man hands". Make that an Ann Coulter two-fer.
(Added: I see Jim at Rittenhouse was already on this....Well, he is in Philadelphia and I'm in San Diego, and there's that time difference...oh nevermind.)
posted by tbogg at 12:56 PM
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More on Dude Ranch Dubya
Yesterday I pointed out that the otherwise brilliant Note referred to President SpongeGeorge Sidesaddle© as the "Cowboy President" much to my stern consternation and thin-lipped displeasure.
Stunningly intelligent reader Jenny emailed me:
-I would just like to point out that George W. Bush may be many things, but there is no "arguably" at all to the notion that he's "the nation's first cowboy president." That honor is already taken, and not by some photo-op, wanna-be, press release pseudo-he-man, but by an example of the Real Thing, namely Theodore Roosevelt.
-Teddy ranched in the Dakotas for a number of years, riding the range in the saddle and living the life of roundups, brandings, and cattle drives. Many of his Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War came from among the boys with whom he rode in those days.
-George W, however, very well could be the nation's first Urban Cowboy president. He's got the hat and no cattle, which gets him past the qualifying round. We need to see him ride that mechanical bull before we'll know for sure if he's got what it takes.
-But sorry, George, Teddy's already got all those Real Man records for himself.
--Jenny
posted by tbogg at 11:50 AM
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That self-inflicted wound looks infected
The National Review took a few moments away from promoting war and tax cuts for the rich (clarification: that is war for the poor and tax cuts for the rich. See? Something for everyone!) to delve into the mysteries of media bias. In "Jane, you ignorant slut" point-counterpoint style, they invited Eric Alterman ( buy the book and decide for yourself) and Brent Bozell (make the check out to MRC, Mr. Scaife) to provide their respective arguments. Bozell's argument isn't anything that hasn't been heard and refuted before (that's his story...and he's sticking to it, dammit) but right smack in the middle of his paint-by-numbers column sits....well, I guess what could be delicately called, a "shit hemorrhage of profound stupidity". Ready for it? See if you can spot where L. Brent goes off his nut:
But wait! Stop the presses! Extra! Extra! Bias has been found! After all these years suddenly these same journalists are finding that a conservative bias — yes, indeedy, a conservative bias dominates the press because the Fox News Channel and Rush Limbaugh control the world, or something.
Assuming Fox were as conservative as liberals charge — and it's an assumption I am not willing to make — it would now be one against CBS, NBC, ABC, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, and on and on and on.
Okay, I gave you a little helping hand underline. From that point on, does Brent really think that anyone will take him seriously? Actually, was anyone ever taking him seriously before...?
posted by tbogg at 11:29 AM
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"I don't really care what you think"
No. It's not President Cartman, it's his spiritual twin, Bill O'Reilly. I got this from Atrios, and I just wanted to excerpt a portion of it for those who have wisely chosen to shun O'Reilly. We'll let O'Reilly do the setup:
- O'REILLY: In the "Personal Stories" segment tonight, we were surprised to find out than an American who lost his father in the World Trade Center attack had signed an anti-war advertisement that accused the USA itself of terrorism. The offending passage read, "We too watched with shock the horrific events of September 11... we too mourned the thousands of innocent dead and shook our heads at the terrible scenes of carnage -- even as we recalled similar scenes in Baghdad, Panama City, and a generation ago, Vietnam." With us now is Jeremy Glick, whose father, Barry, was a Port Authority worker at the Trade Center. Mr. Glick is a co-author of the book "Another World is Possible." I'm surprised you signed this.
Which eventually led to this:
O'REILLY: Yes, as -- with your name. You were the only one. I was surprised, and the reason I was surprised is that this ad equates the United States with the terrorists. And I was offended by that.
GLICK: Well, you say -- I remember earlier you said it was a moral equivalency, and it's actually a material equivalency.
And just to back up for a second about your surprise, I'm actually shocked that you're surprised.
If you think about it, our current president, who I feel and many feel is in this position illegitimately by neglecting the voices of Afro- Americans in the Florida coup, which, actually, somebody got impeached for during the Reconstruction period --
Our current president now inherited a legacy from his father and inherited a political legacy that's responsible for training militarily, economically, and situating geopolitically the parties involved in the alleged assassination and the murder of my father and countless of thousands of others.
So I don't see why it's surprising...
O'REILLY: All right. Now let me stop you here. So...
GLICK: ... for you to think that I would come back and want to support...
O'REILLY: It is surprising, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why it's surprising.
GLICK: ... escalating...
O'REILLY: You are mouthing a far left position that is a marginal position in this society, which you're entitled to.
GLICK: It's marginal -- right.
O'REILLY: You're entitled to it, all right, but you're -- you see, even -- I'm sure your beliefs are sincere, but what upsets me is I don't think your father would be approving of this.
GLICK: Well, actually, my father thought that Bush's presidency was illegitimate.
O'REILLY: Maybe he did, but...
GLICK: I also didn't think that Bush...
O'REILLY: ... I don't think he'd be equating this country as a terrorist nation as you are.
GLICK: Well, I wasn't saying that it was necessarily like that.
O'REILLY: Yes, you are. You signed...
GLICK: What I'm saying is...
O'REILLY: ... this, and that absolutely said that.
GLICK: ... is that in -- six months before the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, starting in the Carter administration and continuing and escalating while Bush's father was head of the CIA, we recruited a hundred thousand radical mujahadeens to combat a democratic government in Afghanistan, the Turaki government.
O'REILLY: All right. I don't want to...
GLICK: Maybe...
O'REILLY: I don't want to debate world politics with you.
GLICK: Well, why not? This is about world politics.
O'REILLY: Because, No. 1, I don't really care what you think.
Then it gets worse:
GLICK: But you do care because you...
O'REILLY: No, no. Look...
GLICK: The reason why you care is because you evoke 9/11...
O'REILLY: Here's why I care.
GLICK: ... to rationalize...
O'REILLY: Here's why I care...
GLICK: Let me finish. You evoke 9/11 to rationalize everything from domestic plunder to imperialistic aggression worldwide.
O'REILLY: OK. That's a bunch...
GLICK: You evoke sympathy with the 9/11 families.
O'REILLY: That's a bunch of crap. I've done more for the 9/11 families by their own admission -- I've done more for them than you will ever hope to do.
GLICK: OK.
O'REILLY: So you keep your mouth shut when you sit here exploiting those people.
GLICK: Well, you're not representing me. You're not representing me.
O'REILLY: And I'd never represent you. You know why?
GLICK: Why?
O'REILLY: Because you have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country.
Tune in next week when O'Reilly taunts orphans because they don't have parents and then tells old people that they are going to die real soon.
posted by tbogg at 10:31 AM
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I guess it would depend on what your definition of "effective" is...
Larry Kudlow, the Fisher-Price version of an economist had this to say this morning:
The stock market surged Wednesday as Secretary of State Colin Powell effectively made the case before the UN Security Council that Saddam Hussein and his despotic government are in material breach of Resolution 1441.
Powell laid out charges that there is "irrefutable and undeniable" evidence that Saddam is hiding weapons of mass destruction, moving weapons from place to place to avoid detection by UN inspectors, failing to provide evidence of chemical weapons that were supposedly destroyed and preventing scientists from meeting alone with inspectors. He also supported claims that Iraq is not only harboring terrorists, but teaching Al Qaeda operatives how to make biological and chemical weapons. As he did so, the U.S. stock market rallied significantly. Gold and oil prices fell.
Then Larry apparently took a nap, because this happened:
Stocks rallied in morning trading Wednesday, as investors hoped that Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nation’s Security Council on Iraq’s non-compliance with a U.N. resolution requiring it to disarm would create broad international support for the Bush Administration’s tough stance on Iraq, and in so doing settle the uncertainty hanging over financial markets,.
But investors dumped stocks in afternoon trading as skepticism from other member nations in the U.N. Security Council, such as France and China, indicated the United States may not be able to build an international coalition for its plan to disarm Iraq by force. Iraq has consistently denied it has any banned weapons.
You know, if Larry would lay off the Peruvian Party Powder for just one night, he could make it through the entire workday....
posted by tbogg at 10:13 AM
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Ari Fleischer outed
See here.
What were you expecting?
posted by tbogg at 9:59 AM
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If he had prayed during his last "testing time" he would've scored better than a 566 on his verbal SAT's
President Bush on Thursday urged Americans to pray for God's guidance as the Columbia tragedy, potential war in Iraq and the constant threat of terrorism pose "a testing time for our country."
There are many in this country who do pray, and yet, since 2000, we have seen our economy collapse, our civil rights slowly erode, rising unemployment, reports of terrorists ignored because someone needed a month-long vacation in Crawford, a continuing assault on a woman's right to choose and on the environment, and the rise on an incipient theocracy.
If there is a God, he surely doesn't like us, otherwise why would he have unleashed upon us a plague of Republicans.
posted by tbogg at 9:57 AM
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Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Not exactly GI Joe's "kung fu" grip.
If you want the world to take you seriously, it might help to hold your props in a more manly manner. The delicate "pinky-extended" grip doesn't exactly give off that whiff of testosterone that the Bush Administration so desperately covets.
Oh. This is much better.
Señor Powell es muy macho....verdad?
posted by tbogg at 1:18 PM
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The braille editions are selling like hotcakes.
Right next to the hate bumperstickers sat... Katherine Harris & Ann Coulter.
Thousands gathered at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington last week for the 30th annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) to hear such heavyweight speakers as Vice President Cheney, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and former Rep. J.C. Watts (R-Okla.).
But the hot spot on Friday was the autograph table when author Ann Coulter and Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla) showed up to sign copies of their new books. At one point extra security had to be called in to control the fan surge.
“I admire the way her mind works,” said a guy from Seattle, clutching a copy of Coulter’s book Slander. “I also think she’s pretty babe-alicious.”
Did he get his book signed..or his box of kleenex?
posted by tbogg at 11:21 AM
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Okay. Who had "impressed" in the Andy Sullivan Powell Speech pool?
Not too suprisingly, Andy was downright impressed with Colin Powell's "I'lied Moment" at the UN.
I just watched Colin Powell's address to the Security Council. More impressive than I expected, especially on the Saddam-al Qaeda linkage. How, I wonder, can anyone now doubt that Saddam is deliberately obstructing the implementation of Resolution 1441? The evidence is overwhelming.
Reading other reports, he is the first that I have read that finds the evidence "overwhelming", but then we all have our own "overwhelm" tolerance levels. Be that as it may, he makes a point that not many Americans have chosen to consider nor has the Bush Administration advertised:
If Saddam has what Powell outlines, then this war could be horrendous. It could lead to massive casualties among American troops and a possible attack on civilians in Europe and the U.S.
Of course, this taps into what the CIA has been saying: attack Saddam and he will use whatever he has. The current administration prefers to play brinkmanship with Iraq, feeling that they will back down. But if they don't, and the US starts a war, and then we start to see horrific attacks on the US "homeland" (as they like to call it), then the blood of innocent Americans will be on the hands of those who put the price of oil and the dream of an American Empire in the Middle East over the good of their countrymen.
We will reap what they have sown...
posted by tbogg at 10:49 AM
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Dropping a note to the Note
I love ABC's The Note. I love how they cut through the spin and look askance at whatever comes out of the Beltway. But they annoyed me this morning with this:
And by that, we mean that when there's a negative story like Ms. Bumiller's in the New York Times , which kicked off all of this, the White House pushes back hard, even when they don't necessarily have all the facts.
It also suggests that they are fearful of encouraging the image, a la the James Byrd incident, that Bush wasn't an activist, caring governor in Texas.
And, it shows that they don't want Bush, arguably the nation's first cowboy president, to ever appear to be un-macho, and not supporting the space program is un-macho. [my emphasis...]
Granted they used the modifier "arguably", but, come on? "Cowboy president"?
I sent them this:
Can we all just agree that maybe we shouldn't be using the term "first cowboy President" to describe George W Bush? As has been pointed out before, Bush does not ride horses, doesn't even have a horse, and shows no inclination to ride horses. Add to that the fact that the "cows" on his property in Crawford aren't even his (they belong to a neighbor) makes the appellation of "cowboy" a point somewhere between myth and big old public relations scam.
The fact is that Bush drives around his boutique "ranch" (providently built while he was running for President) in a truck. I believe this would make him the "Dude Ranch President" which doesn't have quite the Rove-ian touch now, does it?
Thanks pardner....
Tbogg
posted by tbogg at 9:27 AM
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Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Advise and consent roll over
"Liberal" newspaper, The Washington Post, asks "Can't we all just get along" and suggests that Senate Democrats should just lie on their backs and take it from the Bush White House when it comes to stealth idealogues like Miguel Estrada.
The subject is President Bush's nomination of Miguel A. Estrada to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Democratic senators may not need much encouragement. With the Estrada nomination due to come to the Senate floor today, they are contemplating a dramatic escalation of the judicial nomination wars. They should stand down. Mr. Estrada, who is well qualified for the bench, should not be a tough case for confirmation. Democrats who disagree may vote against him. They should not deny him a vote.
[snip...]
Mr. Estrada's nomination in no way justifies a filibuster. The case against him is that he is a conservative who was publicly criticized by a former supervisor in the Office of the Solicitor General, where he once worked. He was not forthcoming with the committee in its efforts to discern his personal views on controversial issues -- as many nominees are not -- and the administration has (rightly) declined to provide copies of his confidential memos from his service in government. Having failed to assemble a plausible case against him, Democrats are now arguing that this failure is itself grounds for his rejection -- because it stems from his own and the administration's discourteous refusal to arm Democrats with examples of the extremism that would justify their opposition. Such circular logic should not stall Mr. Estrada's nomination any longer. It certainly doesn't warrant further escalating a war that long ago got out of hand
Now one would think that a paper with the Post's reputation might put someone on the trail of Estrada's record, hidden or not. But those days of "Woodward and Bernstein" are a just distant memory. And, what with Bob Woodward still trapped beneath President Bush's desk, I guess they can't do much of anything except act like stenographers and copy from the RNC blast faxes. What is fascinating is their stance that less information is both acceptable and correct. Interesting philosophy for a newspaper, don't you think?
Maybe a name change is in order. I hear Washington Times Lite is still available.
posted by tbogg at 11:26 PM
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Sandblasting in Washington
Maybe it's because she wasn't invited to the pre-SOTU blowfest with Noonan and all the rest of the girls (Kelly, Thomas, Novak, etc.), but Mo Dowd comes off as pretty pissed off at the Bush White House:
When Mr. Bush wanted to sway opinion on Iraq before his State of the Union speech last week, he invited columnists to the White House. But he invited only conservative columnists, who went from gushing about the president to gushing more about the president.
The columnists did not use Mr. Bush's name, writing about him as "a senior administration official," even though the White House had announced the meeting in advance.
They quoted "the official" about the president's determination on war. That's just silly.
Calling in only like-minded journalists is like campaigning for a war only in the red states that Mr. Bush won in 2000, and not the blue states won by Al Gore.
This may be Dowd's most critical column on Bush yet. I'm sure Andy Sullivan will award her one of his inane "awards" in a fit of stunted wit, but there isn't a thing that he can refute in the piece.
...and speaking of Andy, looks like he has more in common with Orwell than he could ever dream of. Check this out:
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW WE DON'T KNOW: I'm not sure why Jeffrey Goldberg's latest superb piece in the New Yorker hasn't made more of a splash. yes, he has some mini-scoops on Saddam's links with al Qaeda. But its real merit is in helping us understand what levels of empirical evidence are required in the matter of espionage and intelligence. Or to put it another way: the question to be asked of Saddam and al Qaeda is not do we have clear evidence of their connections; but why wouldn't they be connected? You can look at intellgience entirely inferentially, looking through the myriads of signals and signs and hints and guesses to find hard evidence of, say, a link between al Qaeda and Saddam. Or you can use your common sense, assume such a link and then go back to the intelligence data to see if such an assumption is backed up or disproven.
Or you can keep pretending one is there until after you go in and kill a half million Iraqi's and then say "My bad. Sorry."
posted by tbogg at 10:58 PM
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There's more than enough space in his head to keep him occupied
What with all the blow he was doing, in between the alcoholic blackouts, President Memento can't seem to remember exactly where he has been in his "home state" of Texas.
Bush Uncertain About Space Center Visit
A day after telling reporters that Bush had visited Johnson Space Center while serving as governor of Texas in the 1990s, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer backpedaled from that assertion.
"I think right now it's somewhat murky," the press secretary said aboard Air Force One Tuesday, en route to a memorial service for the seven Columbia astronauts who died in last weekend's tragedy.
It may not be so murky after all.
Fleischer's boss, communications director Dan Bartlett, worked with Bush in Texas and said a review of governor's office records suggests he had not been to the center - at least not as governor or president.
"I have no record of him going so I'm telling you in my judgment he didn't go as governor," Bartlett said.
On Monday, Fleischer dismissed suggestions that Bush had not been interested in the NASA program before the Columbia crash and rejected a report that Bush had never been to the Space Center. He told reporters the president visited the facility near Houston in 1995 or 1996.
The spokesman did not know the exact date, and promised to do more research.
Fleischer said Tuesday that after further review, Bush's staff could find no record of the visit. "Johnson Space Center says that he did not go there, and I'm not able to find the exact date. So that's why I say it's murky," Fleischer said.
"To the president's recollection, he thinks he has been there," his spokesman said, adding that Bush's staff from Texas also thought they recalled such a visit.
Yeah. It was all of, like, seven or eight years ago.
What's worse: Ari Fleischer just pulling dates out of his ass for a gullible and compliant press, or the "MBA" President who can't even remember if he has ever been to the Johnson Space Center in the state that he was Governor for six years?
Don't answer that...
Did I mention he's the War President?
posted by tbogg at 10:09 PM
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International seal of disapproval
Just when you thought that the US Government had a lock on environmental crimes, Canada waves it's hand and says "Me too! Me too!"
Canada increased sharply the number of seals that can be culled over the next three years Monday, dismissing protests from environmentalists who say this will have a devastating effect on the seal population.
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Robert Thibault said hunters would be allowed to kill a total of 975,000 seals over the next three years, with the maximum catch in any one year set at 350,000 animals.
Here's one of the fearsome creatures.
Just when we start to forgive Canada for Celine Dion and Tom Green, they pull crap like this.
posted by tbogg at 9:51 PM
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From the John Ashcroft Academy of "You're Going to Hell for That, Buster" Art
If these don't have Jumpin' Jesus John clawing at his eyes, I don't know what will.
... and they're not what you think they are.
posted by tbogg at 9:21 PM
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Signs O' the Times
No link. I just want to report that, on my way home from work this evening I drove by UCSD in La Jolla and what to my wondering eyes did appear?
Just twenty to twenty five college students protesting by one of the main entrances to the campus with signs that read "No war for oil", "Money for education not war", "Bush out of Iraq", and "Support our troops. Keep them out of Iraq".
They were probably Communists or anti-Americans or Marxists or something.
Good for them.
posted by tbogg at 9:15 PM
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Oh! That fuzzy math....
All you need to know about where President MBA is taking the economy:
Less than two years after Bush projected $5.6 trillion in surpluses for the next decade, on Monday he estimated $1.08 trillion in cumulative deficits for the coming five years alone.
Using all the lessons he gained from running his own bidness, President Red Ink has turned the USA into the United States of Arbusto. Only this time his daddy's friends aren't going to bail the company out.
Meanwhile:
The flood of red ink for state governments just keeps rising: Expected budget deficits jumped by close to 50 percent in the past three months, and the situation is expected to worsen, the National Conference of State Legislatures said Tuesday
The deteriorating situation could prompt more cuts in a wide range of programs such as elementary schools, health care for the poor and more. Additionally, it will increase pressure on state lawmakers to raise taxes.
“It’s dismal and probably getting worse,” said Nebraska state Sen. Roger Wehrbein, who heads his state’s budget-writing Appropriations Committee. “Even if the economy turns around, we don’t go to war and oil prices don’t go up, it’ll still be two or three years before we see improvements in state revenue.”
Would someone explain to me with all the economic news above combined with the drumbeat of an unneccesary war why George Bush has approval ratings that are only slightly higher than his IQ?
Oh. That's right. He brought dignity and honor back to the White House. And red ink, rising unemployment, war, destruction of our freedoms, racism, and theocratic bigotry.
I haven't said this for a few weeks but...thanks Ralph.
You assclown.
posted by tbogg at 8:56 PM
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Surely you grand jeté?... Why, yes I do. And stop calling me Shirley.
David E points out that the New York Times gets all squicky at the thought that some men in ballet are a "little light in their loafers" if you know what I mean.
posted by tbogg at 8:38 PM
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Hair splitting
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds takes up the Lott case again only to swing and miss (as George Will might put it).
From Mr. Reynolds:
I think it's fair to say that the serious charges against Lott -- falsely claiming to have done an unpublished survey in 1997 -- are unproven, while the proven charges against Lott -- using a pseudonym on the Internet -- are embarrassing and reflect badly on him, but are not terribly serious.
But even if the serious charge were true, something that is so far a matter of conjecture rather than actual evidence, I think it would be an exaggeration to equate that to Michael Bellesiles' misconduct, though it's easy to understand why some people would like to do so.
Bellesiles, after all, was found to have fabricated research that was crucial to the thesis of a published academic work. Lott is accused of claiming to have done a study that was never published at all. If proven, that would be serious misconduct, but it's possible for misconduct to be serious and still not rise to the level of the Bellesiles affair, which is probably the most serious case of academic fraud in the past decade. And, again, I can see why some people would like to blur that distinction (as Noah does by simply posing the question), but it's a distinction nonetheless.
I want to emphasize the parts from above that I underlined:
- But even if the serious charge were true, something that is so far a matter of conjecture rather than actual evidence, I think it would be an exaggeration to equate that to Michael Bellesiles' misconduct, though it's easy to understand why some people would like to do so
and
- Bellesiles, after all, was found to have fabricated research that was crucial to the thesis of a published academic work. Lott is accused of claiming to have done a study that was never published at all. If proven, that would be serious misconduct, but it's possible for misconduct to be serious and still not rise to the level of the Bellesiles affair, which is probably the most serious case of academic fraud in the past decade
While casting some doubt on the charges against Lott, Reynolds goes on to state that "if proven" it would not rise to the level of the l'affaire Bellesiles.
For arguments sake, let's say that the charges against Bellesiles and Lott are both true. Bellesiles' thesis is that gun manufacturers have exaggerated the importance of guns in colonial times as a basis for "intent" in reference to the Second Amendment. To back up his argument he used documentation that did not exist.
Lott's thesis is that an increase in guns is actually an inhibitor of crime, hence the tile; More Guns, Less Crime. To back this up he cites a poll that indicates that specific crimes did not occur because of the brandishing of a weapon by the victim in question. The cited poll is Lott's own, yet he has no hard copy nor does he have even anecdotal evidence from participants of the poll, those polled or those who did the legwork for Lott. So we might safely say that the poll never existed.
Reynolds then introduces a strawman into the argument, Joseph Ellis.
A better analogy might be to historian Joseph Ellis, who falsely claimed to have seen combat in Vietnam -- a claim that, if true, might have lent greater force to his scholarship and public statements, but that was not in fact part of his published scholarship
What this has to do with Bellesiles and Lott who both did publish their findings, is beyond me. But then I'm not a simple country lawyer.
posted by tbogg at 1:02 PM
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Must...repress...smirk....
...or a sneeze. Meanwhile it looks like Laura's Paxil is working overtime....
posted by tbogg at 11:27 AM
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Why yes, I am a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School. Now where did I set down those leeches?
Digby points out that the theocrats are set on turning back the wheel of progress....and if your doctor learned his med'cin down Texas way, you might want to mosey on out of his his waitin' room. Pronto. Y'hear...
posted by tbogg at 10:35 AM
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I meant to post this yesterday...
Barry at Bloggy has a link to a excellent article on why the people of Europe aren't so gung-ho about starting up another war. Excerpt:
American commentators like to think that the "Jacksonian" frontier spirit equips America to dominate, reform and democratize other civilizations. They do not appreciate that America's indefatigable confidence comes largely from never having had anything very bad happen to it.
posted by tbogg at 10:15 AM
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Like Homer Simpson, but without the charm...or the smarts...or the class...or the virility
Nu-cle-ar
Homer Simpson does it, and so does Jay Leno. But these days, President Bush tops the list.
All three mispronounce the word "nuclear" as "nucular."
That's "NOO-kyoo-lur," as Homer patiently explains in one episode of "The Simpsons."
The muddled pronunciation seems to be a pet peeve of a number of Americans -- especially when it springs from Bush's lips.
"This is one of those things that gets people irritated," says linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, a Stanford University professor who received so many e-mails on the topic that he discussed it in an essay he read on National Public Radio last year.
[snip...]
So why does Bush, leader of the free world and a product of Yale and Harvard, consistently mangle this vital and often-used word?
It's possible, Guenter says, that he does it to be liked.
"There is always an appeal to a certain amount of folksiness by a president," Guenter says. "The president is supposed to be populist and of the people. I don't think [presidents] make any overt attempt to come across as learned or scholarly. This country has a big distrust of people that are considered to be too educated."
Being perceived as a regular guy seems especially important to Bush, says Mark Crispin Miller, a New York University media studies professor whose recent book, "The Bush Dyslexicon," examines the speaking style of George W.'s presidency.
"It's very important to Bush and his team that he appear to be 'just folks,' " Miller says. "That is a crucial pose for him because of his wealth and privilege, so there is a tendency on his part to flaunt some of that verbal crudeness."
While the White House did not return telephone calls on the subject, Nunberg says there isn't much chance that the president's twisted diction is an innocent mistake. After all, the linguist says, it's not as if Bush never heard "nuclear" pronounced the right way.
"His dad says it right, and at Harvard Business School he was surrounded by people who know how this word is pronounced," Nunberg says. "To assume he doesn't know any better or never had it pointed out to him, that's ridiculous. It was probably pointed out to him at the dinner table when he was 15 years old."
...or maybe it's because he doesn't care and he's has gotten a free pass his entire life so why should he make an effort to do anything correctly.
Then again, maybe he is an idiot.
posted by tbogg at 10:11 AM
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A flaming bag o'poop in my mailbox
Along with the usual bizzare emails offering me the opportunity to smuggle millions out of Africa or add inches to my penis (in the mistaken belief that I'm a Republican), I get others that absolutely tax my imagination as to why anyone would even bother responding. But today set a new standard for "wha?"
If there was even a subject line that screamed "You don't want to open this! I mean it!" it was the one I got today that said:
Eminem porn.
(Now watch all the google hits I'm going to get for posting that phrase...tbogg is about to become Freak Central)
posted by tbogg at 9:41 AM
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But is it Springsteen-free?
Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News is out today and you should really read it. You can purchase it here, through Atrio's blog. That way you can support Eric and Atrios. And while you're at Amazon, don't forget to get a copy of Ry Cooder's Mambo Sinuendo.
posted by tbogg at 9:26 AM
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Estrada the Elf
Media Whores Online has some interesting thoughts about Miguel Estrada, the poor Honduran boy who barely made it our shores on the back of a God sent dolphin...oh, wait. That was Elian. Actually Miguel was a rich kid who made it to our shores on the back of his father's checkbook.
Anyway, it looks like little Miguelito is getting the payoff for trying to overthrow the last elected President.
During the partisan drive to oust President Clinton, a group of right-wing lawyers -- dubbed by one of their number, Ann Coulter, as the "elves" -- worked day and night to bypass the law and bring down the president. Aside from Coulter, one of the chief elves was George Conway, a former associate of Estrada's at Wachtell, Lipton. Last Friday, Coulter not only acknowledged that she and Estrada were good friends: she went on to note that, in the past, they have had contacts, with Estrada giving her ideas, correcting her errors, and sending her, as she put it, "stuff."
In 1998, Estrada was no longer working for the government. He was a high-profile litigator at one of the nation's right-wing law firms of choice, headed by Ted Olson, late of the Arkansas Project. He knew at least two of the "elves," Ann Coulter and his ex-colleague George Conway.
Was Estrada involved with the "elves" as well, either directly or as a deep-background supplier of ideas and "stuff"? Ann Coulter knows the answer to that question, as does George Conway. But they have, highly suspiciously, clammed up about Estrada, Coulter most visibly on national television.
posted by tbogg at 9:01 AM
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Living and dying in 3/4 time
Fast music linked to car crashes
Speed kills. But it is not only the speed at which people drive that is the problem: the speed of the music they are listening to also has a hand in their fate. An Israeli researcher says drivers who listen to fast music in their cars may have more than twice as many accidents as those listening to slower tracks.
With the car now the place where people most often listen to music, the research is worrying. While previous studies have shown a link between loud music and dangerous driving, Warren Brodsky at Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, wondered if tempo had any effect on driver behaviour.
To find out, he put a group of 28 students through their paces on a driving simulator. Each student drove round the virtual streets of Chicago while listening to different pieces of music, or none at all. The students had an average of seven years' driving experience.
Brodsky chose music with a variety of styles, ranging from laid-back George Benson ballads to the ultra-fast numbers beloved of clubbers. The tempo ranged from a slow 60 beats per minute up to a fast and furious 120 beats per minute or more. All the music was played relatively loudly to maximise its effect
So what was Laura Bush listening to when she had her accident? The top ten songs of 1963:
Blue Velvet - Bobby Vinton
The End of the World - Skeeter Davis
Candy Girl - The 4 Seasons
Busted - Ray Charles
Judy's Turn to Cry - Lesley Gore
Drip Drop - Dion
In Dreams - Roy Orbison
Mickey's Monkey - The Miracles
On Broadway - The Drifters
Midnight Mary - Joey Powers
I'm guessing Judy's Turn To Cry, although the sentimental favorite is Mickey's Monkey, for obvious reasons.
posted by tbogg at 8:49 AM
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If a tragedy occurs and the news anchor isn't available...did the tragedy happen?
Far be it for me to defend Aaron Brown of CNN, who can be a bit obtuse when it comes to political matters, but was this really neccessary?
Aaron Brown, who has anchored much of the CNN coverage of major breaking news events for 18 months, did not appear until 10 p.m. on Sunday, more than 36 hours after the news of the shuttle catastrophe broke.
Mr. Brown, whom CNN has promoted as its leading anchor for major news, was on vacation Saturday in Palm Springs, Calif., playing in the Bob Hope Celebrity Golf Tournament.
The shuttle broke up about 6 a.m. Pacific time. Mr. Brown said he started his round of golf at 8:56 without hearing word about the incident until 10 a.m. (1 p.m. Eastern time).
For the next few hours, he continued to play golf. Mr. Brown said he made numerous cellphone calls trying to make travel arrangements "in a way that was not too disruptive" to the other golfers.
[snip...]
Some CNN staff members said they were surprised by Mr. Brown's absence, noting that anchors from all the other major news divisions took immediate steps to report the news.
Tom Brokaw of NBC News left a vacation in the Virgin Islands on hearing the news and was the anchor on Saturday for "The NBC Evening News" from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Does this mean that Brown is going to get his Kool Kids Media Studboy membership revoked? There is almost the implication that Brown was callous for playing golf after the explosion occured, something that Drudge plays up with his " CNN Anchor Played Golf While Shuttle Story Unfolded" headline. Does this mean that CNN doesn't have anyone else to deliver the news (sit down, Wolf...we're talking about journalists)? I'm all for media bashing when they have it coming, but this is just stupid.
Here's an alternate headline:
President Playing Frogger Beyond on XBox At Camp David While Astronauts Die
or
Public Going About Lives When Tragedy Occurs
At what point did it become mandatory for us all to sit glued to our TV's either waiting for something horrible to happen, or wallowing vicariously in it's aftermath?
posted by tbogg at 8:34 AM
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Monday, February 03, 2003
The delegates seem much happier with the dogs playing poker painting...it makes them smile for the cameras.
Lisa at Ruminate This points this out to us:
Guernica, which is on permanent display at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid. The piece depicts the nightmare that was Guernica on that April day; the children, their families and animals all screaming out in horror as the bombs drop upon them. A reproduction of this painting can be found at the United Nations in New York. It was installed there as a reminder. We should never forget. It is now draped and hidden from view, apparently at the request of the United States.
By the way...welcome back Lisa.
posted by tbogg at 10:58 AM
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Sometimes the answer is right in front of your face.
There is apparently something about tragedy that brings out the logorrhea in Peggy Noonan. So much so, that she has decided to two-time the Wall Streeet Journal with a column in the New York Sun today, fetching trollop that she is.
First...the WSJ. Usually we find Peg making up conversations with imaginary people, reading strangers minds on the street, or channeling dead people. Today, as a rhetorical device, she interviews herself...or one of her selves, we're not sure which one.
What did you think of President Bush's Columbia speech?
It hit the spot, did what needed to be done. The bible references were pure Bush. Only question was why it wasn't given in the Oval Office. I think I am correct in observing that modern presidents shy away from the Oval for addresses. But why? The big desk with the pictures behind is what people expect. That's where presidents talk.
Here's Peggy being coy (wink wink)
Back to the State of the Union. Wasn't it surprising that at a time like this Mr. Bush didn't limit his State of the Union address to the two great issues, Iraq and the economy?
It surprised me when I learned of it, which was the morning of the speech. I was one of the columnists invited to meet with a high government official with intimate knowledge of the president's thinking, as they say, on background. We met in his office, which has no corners. He told us he would be presenting his domestic agenda, a blueprint for the coming year, in his speech. [my emphasis...]
So we now have Michael Kelly, Bob Novak, Cal Thomas, and Peggy Noonan meeting with President Charm Offensive before the speech. That's enough alcoholism, sexual dysfunction, and twisted Catholicism in one room to keep Oprah on the air for an extra month. Then she moves on to this. See how many Bush cliches you can find:
What did you come away from your interview in the office without corners thinking about Mr. Bush, and war?
I came away with a sense that Mr. Bush has grown comfortable and confident in the presidency, in part perhaps due to a silent weighing that was going on inside him. I had the hunch that Mr. Bush, who had succeeded as a Texas governor in part by relying on his gut sense of people, events, meaning, went into the White House wondering if his gut would be up to the job. If it would give him the guidance it had given in Texas, if it was up to the demands of a presidency. Then Sept. 11 came, and he was thrown back onto his inner resources. He had to use his gut to make big quick decisions. The one time he didn't follow his gut--when he didn't return immediately to the White House after the attacks--he made a big mistake. So he went with his gut thereafter, and in the next 12 months he concluded his gut was up to the challenge. And so he is now more comfortable and commanding--because he can use as a primary tool something he really has as opposed to something he needs to develop.
As to the war, Mr. Bush is moving forward with what looks like a great sense of moral security. He is certain he is right that Iraq is a real and present danger to the world. So he doesn't mind taking the hits he takes, accepts the high stakes, feels sure that if we must go to war we will triumph, hearten the world, and win greater safety. He'd love it if Saddam would leave or be removed in a coup, but he doesn't plan on it, because you can't plan on good fortune. He'd welcome it though. He doesn't want war but the fruits of war, the defeat of a dangerous enemy.
So much for her final transference of Daddy love from Ronald Reagan to George Bush. She finally found a guy just like dear old dad. Now lets move on to the Sun column:
And yet…the old national spirit seems a little dented, doesn’t it? As if people have a spooky-wooky sense that we’re in an era of bad fortune.
The New York Times frontpaged yesterday that America has been hit with “Yet More Loss.”
Reporter Todd Purdum spoke of “unsettled feelings,” a “confluence of threatening events,” and “a nation still struggling with the aftermath” of September 11 while pondering “the abiding threat” of another.
The Wall Street Journal’s online editorial page quickly disagreed. Americans are tough as ever, they know how to handle bad moments, snap out of it.
Well, snap out of it is usually good advice. But consider the cavalcade of ill fortune that’s rolled down the national highway since the new century began. The Long Recount in the presidential election, which shook trust in the health of our national voting system and embarrassed us in front of the world. The lingering bitterness of those who supported the loser, who had more votes than the winner. Nine-eleven, the attack on America, falling towers, thousands dead, the Pentagon hit, terrorism fears, Richard Reid, box cutters, anthrax, smallpox vaccines, Saddam, the Mideast, war. Scandal on Wall Street, false profits, insider trading. An unhappy economy. Layoffs. [my emphasis...]
Columbia.
Man. Almost everyone I know is thinking … this is weird.
The "start of the century".....hmmmmmm, what changed then? Could it have anything to do with a certain individual in a room without corners? Nah. That would be too obvious. It must be:
So let’s indulge it. Let’s get spooky. Let’s ask: Is our good fortune abandoning us? Are we under some kind of cloud? Nations, like people, go through bad times — are we officially in a bad time, and how long will it last, and how low will it get? Is God telling us something? Just about half the people of this country are Bible readers, Bible lovers. They think the real news of the day is in the big black book. So do I. They believe God talks to us through that book and through events. So do I. If he’s talking to us now, what is he saying?
And what about the weird, the portentous facts of the Columbia disaster? It carries the first Israeli astronaut, who won admiration for his part in the Israeli assault, 20 years ago, on an Iraqi nuclear reactor. He is the son of Holocaust survivors. The craft he and six Americans are riding breaks up over Texas, the home of the American president who deals every day with the Middle East fallout, and who means to move on Iraq if its leader does not leave. Debris from the breakup falls at first on a little Texas town named … Palestine.
So it must be the person in whose house there are many mansions (none with rounded corners), and who works in mysterious ways. Then she finishes with this:
Things are not worse. They just continue to be bad. I really believe this. Until I consider the past three years. And I think, “Is this spooky or what?” And I wonder, what is God telling us if he is speaking to us through events? I wonder what He wants us to know.
Based on the topics of both columns we have to assume that Peggy wrote these within days of each other. So why can't she make the obvious connection between this:
I was one of the columnists invited to meet with a high government official with intimate knowledge of the president's thinking, as they say, on background. We met in his office, which has no corners. He told us he would be presenting his domestic agenda, a blueprint for the coming year, in his speech.
and this
But consider the cavalcade of ill fortune that’s rolled down the national highway since the new century began. The Long Recount in the presidential election, which shook trust in the health of our national voting system and embarrassed us in front of the world. The lingering bitterness of those who supported the loser, who had more votes than the winner. Nine-eleven, the attack on America, falling towers, thousands dead, the Pentagon hit, terrorism fears, Richard Reid, box cutters, anthrax, smallpox vaccines, Saddam, the Mideast, war. Scandal on Wall Street, false profits, insider trading. An unhappy economy. Layoffs.
Maybe it's just Noonan's Law: Never attribute to the obvious what you can lay off on a mysterious and unclear God.
posted by tbogg at 10:42 AM
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Jeanne D'Arc is brilliant
She really is. But you already knew that.
In the 1950s, a pacifist group launched a campaign to feed starving people in China. They sent bags of rice to the White House, with taglines from the Bible: "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that could change anyone's opinion. It sounds pretty silly and dreamy. But a decade later they learned that when President Eisenhower was considering the use of nuclear weapons in the conflict with China over Quemoy and Matsu, he repeatedly asked an aide how many bags of rice had come in. Tens of thousands, he was told. Eisenhower said that as long as Americans were that concerned with feeding the Chinese, he couldn't consider bombing them.
Could it work again?
My cynical side is telling me George Bush's Christianity is a sham, and this won't make a bit of difference. But I love the idea anyway. It's Sunday. Get out your Bible and set cynicism aside. Pem, at Deep Language draws attention to a grassroots movement started by the Boulder Mennonite Church to revive that nearly fifty year old campaign, and protest war with Iraq in a simple but striking way:
Put a half cup of uncooked rice in a plastic ziploc bag (with all the air squeezed out). Add a note saying,
"If your enemies are hungry, feed them. -- Romans 12:20.
Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them."
This is soooo much better than my idea to send little airline bottles of vodka to White House for Jenna & the other one's 21st birthday.
posted by tbogg at 9:53 AM
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Star power
Confronted by the left that offers Barbra Streisand, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Janeanne Garofalo, and just about everybody else in Hollywood who is still working, Conservatives have had to rely on Charlton Heston, Bo Derek and a somewhat recalcitrant Tom Selleck. But not anymore. It's time to unleash "the big gun(s)": Jane Russell.
Veteran Hollywood Actress Jane Russell declared herself a "mean-spirited, narrow-minded, right-wing Christian bigot" to a crowd of conservative activists on Saturday.
The retired actress was making the point that she is tired of Christian conservatives being labeled intolerant when they stand up for their beliefs.
Russell's comments received enthusiastic applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Arlington, Va.
The 81-year-old Russell, who spoke on a panel called "Hollywood Needs Adult Supervision," explained that her son chides her for using the term 'bigot,' but she insists on doing so.
"My son said, 'Mother you can't say the word bigot because that has to do with nationalities and things.' I said, 'No darling, it's a verb. It means I can't stand these people who are trying to take the Ten Commandments off the wall, take prayer out of school and... take prayer out of football games.' It's too ridiculous," Russell said.
"The Lord put this country together or we wouldn't be like we are," she added.
Looks like the lord put Russell together, back in the day.
posted by tbogg at 9:25 AM
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There is scraping the bottom of the barrel, and then there is under the barrel.
From Drudge.
The dearth of clear Republican frontrunners to challenge California Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) in 2004 has prompted several wild-card candidates to consider making the race, ROLL CALL is reporting.
Conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager is now pondering a bid!
MORE
His popular radio program has been a fixture on Southern California airwaves for 20 years, and has been nationally syndicated since 1999. His main focuses are Judaism and moral issues, and his official biography features a quote from Buzz magazine calling him 'one of the 10 most powerful people in Los Angeles.
But Prager is not the only talk-show host pondering a Senate run. In an unsourced item, United Press International's Capital Comment column reported last week that Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, "may be considering a bid."
posted by tbogg at 8:10 AM
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Isn't this how Colossus: The Forbin Project started?
Looks like the Bush Adminstration is reaching back into the 70's for a roadmap for high-tech fighting.
The Pentagon has launched a fast-track program to develop computers that would help decide when nuclear weapons might be used to destroy deep underground bunkers harboring weapons of mass destruction or other critical targets, documents show.
The program, described in unpublished Pentagon documents obtained by The Times, seeks to design an array of high-speed computers that could take in structural and other data on a prospective underground target, calculate the amount of force needed to destroy it, then determine whether a nuclear "bunker buster" would be required.
In addition, the system — supplemented by teams of experts — would assess the potential for killing nearby civilians and inflicting other collateral damage, including the spread of radioactive dust thrown into the air by the nuclear device and the dispersal of toxic chemicals from weapons in the bunker.
posted by tbogg at 8:03 AM
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Sunday, February 02, 2003
Straying into Michael Medved territory...make sure you wipe your feet
Debra Saunders decided to play movie reviewer this week and proved to be as dense as King of Banality himself, Michael Medved.
If M. Night Shyamalan's crop-circle hit movie had been truly depressing -- say, if it was about women who hate their lives -- it might have won a Golden Globe. "Signs," however, wasn't even nominated in the drama category.
I hope this doesn't mean "Signs" won't make the best-films list for the Academy Awards, or that Shyamalan will have to settle for recognition in a category like best musical score.
Let's face it: "Signs" is too wholesome. Hollywood prefers more violence than can be found in this movie about an alien invasion. It doesn't treat viewers to a host of human corpses and high-tech firepower. The Academy gravitates toward movies that, like "American Beauty" with its five Oscars, that portrays America the ugly. [my emphasis]
Well. Which is it? Firepower and corpses or films that "challenge Hollywood's idea of American orthodoxy"? Let's look all the way back into the nineties:
2001 A BEAUTIFUL MIND
2000 GLADIATOR
1999 AMERICAN BEAUTY
1998 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
1997 TITANIC
1996 THE ENGLISH PATIENT
1995 BRAVEHEART
1994 FORREST GUMP
1993 SCHINDLER'S LIST
1992 UNFORGIVEN
1991 THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
If you can find a thread there, email it to Saunders. But here is her point, such as it is:
"Signs" is about real American beauty, the inner souls of regular folk. There's no preaching down to middle America. Instead, there is a real preacher. His name is Graham Hess (played by Mel Gibson), a Pennsylvania corn farmer/minister who loses his faith after his wife is killed in a freak accident -- and is sunk in despair be cause God is no longer in his life.
Based on Hollywood's play book, the plot is almost a formula for how not to win an Academy Award.
If Shyamalan really wanted to win an Oscar, he should have ended the movie with Hess discovering his true sexuality -- gay, other wise, or why bother -- or selling the farm in order to dedicate him self to a fight against bio-engineered corn. ( I see we are taking a detour into Coulter hyperbole land)
But noooooooooo, Hess has to find his way back to God. Bummer.
The conceit here is that Hollywood leans toward films that break the mold. Films featuring Protestant ministers who find God again need not apply
[snip...]
Unlike "Independence Day" or other movies in the standard alien-invasion genre, "Signs" presents the moviegoer with the prospect of an alien invasion, not from the point of view of the president, or top scientists or journalists, but from that of one simple farm family, with a swing set and two dogs in the yard.
I guess Close Encounters, ET, and Star Man are too art house-obscure for Saunders.
There's a slow buildup. There's a glimpse of an alien from afar, of an extraterrestrial hand reaching under the door, of a leg disappearing into the cornstalks. What does it all mean? By the time you actually learn something, you really care.
That's why the movie drew big box office, as they say in Tinseltown. Audiences liked the suspenseful unraveling, the sweet kids who miss their mother, the corny family drama of Hess turning again toward -- dare I say? -- God.
"Signs" was the fourth-largest selling movie in 2002.(sic) Some critics praised it, others couldn't handle the faith-affirming end -- "misbegotten," "an embarrassment" and "just ridiculous" read some reviews.
Those critics reflected the true spirit of Hollywood; they simply couldn't bear that there was no Hollywood-knows-best ending that tells middle America what middle America should believe.
To summarize: audiences went for the scary sci-fi but stayed for the "God-fi". Someone should tell the guys doing the Left Behind movies. They'd have a big hit on their hands if they would just quit going straight to video....
posted by tbogg at 10:16 PM
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Another frivolous lawsuit
...and of course, this Justice Department thinks it's worth looking into.
Prompted by a complaint from the Liberty Legal Institute, a group of Christian lawyers, the department is investigating whether Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University here, discriminated against students on the basis of religion when he posted a demand on his Web site that students wanting a letter of recommendation for postgraduate studies "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question of how the human species originated.
"The central, unifying principle of biology is the theory of evolution," Dr. Dini wrote. "How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?"
That was enough for the lawyers' group, based in Plano, a Dallas suburb, to file a complaint on behalf of a 22-year-old Texas Tech student, Micah Spradling.
Dini denied him a letter of recommendation...not an education.
"The policy is not meant in any way to be discriminatory toward anyone's beliefs, but instead to ensure that people who I recommend to a medical school or a professional school or a graduate school in the biomedical sciences are scientists," he said. "I think science and religion address very different types of questions, and they shouldn't overlap."
As usual, God was unavailable for comment....
posted by tbogg at 9:09 PM
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Welcome to the Hotlinks
Hackenblog
Great stuff there.
posted by tbogg at 8:32 PM
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Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
TalkLeft has a great piece on another casualty of the drug war: a cancer victim.
Cancer patient Steve Kubby, a transplanted Calfornian and medpot practitioner is begging Canada for asylum, claiming U.S. drug warriors are out of control.
Kubby and three fellow Californian medical marijuana activists with "arrest warrants outstanding, prosecutions pending, jail terms unfulfilled" in the U.S., and threatened with deportation or extradition, have filed suit in Canada seeking asylum as political refugees. A hearing will be held in March to determine whether they can stay in Canada or must be returned to the U.S.
posted by tbogg at 12:09 AM
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Saturday, February 01, 2003
At least it was dolphin free
Leave it to Peggy Noonan to turn out a quickie column, on this tragic day, that gives new meaning to the word maudlin.
Because it seems like bad karma to quote from and criticize it on a note by note basis, I'll take a pass. But suffice to say it contains all the usual suspects: a deeply religious George Bush, more daddy worship for Ronald Reagan, an anecdote with the ending repeated just in case we didn't get it the first time, an innocent child asking a question that is supposed to move us, God, and firemen.
posted by tbogg at 11:55 PM
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Slump ? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hittin. --Yogi Berra
The old George Will (I believe that this was the pre-adultery one) was famous for using obscure historical references or bon mots to make his point. Something along the lines of: "President Nixon's speech reminds me of the great sage, Samuel Butler who, upon finding his fly open in delicate company, opined, "The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.".
Of course that was back before George found out that being a baseball fan made him more like "one of the guys" instead of a boorish, Marcus Aurelius-quoting, bowtied nancy-boy. Since then, no matter what the sports season, we are presented with his tortured baseball metaphors in sad attempts to score political points. Like today when he parenthesizes his column with two, count'em two, baseball quotes:
Regarding Iraq, the president, a baseball man, has been lucky. But as baseball's Branch Rickey said, luck is the residue of design.
[snip...]
The president probably remembers Ted Williams's rule about hitting: "Wait, wait, wait, then quick, quick, quick." Wait to see the kind and location of the pitch, then swing quickly.
I guess it would be poor form to point out to Will that, even in his best season, Ted Williams was only successful 4 out of 10 times.
You can look it up- Casey Stengel
posted by tbogg at 11:21 PM
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Anybody want to talk about privatization?
The thunderous explosion of Columbia over central Texas yesterday was presaged by a drumbeat of warnings by government auditors and experts who voiced concerns about lapses in oversight and deferred safety improvements for NASA's aging fleet of space shuttles
[snip...]
Some of the safety alarms stemmed from what experts have described as inadequate NASA oversight of those parts of the program that have been privatized. Just three days ago, for example, the General Accounting Office (GAO) described NASA's management of its major contractors as "weak" and "debilitating," and accused the space agency of placing "little emphasis on end results [or] product performance."
The GAO report was the latest in a series by the congressional auditing agency faulting NASA's management of major programs, including the shuttle. Weak contract management had been ranked as a "high-risk" problem at NASA since at least 1990, the report said.
[snip...]
In 1996, NASA turned over space shuttle flight operations to the United Space Alliance, a private firm owned by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. Under pressure from the Clinton administration and Congress to cut costs, NASA had gradually shifted many responsibilities to the private sector.
United Space is now considered the prime contractor for the space shuttle program and manages about a third of the program's budget. In addition to its role as part of United Space, Bethesda-based Lockheed also provides many crucial functions, including construction of the external tank that feeds liquid propellant to the shuttle's three main engines. It also develops the electronic systems that perform navigation, guidance and flight control for the space program and manages data collection, said spokesman Tom Jurkowsky.
While NASA managers have described their contractor oversight as adequate, NASA's Office of Inspector General disagreed. "The lack of systematic and well-documented contract surveillance is a particular area of concern," the inspector general said in a report last June.
posted by tbogg at 10:40 PM
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"I didn't get a 'harrumph' out of that guy!"--
Bob Novak, ever the class fink, points out that Dennis Kucinich and Jesse Jackson Jr. were insufficiently impressed with Dick Cheney's ventriloquist show.
Reps. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois led the way in discourteous reaction by Democrats to President Bush's State of the Union address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
Seated next to each other, Kucinich and Jackson spent much of the speech whispering and exchanging notes, hardly ever rising or applauding the president. Kucinich, who says he may run for president, rose and clapped when Bush promised health care for all and motioned to Jackson to stand up. However, the Chicago congressman stayed seated, continued to take notes and did not clap
-He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy... no, a lot of people think he's lost his... balance. But you don't have to be very smart to know what his trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man.-- Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
posted by tbogg at 10:29 PM
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Cirque du Soleil contortions
Mo Dowd
Mr. Bush shouldn't reach for strained rationales. We're going to war against Saddam because we can. (If we go after Kim Jong Il, he could destroy Seoul.) We're going to war because conservatives will be happy only when they have a John Wayne ending to Desert Storm and make U.S. foreign policy less about realpolitik and more about muscularity and morality. We're going to war because we're a nation with a short attention span; we want to strike back at some enemy, and it is too hard to find Osama. (The Brits now say they and the U.S. knew Al Qaeda was working on a dirty bomb even before 9/11.)
posted by tbogg at 10:03 PM
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Lott's of unwanted exposure
Looks like John Lott is getting a bit more attention for his "female-side" than he probably wants. And on the front page of the Washington Post Style (?) section, no less.
Mary Rosh thinks the world of John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar whose book "More Guns, Less Crime" caused such a stir a few years ago.
I n postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she's repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He's not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott's probity and academic gifts.
"I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had," Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.
Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything.
Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott -- or at least that's the pseudonym he's used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week.
Here's a picture of Lott's readers who are probably unaware that he posts "both ways"....
Don't they just look like the kinda of guys who would read his book? After seeing this picture of Lott, I would guess that this the only circumstance in which he would make any "Style" section in any paper.
(Many thanks to Maia at Failure Is Impossible for bringing this to my attention)
posted by tbogg at 4:13 PM
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More on Title IX
Anyone who has any doubts about women's sports should turn on the UConn/Duke women's game this afternoon and watch the best collegiate athlete in the country, Diana Taurasi, do her thing. The last college player I saw that could dictate a game like her was Magic Johnson.
Alana Beard is no slouch either.
posted by tbogg at 4:03 PM
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This is America’s War
Oliver Willis
There is also the question of how our President has goaded our country into war. Americans ache from a place deep inside about the events of September 11th, it changed us all for better or worse. Oklahoma City opened our eyes to the devastation terrorism can bring, 9.11 brought it home and into our living rooms and hearts. Consistently, Bush has spoken about heroism and terror and the battle we must engage in against evil. Firemen and police officers who perished in the line of duty are lionized in the name of tax cuts for corporations, increased surveillance and privacy violations, and ultimately for an expansionist American policy with some upside that could throw the entire world order into even more chaos than it is in. To be frank, the Bush administration’s misuse of the thousands of innocents killed on 9.11 – men, women, and children – for its own craven purposes will be a blight on our nation that may take generations to remove.
posted by tbogg at 3:02 PM
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It's not like many of us are going to have jobs anyway....
If it's good enough for Wal-mart, it's good for the USA...
Heeding the complaints of business, the Bush administration is revamping decades-old labor regulations in an overhaul that could force many higher-income Americans to work longer hours without overtime pay.
The Labor Department argues that the pillars of American labor law, which established the 40-hour work week, a minimum wage and overtime pay, are antiquated.
The administration says low-wage workers could see an income boost under the plan. But labor unions fear changes would severely restrict who is legally required to be paid for overtime work.
"Nothing prohibits employers from requiring as many hours as they want," said Chris Owens, public policy director for the AFL-CIO. "The overtime pay requirement is the only thing that acts as a brake on excessive work hours."
[snip...]
Under current regulations, employees are only exempted from the overtime rules if they meet several criteria, including salary, management and other administrative responsibilities and whether jobs require advanced "intellectual" skills and training.
Under the salary test, last updated in 1975, workers earning more than $8,060 a year, who also meets other criteria, may be exempt from overtime. The administration wants to raise that salary level.
Low-wage workers are being hurt under the current overtime pay regulations, said Tammy McCutchen, administrator of the Labor Department's wage and hour division. She said a minimum-wage worker logging 40 hours a week earns more than $10,700 a year.
"If this minimum level is raised, more employees automatically will be entitled to overtime, thus providing additional protections to low-wage workers," she said.
At the same time, however, the department is clarifying and simplifying job descriptions and duties tests. That could move many higher paid workers into the exempt category, though McCutchen said she could not quantify the impact.
"If the changes result in moving an employee who previously received overtime into exempt status not entitled to overtime, the law would no longer require the employer to pay overtime," she said
[snip...]
Also on the Bush administration's labor agenda this year is an overhaul of the department's job training programs, established under the Workforce Investment Act that Congress must renew this year.
President Bush is proposing to eliminate most employment and training programs in his 2004 budget being released Monday. That funding would be consolidated into two programs – for youth and adults. The administration wants to eliminate overlap of services and provide more flexibility. He has proposed $2 billion to fund new re-employment accounts to help workers pay for job search expenses.
[snip...]
A review of the Family Medical Leave Act, which marks its 10-year anniversary on Wednesday, also is under way. The law gives most workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of child, or a serious health condition of the employee, parent, child or spouse.
Employer groups want leave restricted only to serious health conditions, and they object to the inclusion of what they consider to be minor ailments that they say allow some workers to abuse the law.
It's just not a Friday unless the Bushies try and slip one or two or three atrocities through.
Evil never sleeps...
posted by tbogg at 12:18 AM
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Friday, January 31, 2003
Like the thought of Marta mounting Rush....
I was going to write something about Title IX in reference to this article in the National Review.
Girl Power
Will feminist mau-mauing kill Title IX reform?
I was mainly attracted by author Jessica Gavora's use of the term "mau-mauing", used recently by conserva-bimbos Ann Coulter, Michele Malkin as well as post-menopausal bimbo, Mona Charen. ("mau-mauing being a term made popular in Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers written back when Wolfe was still vaguely relevant. To "mau-mau" is to angrily send a message that implies a threat. The NRA is good at it, but then they have all the guns and they're pretty much lily-white, so they call it: "lobbying") Anyway...I was looking to see who Gavora was when I discovered that she is Policy Advisor and speech writer to Attorney General and Boob-aphobe John Ashcroft. That explained a lot. But what I discovered next really shook me to my core.
Gavora is the wife (meaning that she presumably has sex with him...with Republicans, you never can tell) of famed, pudgy, neo-con court jester and momma's boy Jonah Goldberg.
Ew.
Just...ew.
posted by tbogg at 11:26 PM
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I hope the leatherette wimple from Amazon makes it there in time.
Amy at Rubber Nun is having a birthday on Monday...let's all meet at her place about 7:30ish....
posted by tbogg at 9:43 PM
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The Blair Bush's-Bitch Project
Looks like the Saddam regime isn't the only one President Cartman is going to overthrow. Tony Blair has plenty of trouble at home:
Iraq could be a catalyst for a new, and much tougher, phase in Labour's hitherto largely unchallenged political ascendancy. It could be a lightning rod for pent-up and far less generous judgments about many aspects of the Blair project. It is one of those moments in politics that simply makes everything else look different.
This is bad news for Mr Blair, as some recent random events show. In the last couple of weeks, the government has abandoned its commitment to a more democratic House of Lords, has threatened the firefighters with the scrapping of the right to strike, has committed itself to a system of student finance that threatens future generations with heavy debts, has threatened to pull out of international treaties protecting the rights of refugees, and has announced that it is minded to allow Fylingdales to become a central pillar of America's missile defence system.
Sounds like a Baby Bush to me. But wait...there's more:
In the past, Mr Blair might have been able to persuade the public of the merits of one or even all of these controversial, even scandalous, stances. At worst, he would have persuaded most voters to allow their general confidence to overcome their scruples. But not today. Today it is all much harder pounding for him. Today everything feeds into everything else. Not all of that is fair, but then it was not fair either that Mr Blair had such an easy ride in the early years. What is clear is that he now has an immense task to capture the trust that used to fall effortlessly into his lap. If nothing else, the consequences for Mr Blair's continued wish to take Britain into the eurozone have been put at real hazard.
There have been controversial policies before and they did not do this sort of damage to Labour. What has changed? The answer, above all, seems to be Iraq - or more bluntly George Bush. The Bush administration is doing terrible damage to Mr Blair. Washington's aggressive world view, and Mr Blair's seemingly unshakeable desire to be its fellow traveller, have drained Mr Blair's political capital at an alarming rate. The polls, whether they are taken on the telephone or the internet, show clear, consistent and continuing patterns of damage. Mr Blair's personal ratings have slumped. The government's record is far less highly regarded than it was. The erosion of confidence in its economic competence, revealed in a YouGov internet poll yesterday, is particularly striking - nearly halved since the general election a mere 20 months ago
Tony Blair thought he was hitching his wagon to a star...turns out it's a block of cement.
posted by tbogg at 9:34 PM
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Who cares what they think
If there is one consistent theme running through your average warblog (outside of the fact that none of them are scheduled to do any actual fighting themselves short of, maybe a few hours playing Splinter Cell), it is the constant harping on Germany and France, whose people also did not elect President XBox. Vodka Pundit, for example, says:
Now comes word that 21 nations will allow US forces access for next month’s Iraq war. A further 20 will allow overflights by US warplanes. We’re talking almost a quarter of the world’s governments. Now we’re getting into some serious numbers here. And that doesn’t even include places like Lithuania, who don’t have anything useful to offer us, but will at least wish us well in our endeavor.
And who is on board? Maybe not all the biggest countries, but certainly some of the finest – and most of the ones who matter. The United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Spain, Poland, Canada, Turkey, Kuwait, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel and more. Maybe you don’t like all of them. I know I don’t. But if, like us, none of them is perfect, at least, like us, they’re mostly trying to do better.
Yet two countries that used to be in the Top Ten, Germany and France, are not only doing everything in their meager powers to stop us, they’re accusing us of acting unilaterally. I’m starting to suspect that in parts of western Europe, “unilateral” means “without the express, detailed, written-in-triplicate consent, and under the overly scrutinizing overview of Paris and Berlin.”
The sad part is, many Americans agree.
Look, whether you’re for or against this new phase of the Terror War, by what principle does Franco-German meddling in the goal of a 42 nations carry more weight and is deemed more “multilateral” than the 42-nation coalition?
Shouldn’t Paris stop its cowboy ways and rejoin the Mostly Decent nations of the world? Isn’t it high time Germany stopped goose-stepping on the dreams of 22 million oppressed Iraqis?
While it true that most countries appear to be supporting Operation Inigo Montoya, well, the citizens beg to differ:
A 39-nation public opinion survey published Friday found sentiment in favor of military action against Iraq strongest in the United States and Australia, while six in 10 in France and Russia and half in Germany opposed it under any circumstances.
[snip...]
Poll results also can be affected by question wording. The Gallup International survey asked, in native languages: "Are you in favor of military action against Iraq?" with response alternatives "Under no circumstances," "Only if sanctioned by the United Nations," "Unilaterally by America and its allies," or don't know/no opinion.
In the United States, 33 percent favored "unilateral" action by America and allies - by far the highest percentage of any country surveyed (Uganda was next with 20 percent) - while 34 percent favored military action if U.N.-sanctioned.
In Australia, 56 percent favored U.N.-sanctioned action and 12 percent favored "unilateral" action. Other countries with majorities favoring one or the other of the pro-war responses were New Zealand (60 percent), Ireland and Holland (58 percent each) and Canada (56 percent). Those responses combined got 50 percent in Switzerland and other countries within sampling error of that mark were Britain, Hong Kong, Romania, Germany, Denmark, Uganda and Cameroon.
I n Britain, Bush's strongest ally in the campaign against Iraq, 41 percent said no under any circumstances, 39 percent would support U.N.-sanctioned action and 10 percent agreed with unilateral action.
In France and Russia, whose leaders have opposed unilateral action by the United States and Britain, a majority of respondents said no under any circumstances - 59 percent in Russia and 60 percent in France. In Germany, whose government also opposes a unilateral war, 50 percent said no under any circumstances.
Twenty-one percent of Americans said no to war against Iraq under any circumstances. At the other end of the sentiment scale, about 80 percent in Argentina and Uruguay and roughly 75 percent in Macedonia, Bosnia and Spain opposed military action under any circumstances. Six in 10 in India and Pakistan also felt that way.
So yes it is fair to say that many countries support the Boy Emperor....but unlike us, they don't have representative governments (insert irony here) . If the war goes badly or causes terrorist attacks to start up in countries with large Muslim populations, look for some governments to change.
Apocalypse now.
posted by tbogg at 9:18 PM
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Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Ashcroft
Looks like Crisco John just can't get enough of that old time executin':
Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for a murder suspect, even though he had agreed to testify against others tied to a deadly Colombian drug ring in exchange for a life sentence
Lawyers said it appeared to be the first case nationally in which Mr. Ashcroft had insisted on seeking the execution of a defendant who had secured a promise of life in exchange for information. Some lawyers said his decision here could hamstring federal prosecutors in the toughest cases because it would shake defendants' confidence that a federal prosecutor at the local level could deliver on a proposed deal in a death penalty case.
Mr. Ashcroft has stirred a controversy in federal prosecutors' offices nationally in recent months by insisting that they seek executions in some cases in which they had recommended against it. Under Justice Department rules, local federal prosecutors can only recommend whether to seek the death penalty; the final decision is up to the attorney general.
The John Ashcroft Ten Commandments:
I - I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.
II - You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
III - Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.
IV - Honor your father and mother.
V - You shall not kill.
VI - You shall not commit adultery.
VII - You shall not steal.
VIII - You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Unless he's Ronnie White
IX - You shall not desire your neighbor’s wife.
X - You shall not desire your neighbor’s goods.
Only eight left to go...
posted by tbogg at 8:54 PM
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Yeah. I gotcher loaf of bread right here, ya bastud....
Teens use bad words.
Even in this age of raunchy rap and tasteless television, high school drama coach Ruth Ridenour warned students trying out for "Les Miserables" that it contained swear words
Three, precisely: "hell," "bitch" and "bastard."
The students were all right with that, but some parents were not.
What a bunch of dicks.
posted by tbogg at 3:59 PM
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Crime and Punishment
Feds turn up heat on Martha Stewart
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have stepped up their insider-trading investigation of Martha Stewart, reinterviewing witnesses and meeting with her lawyers in recent weeks, according to sources close to the case.
Ken Lay goes skiing.
Harken inside trader meets with English poodle.
The Secretary of the Army doesn't know anything about any phonecalls to Enron
Assorted other perjurers set American policy in the Middle East, South America, and snoop into American's lives.
posted by tbogg at 3:02 PM
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Thursday, January 30, 2003
Be the first one on your block...
Wouldn't this look lovely on the bumper of a car that already sports a Bush/Cheney 2004 bumper sticker...even if you don't know the person?
Think of it as a gift that keeps on giving....
posted by tbogg at 1:55 PM
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Loon Interrupted.
I felt at the end of the speech not roused but moved, and it took me a while to figure out why. It was gratitude.
Yes, it's our girl Peggy Noonan, who....was...oh....so...close, but George failed to bring her to Bush-gasm. A case of Loonas interruptus if there ever was one. But Bush, a man not used to regular conjugal relations, was undeterred:
His voice seemed lower and there seemed a kind of full head-heart engagement in his grave but optimistic message. For a moment I though of earnest Clark Kent moving, at the moment of maximum danger, to shed his suit, tear open his shirt and reveal the big "S" on his chest.
Omigod!...omigod!...omigod!
But it wasn't quite like that because it wasn't theatrical.
Damn!
Mr. Bush's language was interesting. It was Elevated Bushian--plain and pared of personal emotionalism. "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity." "The course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others." "If this is not evil then evil has no meaning."
yes!...yes!....yes!......yeess-
People talk about "great lines" in speeches, but this speech was distinguished in that it didn't highlight them--it didn't toot its horn.
So...close...weak with want.....panting....
Mr. Bush seems uniquely resolved to be as courageous as the times require and as helpful as they allow. There is a profound authenticity to him, and a fearlessness too.
That's it!...right there...oh yeah!...come to mama!
A steady hand on the helm in high seas,
Steady hand...mmm hmmm.
a knowledge of where we must go and why,
Right there...right there!...yes!
a resolve to achieve safe harbor.
Oh yeah...thats the spot!...Bring momma home!
More and more this presidency is feeling like a gift.
Got a cigarette, sailor?
posted by tbogg at 1:51 PM
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Typo at Drudge...
MAN OF STEEL TURNS GRAY
I believe that it is spelled: s-t-e-a-l.
Upon review of the picture, leave it to Bush to screw up a deal with the devil, so that he shows the advancing moral rot while the picture in the attic still shows the moral rot, circa 2000.
posted by tbogg at 12:56 PM
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Money for nothing and your check's in the mail
Time magazine had some space to fill this week, what with advertising revenues being down and all. So they devoted a few column inches to a couple of wacky kids out at Berkeley who started up a conservative tabloid (gasp! man bites dog) and darned if it isn't so popular that people are paying top dollar to read it.
Actually, they're not:
....the California Patriot comes as something of a surprise. On the walls of its editorial offices in a small house near the campus, campaign signs for nearly a dozen Republican candidates sit alongside a large American flag and a massive poster of George W. Bush. In its pages, articles argue against abortion and for war with Iraq. "At Berkeley's campus, you can only hear one side of any political or social debate, and it obviously tends to be the liberal side," says Tyler Monroe, 22, who started the monthly with fellow conservative Kelso Barnett, 22, three years ago when they were sophomores. "We felt that without having a loud and powerful conservative voice, we couldn't have an intellectual debate on Berkeley's campus."
snip
The magazine may represent a minority opinion on the Berkeley campus, but a recent survey showed that this generation of students is more conservative than their parents were, and the Patriot is having no trouble finding an audience. "I like reading the Patriot, but I don't agree with everything they say," notes local resident Devora Liss, 21. "They have an impact because there's a very large contingent of students they're appealing to."
snip
Because it carries barely any advertising and gives its 4,000-copy print run free to students, the Patriot has relied on donations from wealthy individuals and conservative foundations across the country.
You would think that advertisers would be falling all over themselves trying to reach these highly-educated free-marketeers, but I guess that's not the case. In this case it just a matter of the "invisible hand" of the marketplace reaching for the "invisible wallet" of the conservative foundations that can't give their philosophy away.
Next week, hilarious hijinks ensue when a couple of zany business majors open a Randian lemonade stand, Atlas Squeezed, at the University of Chicago with a grant from the Capitalism Defense Project.
posted by tbogg at 12:37 PM
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I'll have the Limbaugh "New in Town, Sailor" Bottom Feeder Fish Feast...and supersize it
Atrios points out that CBS Marketwatch points out that the King of Pilondial Cyst's advertising base is collapsing faster than his arteries.
Of particular note is the fact that loathsome corporate seafood chain, Red Lobster, is still advertising on his daily Preachin' to the Cretins fest. Why don't you drop them a letter and let them know that you won't be in tonight for Walt's Favorite Fried Shrimp.
posted by tbogg at 11:30 AM
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That wasn't frozen yogurt. It was you brother...or your sister....or both
Deploying troops have always squared away their wills and other legal and financial affairs before going into harm's way. But now, a small number of servicemen are choosing to make a stop at a sperm bank before heading out.
Troops say having their sperm frozen gives them peace of mind in case of death or infertility.
"You may never use your deposit, but it's always good to have that option there," said Sgt. Patrick Atwell.
Atwell is an Army National Guardsman who expects to deploy to the Persian Gulf. Fiancee Angela Cruz urged Atwell to preserve his sperm after a 1991 Gulf War veteran in his unit told the sergeant he came back from Desert Storm to find he was sterile.
"I feel more hopeful with our future," Cruz said. "And if God forbid, he doesn't come back, then I'll be able to have a piece of him here still. A little Patrick running around."
I'm speechless...
Actually I'm not. Many of us, born after WWII, are referred to as "baby boomers" (bet you didn't know that), leading me to wonder: what will we call this generation of "microwave before using" kids? Kid'whiches? Bon Bon Babies? I'm open to suggestions... E-Mail Me
posted by tbogg at 10:57 AM
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...looking like something hocked up by Liberace during a laudanum-infused Barbarella nightmare.
Thanks to the Mad Coyote for pointing me to this Mark Morford column that I obviously missed:
But there was something very wrong about this, something a little off, and you couldn't put your finger on it right away, because Shania's eight-minute soul-molesting medley was script perfect and Vegas tacky and she hit all her stage marks and sported that godawful glittery faux-goth trailer-park hotpants ensemble thing, looking like something hocked up by Liberace during a laudanum-infused Barbarella nightmare.
Too harsh? Nah. She lip-synched every word. She completely faked it. She was a walking mannequin, all hair and teeth and strings pulled from above. Nothing new there, though as a culture we're probably more accustomed to such simulated performance from non-singers like Britney or J.Lo, rather than someone who professes to be an actual crossover diva "artist," but still.
But then No Doubt and Sting came onstage, immediately after Shania's perfect prerecorded fist-pumping lounge act and just after she tossed around her perfectly shellacked faux sexuality like dimestore confetti, and from the first note of the other acts, you saw it. You got it. And you understood.
They actually sang. They talked to the audience. They were genuinely into the music they wrote and their movements weren't at all scripted and their voices weren't perfect and they were breathing hard into the mics because they were running around the stage, and Gwen was moving and gyrating spontaneously like a love goddess on ecstasy and therein lies the biggest difference: They may still be pop confections, but at least they genuinely taste good.
posted by tbogg at 10:42 AM
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Why he doesn't teach Political Science...
What? No reference to being a "running dog lackey" or a "quisling" or even a "com-symp"? Prof. Instapundit explains it all to us:
HESIOD DOESN'T GET IT, so I'll try to speak very slowly:
Antiwar protesters aren't Communists by definition.
But A.N.S.W.E.R. and the WWP basically are. (And of the extra-nasty Stalinist variety.)
Communists are, in my opinion, as bad as Nazis: mass murder, totalitarianism, etc. (And calling them "Marxists" instead doesn't fool anyone.)
Going to a march organized by Communists doesn't make you a Communist, any more than going to a march organized by Nazis makes you a Nazi.
But knowingly going to either one makes you icky. And calling it McCarthyism when people point that out, or point out that the Communists really are Communists, makes you either dishonest, or stupid. (my emphasis)
Then Reynolds rushed off to his next class: "Guilt by Association: Too Icky To Be Associated with Natural Law"
posted by tbogg at 10:19 AM
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Let the trials begin....
The wonderful Jeanne D'Arc writes about war criminals and the ones that will get away.
It's also a good thing that men like Pinochet and Kissinger have as much need for their lawyers as they do for their suitcases on foreign trips. I agree with Donald Johnson that we're never going to see Henry Kissinger facing a war crimes tribunal. But he's wanted for questioning in Chile, Argentina and France, and there are countries where he can't travel, because they can't guarantee his immunity from legal proceedings.
posted by tbogg at 10:03 AM
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Misty, watercolored memories of the librarian she was
Looks like the White House had to put Laura Bush's pet project down:
White House Cancels Poetry Symposium
The White House said Wednesday it postponed a poetry symposium because of concerns that the event would be politicized. Some poets had said they wanted to protest military action against Iraq.
The symposium on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman was scheduled for Feb. 12. No future date has been announced.
``While Mrs. Bush respects the right of all Americans to express their opinions, she, too, has opinions and believes it would be inappropriate to turn a literary event into a political forum.'' Noelia Rodriguez, spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush, said Wednesday.
Ms. Bush then turned back to her well-thumbed copy of Fahrenheit 451, giggling uncontrollably while sipping from a large tumbler of vodka....
posted by tbogg at 9:57 AM
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Bob Novak seems to have some doubts about the Boy King
Novak
The function of the State of the Union was to make clearer to the nation and the world the necessity for a regime change in Baghdad, though that phrase was not used. No new evidence was presented Tuesday night as Bush offered the same thin gruel offered on Capitol Hill last week in a senators-only top secret briefing by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, which was widely described as a fiasco. While the senators could ask embarrassing questions behind closed doors, the president was uninterrupted by his cheering listeners.
Thus, Bush rhetorically connected the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda without providing a smoking gun. This justification for war implied lack of confidence in the argument that Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction constitute a valid cause for war. The White House promises to bolster that claim with future declassification of secret evidence.
"This speech is the beginning of a series of speeches," said the "Senior Administration Official." While acknowledging that the State of the Union "spends a great deal of time on Iraq," he added: "One of these days, there will be an 'Iraq only' speech. And plans change. Who knows what's going to (happen)?"
On reading Novak's column, and combining it with Michael Kelly's latest, one has to wonder: is there anyone is this administration who is willing to go on the record about anything? Witness...
Novak:
On the day before the speech, a source officially described as a "Senior Administration Official" insisted that President Bush is undecided
snip
"This speech is the beginning of a series of speeches," said the "Senior Administration Official
snip
According to the White House, he was moved by his Walter Reed Hospital visit with veterans of Afghanistan
snip
"Committing troops is a difficult, tough decision for the American president," said the "Senior Administration Official
snip
People who "know a heck of a lot more about the markets" than the president "will tell you that is part of the reason why our investment is not as strong as it should be," said the "Senior Administration Official
Now Kelly:
"This is not a declaration of war," said the senior administration official, speaking on the day before the president's State of the Union address
snip
I spent half an hour or so on Monday interviewing, with some others, a "senior administration official," as the White House ground rules dictate the nomenclature.
snip
The senior administration official described a president who would accept an eleventh-hour peace,
snip
There won't be much more of this, the official said
snip
"Look, Saddam is a creature of habit," the senior administration official said
snip
"We cannot allow Iraq to get to the same position where North Korea is," the official said
snip
The official described both Hussein and al Qaeda as "a great danger to America" in their very "nature"
snip
The official talked of the conflict, now and coming, in historical and frankly moral terms.
...and on and on.
I thought it was only Steno Sue Schmidt that used to uncritically just take down notes and quote them verbatim in her articles, but now it looks as if the likes of Novak & Kelly just turn on a tape recorder, then go outside for a smoke.
It's good work if you can get it....
posted by tbogg at 9:21 AM
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"Invite a bunch of journalists...oh yeah, and invite Cal Thomas, too."
Well now we know one of the "journalists" that got a preview of the SOTU from President Cartman: Cal Thomas
President Bush called some journalists into the Oval Office last Monday (Jan. 27) for a "background " briefing on his State of the Union address. As one of the favored few, I was impressed by how comfortable he is with being in charge. George W. Bush has a hide stronger than an armadillo and a vision that what he is doing and wants to do is completely and undeniably right. And yet he has a soft heart, tearing up when he talks about what his "faith-based initiative " can do to help the hopeless and the helpless.
Yeah. It's the usual "comfortable in his skin", "focused", "compassionate" crapola, that is more about Bush's performance ("look! He didn't set himself on fire, knock over the podium and poop himself again!") than on substance. And, jeepers, he even teared up for the assembled "favored few".
The performance never ends....
posted by tbogg at 9:02 AM
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Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Shania only fakes it with her husband.
Moving on to important subjects, Slate informs us that Shania Twain wasn't lip synching at the Super Bowl despite all evidence to the contrary.
Paul Liszewski, who produced the sound for the show, says Shania's mic was hot and her vocals were live. (Other audio engineers who watched the broadcast agreed.)
Yeah.
It's not like Liszewski is looking to lose a gig doing sound for Trailer Park Cher.
posted by tbogg at 1:35 PM
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The Barefoot and Pregnant Act of 2003
Now the Bush administration's interest in Title IX makes sense:
A federal commission considering changes to Title IX is focusing on sports, but that's just one part of the sweeping changes the 1972 law brought to education.
Title IX prohibits gender discrimination in public and private schools that receive federal funding, which almost all do - through student loans, for example. It's enforced by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.
snip
Title IX is credited with creating a boom in women's sports and also increasing the number of women graduating from college, earning graduate degrees, becoming doctors and lawyers, and entering other fields traditionally reserved for men.
Know what you call a college that doesn't encourage women to get degrees, but to instead find a husband?
BYU.
posted by tbogg at 8:59 AM
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The reviews are in...and it looks like the show may close in 2004
Well, they weren't impressed in Florida.
Tuesday afternoon President Bush held one of several key engagements in his run-up to the State of the Union speech. He had lunch with television's big-name anchors and Sunday chat show hosts. The day before he met with big-name columnists. He was doing what he could to influence his address' instant reviewers, who themselves would shape this morning's water-cooler caucuses. But the schmoozer-in-chief won't spin his way out a crisis of his own making.
The state of the Union is insecure and uncertain -- not because of terrorism, which was last year's fear, and not because of any new threat to the nation's security. But because of economic policies at home and military adventures abroad that are bankrupting the nation's treasury and moral standing in a twin plunder of unparalleled recklessness. The country is looking down the gutter of another recession and down the barrel of another war. For what?
Bush had no convincing answer Tuesday night.
But isn't it helpful to know that George had snacks and beverages, prior to the speech, with the people who would be reviewing it afterward? This explains so much. To us it's our future. To them it's just a game to play and watch.
posted by tbogg at 8:24 AM
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Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Live! From the Shapiro space/time continuum
Ah youth...
An interview I did with Speak Out Live, a wonderful radio show based in Washington D.C., will be aired on Saturday, February 1. Even though the piece will be aired live, I recorded it earlier (not on Shabbat). I think it's great stuff. Go to the website and listen!
Okay Ben! I'll listen to it yesterday, tomorrow.
posted by tbogg at 11:49 PM
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Sorry Miguel..you've got no papers.
The New York Times comes out against Miguel Estrada.
Mr. Estrada, a native of Honduras and graduate of Harvard Law School, has a strong legal résumé. But people who have worked with him over the years, at the solicitor general's office and elsewhere, report that his interpretation of the law is driven by an unusually conservative agenda. Paul Bender, a law professor and former deputy solicitor general, has called Mr. Estrada an ideologue, and said he "could not rely on his written work as a neutral statement of the law." In private practice, Mr. Estrada defended anti-loitering laws that civil rights and groups have attacked as racist.
snip
Senators have a constitutional duty to weigh the qualifications of nominees for the federal judiciary. But they cannot perform this duty when the White House sends them candidates whose record is a black hole. Mr. Estrada's case is particularly troubling because the administration has more information about his views, in the form of his solicitor general memos, but is refusing to share it with the Senate
Estrada is a stealth candidate and should be shot down on the Senate floor. Maybe this is a chance for Russ Feingold to make up for Ashcroft...but I kind of doubt he'll do it.
posted by tbogg at 11:21 PM
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Let David E. explain it all to you
David Ehrenstein shows why he is one of my favorite writers...and fast too. The whole Bush speech with between the lines interpretation.
...and if you want a view from the emotionally stunted side there is always Andy Sullivan who is in full swoon over the speech.
But there was something else here - the glimmers of a real core of compassionate conservatism. By mentioning the lonely elderly, or the AIDS orphan, and calling on us to get involved person by person, I felt morally led by a president in ways that I cannot recall in my lifetime. I was particularly struck by the president's defense of the newly or prematurely born, and their right to be treated with dignity and compassion rather than with brutality. So sue me for being moved. I was.
Only Andy Sullivan can say that he was "morally led" by this president without grasping the irony.
Jesse (thank Jebus he's back) weighs in:
The same abortive economic policy, the same flimsy "evidence" thrown up to support the war on Iraq...Bush's policy is modeled in the Creationist vein - an explanation in search of facts rather than the other way around. I can't remember him ever having a new idea, or even a substantive idea, other than his immediate response to September 11th. The world will justify Bush's beliefs, or he will ignore and demonize what doesn't. Leadership isn't a wish list, and Bush's inability to respond beyond his programming will be his downfall.
...and the New York Times:
President Bush sought to revive a sense of national resolve last night with a State of the Union address that readied the country for a showdown with Iraq and demanded another huge tax cut for wealthier Americans. No one watching the somber Mr. Bush's delivery could doubt his determination. But the combination created far too mixed a message. It was hard to reconcile the president who vowed not to "pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents and other generations" with the one whose fiscal policies have helped create gigantic deficits for taxpayers of the future
Maybe Howell Raines will loan Andy a cup of irony....
Finally, William Saletan at Slate:
If you went to the refrigerator during the first three minutes of President Bush's State of the Union address, you missed the part where he discussed the state of the union. After a few words about his record on the economy, education, corporate responsibility, and homeland security, Bush spent the rest of the hour outlining plans and promises. It was the kind of speech a president gives when he's been in office two weeks, not two years.
Why didn't Bush talk about the state of the union? Because the state of the union is nothing to talk about. The stock market is in the toilet. The economy is going nowhere. Unemployment is up. The deficit is out of control. Remember those State of the Union speeches Bill Clinton gave? The guy couldn't stop quoting happy numbers. That's one problem Bush doesn't have
posted by tbogg at 11:16 PM
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I was neither disarmed nor deceived...
Not having had time to re-read President Nu-Cu-Ler's State of My Re-Election Speech, but having watched it and assorted punditry afterwards, here are some quick thoughts.
~ Too close to Jesus and the Button:It is tradtion at the SOTU to have one member of the Cabinet not attend in case something awful happens like Spencer Abraham having cabbage and chili for lunch resulting in massive destruction, death, and misery much like Nagasaki, but with lots more lingering fallout. Anyway, the idea is the continuity of the current government in case a pack of howler monkeys can't be rounded up within a week or so. This years "designated Despot" was....John Ashcroft. If, prior to the SOTU, industrial engineers had placed small lumps of coal in the sphincters of half of America, we would currently be awash in diamonds at the idea of "I Can't Dance. Don't Ask Me" John sitting on the Boy Emperor's throne.
~ Jenna Bush Two Whiskeys Two Bourbons, Not Just For Breakfast Anymore Award: If you and your roomates were doing shots whenever Verbal 566 said "Nook-yalur"...welcome back. It's Thursday.
~ Smirk of the Night: Big suprise. It was Nancy Pelosi when Tax Cut for The Rich Boy mentioned the average amount that a taxpayer would save. Nice try. Now tell us how much we would save, not counting the top 1%.
~ Monty Burn's "Exxxxxcelllennt" Award": Dick Cheney did an admirable job of not drooling oil into his neck folds while on camera. Also the Cheneymaster 3000™ Defibrillator and Bacon Fryer was kept out of camera range.
~ No Gloves and No Love: The Democrats should have very warm hands tonight since they sat on them most of the night in obvious disagreement with a very partisan speech. Good for them. Meanwhile the Republicans were jumping up and down in their seats like pre-teens at a Shakira concert. Apparently they're crazy about the boy having not been confronted with so much testosterone since Ann Coulter mudwrestled Lynne Cheney at the last Heritage Foundation Husband and Trophy Wife Key Swap.
~ Bess You is My Woman Now: Nice pander to African-Americans with the Africa AIDS proposal. I'm sure a little Federal money thrown at the right regimes should grease the skids for a few US corporations to start pillaging their natural resources in earnest. As for Affirmative Action...look we're giving money to Africa! High black unemployment...money for Africa! Racism...let's save the African AIDS victims. Civil War revisionists running the government.....why don't you all just go back to Africa?
~ I Fought the Law and the Law Said They Would Look Into It with Indictments Just Around The Corner: "To insist on integrity in American business, we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account" (insert laugh track here)
~ Throw Momma from the Medicare: " Instead of bureaucrats and trial lawyers and HMOs, we must put doctors and nurses and patients back in charge of American medicine." .............(babble babble homily homily)......... " And just like you, the members of Congress, and your staffs and other federal employees, all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs." And that health care plan will be administered by...an HMO. Has Bush even seen Memento?
~ Liar, Liar. Forest on Fire:Clear Skies legislation and Healthy Forest initiative. Christy Whitman in a rare cameo appearance as "The Beard". Nobody bought it with Nicole Kidman why should we buy it with Friskin' Christy?
~ Dude. Where's My OxyContin?: " Too many Americans in search of treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new $600 million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years." Unless Noelle Bush has a relapse, in which case we'll have enough money left over to buy those other 299,999 tweakers a tube of Pringles and a ticket to Matrix: Reloaded. Whoa......
Finally..
~ War. What Is It Good For? Absolute Manhood for Chickenhawks: We're going. Americans will die in Iraq and possibly at home in retaliation. The oil companies will get their oil after the US government (us) pays to restore the fields to workability. Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle will share a deep wet kiss...with lots of tongue. Michael Kelly will finally have an erection...his wife won't notice or care. Poppy Bush will finally be avenged, but not in time to stop his moral rot. And little George Walker Bush will get his first pubic hair.
Quick get a camera.....
posted by tbogg at 10:25 PM
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Just a quick recommendation...
Get thee to thy local independent CD emporium and purchase Ry Cooder's Mambo Sinuendo and all your cares will melt away (except for the ones about the coming war and depression and shit like that).
And if you don't have a copy of Traveling Miles by Cassandra Wilson...well, what the hell is wrong with you? It's only been out for, like, 3 years.
Okay. Back to our daily snark.
posted by tbogg at 9:06 PM
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Just like the first one...but a lot worse.
Gulf War 2 game (caution...some sound)
Thanks to Chris for passing this along.
posted by tbogg at 1:55 PM
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This I have got to see.
Bush Says Address 'Will Rally' Americans
President Bush, confronting an ailing economy and the prospect of war in Iraq, declared he will ``rally the American people to some great causes'' in Tuesday night's State of the Union address.
Hours before the speech to Congress and a global television audience, Bush said, ``Tonight I will talk about the great challenges that face our country. I have no doubt we will be able to handle those challenges because we are a great country.''
Bush did not mention Iraq - only his ``deep desire for peace'' at home and in the world's trouble spots. He said his address will also lay out a vision for improving health care, improving the economy and helping Americans help each other.
``It is a moment where I will rally the American people to some great causes and remind them that we will accomplish those causes together,'' he said after meeting with his Cabinet.
You know. I can't remember when was the last time I heard a President (elected or unelected) tell the American people about the "great challenges" they face only to follow up by pointing out that they will be able to surmount those problems because "we're a great country".
Oh yeah. Now I remember. It was last year.
Well, that didn't turn out very good....
posted by tbogg at 1:43 PM
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Ouch
My favorite line of the day, courtesy of the Rittenhouse Review:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-Tina Brown is special. Very special. God or the media has granted Brown nine lives or something, each seemingly destined to be less interesting -- and less successful -- than the last.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I bow in the general direction of Philadelphia....
posted by tbogg at 1:28 PM
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My ever diminishing respect.
I would truly like to think that Glenn Reynolds ( Instapundit) is basically a straight shooter. That he doesn't just post comments in his blog to fill time between classes or producing CD's by bands you will never ever hear of. But then he puts something like this up:
DOES SADDAM HAVE NUKES? ARE THE FRENCH SPYING FOR SADDAM? Trent Telenko has info on both. I've gotten some email from military folks suggesting the latter based on the behavior of French ships and aircraft in the Persial(sic) Gulf region.
If it's true, paybacks should be severe.
The link takes you to this:
A friend of mine called me up and directed me to a thread over on the FreeRepublic.com on a Fox News Channel interview with a former U.N. weapons inspector named Bill Tierney. Tierney was a former US Army Military Intelligence Chief Warrent(sic) Officer who was recruited in 1996 as a weapons inspector. He made two highly charged accusation(sic). First, the French were spying on the U.N. weapons inspection teams by providing the Iraqis lists of sites to be inspected. Second, he is convinced the Iraqis have operational nuclear weapons.
In the interview, Tierney detailed how the French had a spy at UN HQ in NY who was caught rifling thru a desk that held the inspection site list and how a French inspector was caught passing info to the Iraq(sic). Tierney's inspection team went as far as feeding the French spy phony sites they planned on searching. (Now you know why the Iraqis accused Tierney of being a spy!)
This article from Newsmax (really sick) excerpts the part of the Hannety(sic) and Colmes interview relating to Tierney's nuclear accusation:
It then goes on with the Newsmax article (smirk) soon to be followed by this:
While, as mentioned previously, Bill Tierney was accused by the Iraqis of being a spy. That wasn't what got him in trouble with the Clinton Administration. No, he was removed from the inspection teams for the "crime of proselytizing." The following is from the Tampa Tribune Online: (my emphasis).
"The Clinton Administration." Of course....
In my best Tennessee Law Professor voice: (ahem...cough cough...) "Indeed".
posted by tbogg at 1:16 PM
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Bomb them now.
Bomb them now. Seal their borders. Decimate the countryside. Destroy their infrastructure. Kill their leaders and convert them.
It's Texas.
Via Rubbernun, we find out that the most popular comic in the Dallas/Ft Worth area is...Family Circus.
Readers have always participated well in the nonscientific survey. The last survey, in 2000, brought 3,362 responses via mail and e-mail. In 1999, there were 1,033 responses.
This time, we employed Internet technology and gained 2,506 responses. Meanwhile, mail-in responses climbed to 4,030 -- a record response as well.
Family Circus appears to be the most-read feature (71.7 percent) followed by For Better or For Worse (65.4 percent) and Hagar the Horrible (65.3 percent).
Christ in a tube top! How does a whole state suffer blunt head trauma? Yeah, I know Dallas/Ft. Worth isn't the whole state, but, outside of Austin, do you really think it's any better in Houston or El Paso? I mean, look at what they elect for Governor...
posted by tbogg at 12:41 PM
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Reality TV
...over at Sisyphus Shrugged.
I guess I would have to say that my favorite guilty pleasure is the new series "How Weird Is That?," in which a group of bureaucrats who have never themselves fought in a war are locked in the "Decision House" and allowed to select any country in the world for America to go to war with, for reasons they must invent on the spot.
posted by tbogg at 12:26 PM
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America will not be reassured...
I don't think the Bob Dole impression is going to win the public over.
posted by tbogg at 12:01 PM
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Jesus on the mainline....
If this is part of the State of the Union, he's even stupider than I ever suspected he was:
President Bush will assert in his State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein poses a "serious threat" to the United States, but will stop short of declaring or justifying war Tuesday night.
That step would come later if Bush concludes that Iraq cannot be disarmed any other way, the White House said Tuesday. Much of Bush's speech will focus on domestic concerns, officials said.
Pushing a new plank in his "faith-based initiative," Bush is asking Congress to direct drug treatment dollars to religious organizations. His plan would give addicts treatment vouchers that would allow them to seek help at any center, including those with religious approaches, two senior White House officials said.
A country that is worried about a dry drunk with his finger on the button and an economy in a death spiral is not going to go to work happy tomorrow if his main concern is sending Noelle Bush to see Father Hernando (although a faith-based hairstylist might be an option).
On the domestic front, Bush's voucher plan for drug treatment is sure to be controversial because many religious drug treatment programs do not employ medical approaches and do not use staff that have been licensed for this work. It would cost $200 million in the next fiscal year.
The officials said Bush also planned to propose a significant increase in spending on research of hydrogen fuel-cell cars, part of an expansion of a program he announced in November.
Bush's self-proclaimed "compassionate agenda" also will include money to expand mentoring programs for prisoners' children and for middle-school students from low-income families, officials said.
snip
Balancing domestic and international issues in the speech will be like forcing "10 pounds of stuff into a five-pound bag," said Ken Khachigian, who wrote speeches for presidents Nixon and Reagan
Unfortunately, we know what the "stuff" is.....
posted by tbogg at 8:27 AM
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Slanting the playing field upward.
Tapped directs us to this article on an Affirmative Action student who was given unfair advantage.
Back then, Yale's student body was disproportionately made up of white, upper-class students from the nation's most elite prep schools. But without a Yale legacy, even a student from the most select private high school needed excellent grades and SAT scores to get in. Like other Ivy League colleges, Yale at the time had its own criteria for "diversity." It looked for students with strong athletic abilities or special skills such as musical or theatrical talent, as well as students from different parts of the country. These non-legacy students had to meet Yale's basic academic standards, of course, though the college no doubt rejected plenty of one-dimensional students who may have had higher grades and SAT scores but lacked other qualities Yale was looking for. (At the time, however, Yale made little effort to recruit minorities. In the fall of 1964, there were only 28 African-American students out of 4,093 undergraduates.)
Other than being a legacy, Bush had no qualities that would have gotten him into Yale. Had he been a National Merit Scholar finalist, an outstanding athlete or actor or editor of the Andover newspaper, or had he perhaps organized his fellow students to tutor underprivileged kids, we probably would know by now. In fact, he was a mediocre student -- he never made the honor roll -- and demonstrated no particularly outstanding talents to warrant being admitted to Yale. He was head cheerleader during his senior year, organized the school's stickball league and played baseball, basketball and football. But, unlike his father, who was an outstanding baseball player, W. was not a star athlete, and certainly not good enough to be recruited by Yale's coaches. Perhaps Yale was looking for students from west Texas to add some cultural and regional diversity, but, if so, why accept a kid from Midland, Texas, who had attended prep school in Massachusetts?
posted by tbogg at 8:11 AM
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Monday, January 27, 2003
Credit where credit is due...
I have to give credit to Andrew Sullivan for posting the following email on his blog. Even though he makes a mild attempt to discredit it afterward, there aren't many rightwing bloggers who would post such a pointed attack on the Boy King:
Since breezy theories are all the rage among the punditocracy these days (your slap at the "intelligentsia" is amusing, given that almost all political and media elites throw themselves at Bush's feet) try this on for size: Those who support Bush, who cram their theories to fit a man of his stature, are simply afraid to admit to any flaw in him because it will bring the whole house of cards tumbling down. So you invent a jut-jawed man of action, determined and resolute with a clear vision of world harmony. But the whispering in your head won't stop: he's a vile and craven little momma's boy, a snooty insider trader and coward who deserted his National Guard post while the great unwashed were still dying in Vietnam, and who rushed off to save his candy ass on September 11 and invented a lie about Air Force one being a target while the great unwashed were once again dying under the rubble. But you're too damned afraid to admit it. Sick of it? Too bad.
Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.
Looks like Andy is still a bit peeved about the Thacker appointment.
posted by tbogg at 10:37 PM
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Let's see....Howard, Peggy, George, Tucker, Micky, Sean, Jonah, Brit, Fred, and Michael Kelly. Yup. They're all here.
The Warrior President had a shirt made up for his next press conference.
posted by tbogg at 10:14 PM
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Make that a double non-fat decaf Kopi Luwak with a shot of vanilla, no foam and easy on the hairballs, thank you.
Cat scratch de-caf.
Possibly one of the most expensive coffees in the world - at well over $A1,000 a kilo - is only found in the droppings of a cat-like creature in Indonesia.
The so-called Kopi Luwak is also about as rare a "delicacy" as any.
And third-generation coffee roaster Darmawan Widjaja may be just about as rare as the coffee.
As a child Mr Widjaja remembers his family selling the rare bean to rich Dutch officials in the 1930s, when Jakarta was still under the rule of the Netherlands.
About 10 kg were brought every two months to the Chinese shop-house which opened in 1878 in north Jakarta.
"It was very aromatic, incredible," Mr Widjaja recalled.
"I don't know what happened in the stomach but it came out so tasty."
The bean is named after the nocturnal Luwak, known in English as a civet.
Coffee pickers are believed to comb the civet's droppings for the berries, clean them and remove the husk.
posted by tbogg at 10:00 PM
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So much for "Hot Chick-on-Chick Days" at Mall of America
MADISON, Wis. -- Madison police arrested two women early Saturday for allegedly engaging in sexual acts for display.
Amy J. Williams, 23, of Michigan., and Meagan E. Kleinheinz, 22, of Madison, are both charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, police said.
Officers were on foot patrol in the 500 block of State Street around 2:40 a.m. when they saw a large crowd in front of a storefront window, watching two females who were directly in front of the window, with the lights on, engaging in sexual acts for display, police said.
Williams was not wearing any clothing, except for her pants, which were around her ankles, police said.
When the officers tried to stop the show, the crowd booed and the women told police they didn't do anything wrong, according to police.
posted by tbogg at 9:54 PM
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Bark, bark. Bark at the moon.....
According to Media Whores Online, former journalist Wolf Blitzer is starting to question some of his own polls...when they don't skew the way he wants them to:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wolf Blitzer featured a poll on Monday's program:
When it comes to Iraq, whom do you trust more: The Bush administration or the UN?
The result:
Bush administration: 32%
UN: 68%
After reading the results, Wolf introduced Lou Dobbs, whose program follows Wolf's. Lou made a point to ask, "Wolf, let me ask you a question...Do you trust that poll?"
Wolf responded, "no," and a good laugh was had by all.
Why did Lou Dobbs single out this poll among all others for ridicule?
Of course ALL online polls are self-selectively bogus, and no respectable news network should feature them. But this poll happened to yield results that aren't too far off from results of a scientific poll asking essentially the same question, reported by Bill Schneider on Monday's Inside Politics:
Bush Administration: 47%
UN: 47%
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Schneider failed to comment that, when you exclude African-Americans, women, poor people, actuaries, Union members, bubble boys, people who still think that REO Speedwagon "totally rocks", hookers, people who actually work for a living, Hispanics, lesbians who used to work for Coors until their dad became the Vice President, albinos, and, well basically everyone who isn't a CEO of a oil company from the poll, a whopping 99%* support President Bush and war with Iraq. The guy who didn't support Bush is like gay or a communist or something.
Ashcroft is looking into it.
(*The bolding of 99% was made possible by a grant from the Micky Kaus Foundation)
posted by tbogg at 9:49 PM
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Live! From under Bush's desk...
It's Media Whore of the Year, Bob Woodward who chosen from a select group of Bush concubines (sit down Howard...not this time, Bruno...put down your steno pad, Sue) to breathlessly inform us that Bush is going to share super-duper-for-your-eyes-only-double-Top-Secret stuff about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, including the ones that can be launched further than 12 miles.
The Bush administration has assembled what it believes to be significant intelligence showing that Iraq has been actively moving and concealing banned weapons systems and related equipment from United Nations inspectors, according to informed sources.
After a lengthy debate over what and how much of the intelligence to disclose, President Bush and his national security advisers have decided to declassify some of the information and make it public, perhaps as early as next week, in an effort to garner more domestic and international support for confronting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with military force, officials said
Seeing as how his national security advisers did such a bang up job with intelligence information prior to 9/11, this should be good. Hey, maybe this time they'll get it right.
posted by tbogg at 9:32 PM
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The Dreaded Kaus Syndrome: stop me before I bold again.
Micky Kaus, the pre-menopausal automotive writer for Slate finds delicious irony in the fact that Nancy Pelosi appointed Rep. Robert Matsui to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Why? Because, according to the Mickster, Matsui cost the Democrats control of Congress in 1994. At least that's what Mick advertises in his annoying usage of bold letters in the middle of his sentences to let you know he is saying something that is very important. At least to him. Anyway, it seems Matsui lost Congress because he bottled up welfare reform, a cause that is near and dear to Micky's heart since it kept him from hiring a maid cheap to keep his head polished. Not to mention rotating the tires on his '97 Dodge Neon that he calls the Kaus Kruiser.
Anyway, Micky seems pretty sure about Matsui hurting the Democrats, and when a guy just yells it out like that, hey, who can dispute it?
Not me.
posted by tbogg at 9:12 PM
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In the grand scheme of things...
Where do you fit in. Just type in your birthdate.
I was 8 years old at the time President Kennedy was assassinated...and I have an alibi.
More Monday mindless fun...
posted by tbogg at 3:52 PM
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Today in home school Life Science we will study the beaver, with guest lecturer, Dr. Laura.
Internet Porn Princess Dr. Laura thinks we should shut down the public schools:
That absurd state of affairs has come about because this generation of teachers, and probably a few generations before, have themselves been raised to believe there are no right answers, anyway. So what difference does it make?
For example, our public-school children hear that the Founding Fathers are not to be revered. They were greedy, patriarchal oppressors who were in it for the money and the power. America is not a noble experiment in freedom and equality. That was the cover story, as we stole the land from the indigenous people. America wasn't recently attacked by terrorists. America is the terrorist!
Furthermore, there are no such things as great books, since all the books we were misguided enough to think of as great, were written by those same old white male misogynists from the evil empire of Western culture. What's just as great is any diary written by any woman, slave or Native American and recently discovered in someone's trunk. And woe to anyone who disagrees.
Whoa! Sorry to stop your rant there, "Doc." but are you done?
Apparently not:
Of course, none of it matters anyway, because language itself is fatally tainted, and words don't mean anything. They only mean what my idiosyncratic point of view believes they mean. Just ask the deconstructionists.
Those deconstructionists have been very busy, because they didn't stop with the English language. They have also pretty successfully deconstructed family, religion, values, ethics and morality as well. We all know that, if there can be no right answers, there obviously is no right and wrong. No one's behavior can be judged because the most heinous acts can be excused on the basis of what the perpetrator may have suffered at the hands of his parents, the police, the inequitable society. Yada, yada, yada.
Dammit! If there is one think I can't stand in a kid, its a little smart-ass 8 year-old Foucaultian. And don't even get me started on those Semiotics classes right after drawing time and before song time. Next thing you know, they'll start deconstructing the essence of Self as well arriving at an understanding that calling oneself "Doctor" doesn't necessarily make one a "Doctor" in the "Medical" sense. Meanwhile, Laura rants on:
God is dead (although the Wiccan goddess still has a fighting chance, I guess) – traditional morality is destructive; excellence is discredited and devalued; grades are antiquated. Discipline is discriminatory because there's no such thing as bad behavior, just children with "special needs."
snip
For a few years now, I've been urging parents to send their kids to private religious schools and/or homeschool them. I truly see no other options for raising and educating children to be morally fit, well informed, appreciative Americans and contributing members of society.
A shortage of teachers, a kaleidoscope of standards, endemic failure, annual budget shortfalls, states taking over local school districts and guns in the classroom are unavoidable signs of public-school collapse. I think Oregon may have the right idea. They are looking to shorten the school year by 15 days. How long before it's clear to them and to us, that we should simply close them altogether?
The unspoken advantage of homeschooling is that if the teacher dies during the class day, her students will usually find her body in less than four months.
Class. Dismissed.
posted by tbogg at 1:26 PM
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Welcome to the Hot Links
Courting Disaster. Not only a great blog, but an important resource for Bush information and criticism.
Check it out.
posted by tbogg at 11:48 AM
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"Try tossing your hair when you speak. It lets people know you're smart and coquettish..."
Noonan wants to give President Noun Mangler some speaking tips for his SOTU:
Nothing is more beautiful, more elevating, more important in a speech than fact and logic. People think passionate and moving oratory is the big thing, but it isn't. The hard true presentation of facts followed by a declaration of how we must deal with those facts is the key. Without a recitation of hard data, high rhetoric seems insubstantial, vaguely disingenuous, merely dramatic. Without a logical case to support rhetoric has nothing to do. It's like icing without cake.
Once the facts and the declaration are put forward it's fine to use eloquence if you can muster it, and ringing oratory too if it will help people to see things as you do, and help them lean toward taking the course of action you recommend.
So to sum up: Moving oratory is what you use to underscore a point. It is not in itself the point.
It's obvious that Noonan has forgotten the rule that insists that you "know your audience" (her audience, presumably being President SAT Verbal 566). Keeping that in mind, why mention "lofty oratory" and "facts" to the man who would "persecute" evildoers who use "new-cu-lar" weapons? Better advice is: keep it simple, stupid.
But then we are dealing with a irrational man who wants to start a war based on an irrational hair up his butt. Witness:
An example. I'm going to refer to a private conversation about another conversation, I hope in a good cause. Four months ago a friend who had recently met with the president on other business reported to me that in conversation the president had said that he has been having some trouble sleeping, and that when he awakes in the morning the first thing he often thinks is: I wonder if this is the day Saddam will do it.
"Do what exactly?" I asked my friend. He told me he understood the president to be saying that he wonders if this will be the day Saddam launches a terror attack here, on American soil.
Yeah. Saddam is suicidal.
You know, there is only one moron in the upcoming "war", and its the one threatening to use nuclear devices.
Meanwhile Bush continues his terrorist attack on the US economy.
posted by tbogg at 11:30 AM
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"I find the 320 thread count sheets make a much more comfortable hood on those hot Mississippi nights..."
According to Drudge, Dr. Cat Killer is turning to Trent Lott (R-Klan) for advice.
For some reason this makes me happy....
In the accompanying picture, Frist appears to demonstrating how Tom DeLay (R-Sociopath) keeps Denny Hastert (R-Sock Puppet) in line. That's got to hurt....
posted by tbogg at 11:06 AM
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Boy is this going to piss Chuck Colson off...
See what happens when you get the Mooks all riled up...
4.5 million ''Girls Gone Wild'' videos sold in just the last year.
posted by tbogg at 10:58 AM
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Remember when we thought "neo-con" meant neo-conservatives?
Paul Robeson, Jr., son of civil rights renaissance man Paul Robeson, delivered a deliberate but passionate speech condemning the Bush administration and American apathy toward human rights to a crowd of around 60 Dartmouth students and local residents Thursday afternoon in Dartmouth Hall.
Robeson spoke in a calm, measured fashion for over an hour and delivered a polemic message against President Bush, his administration and particularly the potential American invasion of Iraq.
Robeson also outlined his theory that America is developing into two separate and distinct countries, one dominated by African-Americans and one controlled by the ideals of white Southern Protestants.
I always thought that the Republicans wanted to take us back to the 50's. I just didn't know they meant the 1850's.
posted by tbogg at 10:47 AM
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Well, Chimp-Americans were underrepresented at Yale...
I know that everyone has probably already read Michael Kinsley's article on how Affirmative Action helped President Prehensile Tail get into Yale, but I just had to link it because I liked the illustration so much.
If our President had the slightest sense of irony, he might have paused to ask himself, "Wait a minute. How did I get into Yale?" It wasn't because of any academic achievement: his high school record was ordinary. It wasn't because of his life experience — prosperous family, fancy prep school — which was all too familiar at Yale. It wasn't his SAT scores: 566 verbal and 640 math.
posted by tbogg at 10:31 AM
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Looks like Supreme Court Barbie just got put on the backburner.
Tort Reform. The current administration wants to crack down on "frivolous" lawsuits when it comes to product liability or medical malpractice. But what about frivolous lawsuits by corporations? For example:
Toymaker Mattel lost a Supreme Court appeal Monday over a mocking pop song that called the iconic fashion doll Barbie a "blonde bimbo."
The high court did not comment in turning down Mattel's request to reopen a trademark fight over the 1997 dance hit "Barbie Girl." Mattel claims the preteen girls who buy Barbie dolls were duped into thinking the song was an advertisement for the doll or part of Mattel's official line of Barbie products.
A five year old trademark fight over a doll and a pop song. That must be more important than a mistaken mastectomy, don't you think?
posted by tbogg at 10:23 AM
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Sunday, January 26, 2003
Garofalo speaks:
Thanks to Atrios for linking us to the transcript of Janeane Garofalo on Reliable Sources. It's funny who you have to turn to for the truth these days...
KURTZ: Now, obviously, you open yourself up to a little bit of criticism of being a cause celeb, since you're not famous as a Middle East policy expert...
GAROFALO: Right.
KURTZ: But that has not deterred you.
GAROFALO: No. You know, I don't know that I would need to be famous as a Middle East policy expert to see that unilateral imperialism is bad policy.
But I also -- if I am uninformed, like a lot of citizens in this country are, that is the fault of the White House and the mainstream media. We don't get enough information. We don't get enough news with our news. And how can we function as a democracy without information?
We are given disinformation and White House propaganda all the time. We have no history to our news, no context to our news, no global perspective. We don't see people outside our borders as humans. And if I am uninformed, which I'd like to think I work very hard not to be, uninformed, it is the fault of the White House and the mainstream media.
posted by tbogg at 9:36 PM
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Wow. What an ass-kicking...
Raider defl Nation.
Speaking on behalf of all of San Diego, thank you for visiting.
Now leave....
posted by tbogg at 9:29 PM
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Friday, January 24, 2003
Reason #423: Why I love the freepers.
Topic: Rush's advertisers being DU'd
This would be Take Back the Media's boycott of advertisers of Rush Limbaugh's show.
Random postings:
I am a frequent customer of Spatula City especailly around Christmas time. They and all other sponsors will continue to get my business.
-20 posted on 01/24/2003 11:36 AM PST by phil1750
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
World of Wicker is another sponsor I will continue to support.
-25 posted on 01/24/2003 11:39 AM PST by new cruelty
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The DUmmies are unhappy with me. LOL They don't like being called on the fact they are members of the anti-American terrorist loving Saddam Hussein fan club.
-40 posted on 01/24/2003 12:00 PM PST by finnman69 (Bush Cheney 2004)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I keep getting spamed by Spatula City.
Seems there is a huge sale going on with free S&H for orders over fifty dollars.
Those 2003 Spatulas are sweet!
-49 posted on 01/24/2003 12:09 PM PST by battlegearboat
posted by tbogg at 12:40 PM
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Brutal
Even by Ted Ralls' normal standards.
posted by tbogg at 12:22 PM
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He's a moron
The latest Bushism:
"When Iraq is liberated, you will be treated, tried, and persecuted as a war criminal."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 22, 2003
posted by tbogg at 11:46 AM
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Leave it to BeaverBushie
Pat Oliphant.
posted by tbogg at 11:40 AM
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From the Washington Post
Pro-Truth
SOME VIRGINIA Republican legislators described a final version of a proposed bill regulating abortion clinics as better than the original. Better in this case must mean more euphemistic. An original version included language that was, well, just too obvious about its authors' real intentions, with digressions about "violence against innocent human life" and "profound" psychological consequences. By the final version yesterday, the orations had been excised and the bill was boiled down to its essentials: a list of health and safety codes as thick as a Russian novel and equally complex.
If one had never heard of the abortion debate, one might mistake the authors of this bill for people who wanted to make abortion as comfortable and efficient as possible. Sponsored by Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), the bill would change the designation of abortion clinics from physicians' offices to outpatient surgical hospitals. This would ratchet up the standards they must follow, requiring them to have elevators wide enough for gurneys, larger hallways and doors, and showers for employees. The bill then expands on those existing requirements, adding special recliners, outpatient services, a sufficient supply of fresh hand towels, and entrances free of snow and ice at all times.
Some of this is just standard stuff any responsible physician's office would have, but some is easily recognizable for what it really is: the latest tactic of antiabortion activists, who have managed to pass similar restrictions in 35 states and counting, forcing clinics to shut down or spend a lot of money. Virginia's bill is in fact explicitly modeled on the most restrictive, the new laws in Louisiana, Texas and South Carolina.
As usual with abortion, it's difficult to sort out the truth in all the noise. Mr. Marshall describes the state's clinics as kin to Josef Mengele's office: "atrocious things going on, blood on the floor, fetal remains in the garbage disposal, people working there who are misusing drugs, convicted of felonies, sexually abusing the women." But state health officials say they have received no more complaints about abortion clinics than about any other physician's office. And Nancy Hofheimer, director of the state's Center for Quality Health Care Services, which oversees outpatient surgical hospitals, said it would be inappropriate to elevate the abortion clinics to hospital status, especially because the bill does not apply to any other clinics that similarly perform outpatient surgery.
Welcome to the slippery slope....
posted by tbogg at 11:22 AM
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"...and the brussel sprouts were kind of soggy...Hey! ...Who's that kicking down my door?"
Alert reader Jon points us to this story about Fear and Eating in Washington DC.
Cafeteria Complaint? Eat Your Words
If memory serves, Richard M. Nixon was the most perturbed of presidents who would complain regularly about leaks from the bureaucracy. For many years the conventional wisdom was that nothing could be done about civil servants who wanted to express their views.
But the Bush administration has succeeded most spectacularly, it seems, in cowing bureaucrats so that they not only reveal no secrets, but also will say nothing at all about matters of great national import.
That's what the Federal Paper discovered after it ran a survey of the food in government cafeterias. Predictably, the weekly got a huge response. "We picked several of the comments," an editorial this week noted, "and asked permission to print them as letters to the editor on this page. Much to our surprise, several writers said they had to get clearance, and some withdrew their comments rather than go through the process."
Now that's keeping everyone on message.
posted by tbogg at 11:02 AM
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Back to the kitchen with you...
Another setback for women compliments of President Vestigial Penis. Now it's Title IX.
Colleges and universities would be allowed to limit the number of scholarships awarded to female athletes without regard to enrollment under the most controversial recommendation being considered by a national commission studying reform of Title IX, the landmark law that bans sex discrimination in collegiate sports.
UNDER THE proposal, which is among two dozen the panel is studying, schools could devote as little as 43 percent of their athletic scholarships to women and still comply with the law — even though women comprise 55 percent of the enrollment in the nation’s four-year colleges.
The proposals, obtained by The Washington Post, are the first indication of the Bush administration’s plans for changing Title IX, which is widely credited with increasing female participation in collegiate sports over the past three decades.
Anyone think that the Soccer Mom's won't notice this? I guess Bush is counting on a boost from the all-important "Wrestling Moms"...see Catfight, below.
Maybe if the universities weren't paying Bobby Bowden, Mike Krzyzewski, Bob Stoop, and Roy Williams millions of dollars to coach their respective sports, the schools would have enough money to fund wrestling, swimming, and volleyball for men. But that will never happen.
(Added) No More Mr Nice Blog provides a good article on athletic financing.
I also want to add a disclaimer here. I have a daughter who is an outstanding soccer player with an eye on a college scholarship in a few years. It would be safe to say that cutting back on Title IX is goring my ox. So sue me...
posted by tbogg at 10:49 AM
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Ted Barlow: Purveyor des plaisanteries de Lightbulb
More from Ted. My new favorite:
---Q: How many Howard Finemans does it take to change a lightbulb?
---A: His predecessor would have hosted all-night bull sessions on the intricacies of indoor lighting, But unlike Bill Clinton, Bush has little patience for the intellectual jousting of policy wonks. Comfortable in his own skin, he is sure of one thing: the lightbulb must be changed. Those who know him best predict he will address the crisis with the same quiet intensity he brings to his afternoon games of computer solitaire.
Just over two years ago, an untested governor of Texas became president of a deeply divided America. Today, a leader of almost mythic proportions, George W. Bush is poised to lift the nation out of darkness. His journey is our journey. His story is our story. The story of all fifty-something white males with incomes over $200,000 a year.
posted by tbogg at 10:02 AM
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There's a hullabaloo over at Hullabaloo.
I'd point you to one specific post but Digby was working overtime last night. Lots to read today. Racism, abortion, floundering economy, war... all those things that we missed during Clinton's eight years of peace and prosperity.
posted by tbogg at 9:56 AM
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If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; cocaine
Looks like Larry Kudlow is back on the blow (pdf file) again.
The great investor class is mightily worried about all this -- and it's holding its breath, waiting for President Bush to launch a counter-offensive. Meeting with economists in the White House Cabinet Room is not what shareholders want to see. They want the new great communicator George W. Bush out selling his plan in the key heartland red states, and maybe even in some of the blue bi-coastal states.
posted by tbogg at 9:39 AM
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Choosing to not understand
Lawmaker proposes 'Choose Death' slogan for S.C. license tags
One lawmaker said he has a compromise for the debate over ``Choose Life'' license plates for South Carolina - ``Choose Death'' tags.
The law allowing the ``Choose Life'' plate was created in 2001, but Planned Parenthood and others sued, claiming the state discriminated by providing a forum for only one political viewpoint.
The state has appealed last month's ruling by U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman, who said the slogan ``Choose Life'' on tags violated the First Amendment.
``My bill is simply a reaction to the abortionists,'' said State Rep. John Graham Altman. ``They're pro-choice. Well, they've got a choice - whether to buy (the tag) or not.''
posted by tbogg at 9:20 AM
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America's revenge
Canadians won't see hyped Super Bowl ads
Dave Hamilton, vice-president of promotions and publicity for Global TV, said he could not confirm which Super Bowl commercials would not be seen in Canada.
Global has the broadcast rights to the ABC-TV program, including the right to insert its own commercials which, more often than not, are the same old ads one sees during the rest of the TV week, not the so-called "new creative" content airing south of the border.
But here is the real revenge:
Canadians tuning into Sunday's Super Bowl telecast will see the football game. They'll also see the pre-game and halftime shows, with Shania Twain and Celine Dion among the big stars.
Canadians. Both of them.
Blame Canada.
posted by tbogg at 9:16 AM
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The night of the mooks
Chuck Colson (you know...the guy who would" walk over my grandmother to get Nixon elected") is warning us against the " mooks".
In other words, Miller is saying that every young American male is at heart what advertisers and media experts call a "mook." A mook is a perpetual adolescent. He is preoccupied with sexual matters and cannot rise above the level of the trivial.
As Douglas Rushkoff of New York University says, the mook is entirely "the creation of marketers." He is designed to sell to young men by appealing to an exaggerated version of their worst instincts.
What then happens is that, in what Rushkoff calls a "feedback loop," young men imitate what they see on the screen, which in turn prompts similar images—a vicious circle, in which what people see shapes their self-understanding, as well as their behavior.
So why are we getting all worried about the mooks right now?
Catfight.
Anyone watching this year’s NFL playoffs has probably seen Miller Lite’s newest commercial. The ad features two attractive young women seated next to a fountain. They are debating what’s best about the beer: "tastes great" or "less filling"?
Suddenly the argument degenerates into "an angry, clothes-shredding wrestling match," and the women end up in the fountain. They strip each other down to their undergarments before continuing the match in a cement trough. How degrading to these women.
The ad then cuts to a bar where it turns out that the fight was merely a male fantasy. It was two guys’ idea of the perfect beer ad. In the network version, their dates then look at them in a way that says, "What morons!"
...and that is the point of the ad. (Colson neglects to point out that the cable version of the ad ends with one of the young ladies telling the other "Let's make out"). The sex is the bonus. But the road goes both ways. Apparently Colson had no problem with a previous beer ad where a somewhat dorky man is given oversized bowling shoes at a bowling alley. When a woman at an adjacent lane sees the length of the shoes, her eyes light up and we hear the sound of a horse. Then there is the current Budweiser "True" commercial where a girlfriend wears her old boyfriends t-shirt instead of one belonging to her current one because it's "huge" and she likes huge things. The ad ends with the woman commenting on her current boyfriends "cute, tiny hands". Perhaps these ads hit a little too close to home for Mr. Colson
The fact is that sex is used to sell beer and Colson finds this suprising. You would think that someone who has been out of prison as long as he has would have settled into the culture by now.
posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM
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Thursday, January 23, 2003
I think they're going to bump the Jenna & Barbara "Twins" Coor's ad...
Talk Left gives us a preview of this years Super Bowl drug ads.
"The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) today announced the launch of two new sets of advertisements, premiering during the Super Bowl and pre-game show, designed to further educate Americans about the risks of drug use. Two of the ads aimed at teens are a response to research showing that American youth want to be provided with the facts about marijuana. A second pair of ads will follow up on the groundbreaking spots linking drugs, terror and violence that were released during last year's Super Bowl. The ads are part of the ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which is designed to help America's youth reject illicit drugs."
"This campaign is designed to show teens some of the ways that using marijuana can cripple a young person's future," said John Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy.
...unless Antonin Scalia steps in and stops the vote counts.
posted by tbogg at 6:27 PM
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The childrens crusade
Digby has this up about Patty Murray's bin Laden (remember him?) comments:
Now, the campaign against Patty Murray's supposedly treasonous comments about Osama bin Laden to a senior honors class in Vancouver, Washington has been similarly exposed for the cynical manipulation it was. The students feel so strongly that the story was misrepresented that they also went to the media with a correction.
This seems to be a pattern.
Luckily for the future of the Republic, high school students have a far greater grasp of rational argument than right wing bloggers and Republicans do. It also appears that they are better able to understand the nuances of foreign policy than is the President of the United States. (But then, they are in a high school honors class so it's probably unfair to make a comparison to the cheerleader legacy frat boy...)
Murray has probably spoken bin Laden's name in public more in one week than President Dead or Alive has in three months.
As for Murray, I'm sure an apology from Sean Hannity is right around the corner....right along with his acceptance to MENSA.
posted by tbogg at 2:45 PM
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You can't say that gun lovers are lacking in personality(-ies)
MyDaddysBlog points out that Lott isn't the first of the Second Amendment Sybil Brigade:
When it comes to criticizing federal agents for their missteps at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, or castigating President Clinton for his belief in gun-control laws, few are as strident or prolific as Theodore H. Fiddleman
posted by tbogg at 11:36 AM
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Thacker's out....Fred Phelps waves hand saying "Pick me! Pick me!"
A Christian activist chosen by the White House for a presidential AIDS (news - web sites) advisory panel is withdrawing his name under pressure after characterizing the disease as the "gay plague," along with other anti-homosexual statements.
The administration had chosen Jerry Thacker to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV (news - web sites) and AIDS. He was to be sworn in along with other new commission members next week by Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson.
On Thursday, however, Thacker was sending a letter signaling that he would not accept the appointment, administration officials said.
I guess it occured to Thacker that he would be about as welcome as a Scientologist selling Amway
posted by tbogg at 11:16 AM
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More bad news for John Lott.
No. Mary Rosh isn't stepping out on him. But a new study contradicts Lott's previous findings.
State laws that allow private citizens to carry concealed weapons do not reduce crime and may even increase it, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.
The findings, by Stanford University law professor John Donohue, contradict an influential study by economist John R. Lott Jr., a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who in 1997 concluded that by adopting such laws, states can substantially curb violent crime.
posted by tbogg at 10:16 AM
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It's a dirty job...
Looks like JWA drew the short straw:
Charen Watch
posted by tbogg at 10:01 AM
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Sullivan's travails...again
Andy is doing it again.
THE WAR CONTINUES: But for us, it's important to remember why we're fighting Saddam. The answer is September 11. Those who want to find some specific evidentiary link between al Qaeda and Saddam don't begin to fathom what war is. It is not the pursuit of one distinct goal after another, depending on the exigencies of international law or diplomacy. That's called foreign policy. War, in contrast, is the attempt to destroy an enemy. The enemy is Islamist terrorism and its state sponsors. Strategically, the overthrow of the Saddam regime is absolutely central to this objective. It will deal another psychological blow to the reactionaries who want to ratchet Islam back a few more centuries and wage war on the free societies of the West. It will remove one huge and obvious source of weapons of mass destruction potentially available to the enemy. It will provide a military base from which to continue the war against al Qaeda and its enablers across the Middle East, specifically in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. And it will reassert the global hegemony of the United States and its Anglosphere allies.
Bush's conundrum: Crusade or Imperialism? God or oil? We know on which side Dick Cheney will come down.
(Added) Andy's dream scenario.
Meanwhile Andy is shocked...shocked, I tell you, about Bush's new AIDS commisioner.
BUSH'S INSULT TO GAY AMERICANS: What on earth is a fire-breathing, Bob Jones University alum doing on the presidential commission on AIDS? Check out this man's views here as noted in the Washington Post. AIDS is a "gay plague." With the overwhelming number of victims worldwide being straight, and a majority of new HIV cases in America non-gay ones? "Homosexuality is not inborn biologically, just as incest and bestiality are not inborn." Is the Bush administration equating gay citizens with people who practice incest? Is it saying that the vice-president's daughter's relationship is as immoral or as arbitrary as having sex with animals? Is it asserting, against every serious psychological study, that homosexuality is chosen like becoming a dentist? If it is, then please let us know and we can think and vote accordingly.
Andy got in bed with George Bush and just woke up. That sound you hear is Sullivan trying to chew his arm off....
posted by tbogg at 9:14 AM
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We now turn to the Book of Armaments. Please turn to Glock 3:38....
Camouflage Bible geared to outdoorsmen
"We hope you will take a few moments in a quiet place, a deer stand, camp, fishing pier, your den, or wherever it is you spend time reflecting on the wonders of God's creation, to look at God's Word, the Holy Bible, from an outdoorsman's perspective. As you do, prepare to be drawn into God's presence."
...just before you kill one of His creatures with a well placed lung shot. Amen
posted by tbogg at 9:01 AM
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Here's your $250,000...now take your crippled kid and get out of my sight
When George Bush's world becomes a reality:
He cannot see, he walks with leg braces, and his IQ lags far behind that of most other 12-year-olds.
This is life for Steven Olsen, the once-healthy Chula Vista boy who is becoming a poster child for the battle against President Bush's plan to cap the amount that juries can give to victims of medical malpractice.
snip
When Steven was 2, he fell on a twig that penetrated his sinus area. Doctors at Children's Hospital rejected his parents' plea for an $800 brain CAT scan. An abscess developed, leading to Steven's permanent disabilities and cerebral palsy.
"It's easy for them to say (the Bush plan) is fair and balanced, because they're not hurt by malpractice," said Scott Olsen, who is in Washington to kick off a nationwide bus tour by consumer advocates opposed to the Bush plan. "We challenge them to find any person injured by malpractice in California who will agree that this is fair and balanced."
posted by tbogg at 8:48 AM
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"[Bleep] you! Fat-ass Foucaultian ho! "....Bizarro world Jerry Springer
Thanks to Chris for sending me this:
- Todd: You see, Jerry, I'm a traditional Cartesian rationalist. I believe that the individual self, the "I" or ego is the foundation of all metaphysics. She, on the other hand, believes that the contemporary self is a socially constructed, multi-faceted subjectivity reflecting the political and economic realities of late capitalist consumerist discourse.
- Crowd: Ooooohhhh!
- Todd: I know! I know! Is that infantile, or what?
posted by tbogg at 8:15 AM
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Wednesday, January 22, 2003
2003...A bad year to be named Lott.
CalPundit pretty much wraps up the John Lott affair.
Personally I'm looking forward to a John Lott book signing appearance.
"Just make it out to Mary Rosh..."
posted by tbogg at 10:51 PM
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"She said something about using it to keep the "bloated gasbag" at bay..."
Lou Dobb's pistol-packing better half has a bit of trouble at the airport:
The wife of CNN "Moneyline" host Lou Dobbs was arrested at Newark Liberty International Airport on Wednesday for having a loaded handgun in her handbag, authorities said.
Debi Dobbs, 49, of Sussex, was arrested at the security checkpoint at Terminal C after the gun was discovered, according to Allen Morrison, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport.
According to John Lott, Mrs. Dobbs was, up until this point, enjoying a 94.7% rate of discouraging snooping airport employees from rousting her own bad-self. Lott groupie, Mary Rosh concurred while also pointing out that she was a close "friend" of Mr. Lott who has been known to enjoy her "fiery red hair, supple limbs, firm 38DD breasts, and the fact that she seldom wears underwear when they go out dancing".
Mr. Lott had no comment on that last part.
posted by tbogg at 10:23 PM
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We call it the Our Lady of Government Subsidies Cathedral......Wanna see the altarboy showers?
We always knew there was a little 'Homer' in George Bush, but we always figured it was Homer Simpson. Turns out it's Homer Smith, and George/Homer is going to use your tax dollars to build a "schapel" for some of those "faith-based" folks we used to refer to as "church-goers" or "theists" or "stunted fundamentalist Jesus freaks".
The Bush administration plans to allow religious groups for the first time to use federal housing money to help build centers where religious worship is held, as long as part of the building is also used for social services.
The policy shift, which was made in a rule that the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed this month, significantly expands the administration's contentious religion-based initiative.
The White House says it wants to end discrimination against religious groups. Opponents say the policy breaches the separation of church and state.
Current regulations generally prohibit religious groups from using federal housing and community development grants, which totaled $7.7 billion last year, to build or rehabilitate structures. The new rules, still subject to final approval by housing officials, allow the use of federal aid to acquire, rehabilitate or build centers used for religious and specifically approved nonreligious activities, so long as no federal money is used for the religious section.
"Welcome to the soup kitchen. How many in your party? Would you prefer the Jesus or the burn-in-hell-for-eternity section? Right this way. Enjoy your meal and remember that gluttony is a sin."
posted by tbogg at 9:49 PM
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Wrap it with a bow, leave it on his doorstep, and run like hell
Looks like George Bush's Valentine's gift to Log Cabin Republicans came a bit early:
The Bush administration has chosen Jerry Thacker, a Pennsylvania marketing consultant who has characterized AIDS as the "gay plague," to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS.
snip
In his speeches and writings on his Web site and elsewhere, Thacker has described homosexuality as a "deathstyle" rather than a lifestyle and asserted that "Christ can rescue the homosexual." After word of his selection spread among gays in recent days, some material disappeared from the Web site. Earlier versions located by The Washington Post that referred to the "gay plague," for instance, were changed as of yesterday to "plague."
It was replaced with: We have always been at war with Iraq.
posted by tbogg at 9:24 PM
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Beltway polygraphs explode injuring dozens.
Rove described Bush as a populist and said his $670 billion plan to repeal the tax on stock dividends, which has been criticized as overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy, is aimed mainly at "the little guy."
"Given a choice between Wall Street and Main Street, he'll choose Main Street every time," Rove said.
He said the tax cut would encourage stock ownership among people of all incomes. "We want more people to own the country," he said. "Wealth is too important to be left to the wealthy."
Yeah. Joe Sixpack has been avoiding the stock market because of those damn dividend taxes. There's not enough floss in North America to get the shit out of Rove's teeth.
Rove said later that was not meant to suggest that war with Iraq is inevitable, but that he was just responding to the question.
Despite the indications of some polls that public support for an immediate attack on Iraq is waning, Rove cited survey results over a period of months that he said suggest "remarkable stability for taking military action against Iraq."
"If the case is made, the support will be there," Rove said, reeling off polling figures from shortly before the Persian Gulf War of 1991. "The president will make the case in the appropriate way at the appropriate time."
Even though this administation doesn't use polls. Clinton did that. Clinton bad. Grunt.
posted by tbogg at 9:16 PM
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You're not the President of me.
Andy Sullivan just can't hide his disappointment that the members of the UN won't roll over like a puppy in the face of The Warrior President.
Is this the League of Nations? The answer, I regret to say, is yes. If France, Germany and China succeed in ensuring that the war to disarm Saddam doesn't have the sanction of the United Nations, then the U.N. is effectively dead as a viable international body. It will be shown to be palpably uninterested in ensuring that its own resolutions are enforced. Am I exaggerating? I wish I were. But it seems to me that our European allies' current position is one of spectacular intellectual dishonesty. They declare that the U.N. inspectors merely need more time. How much more time? They don't say. There is no deadline. There is never any deadline.
So Andy tells us what the hurry is...well, actually he doesn't. But he does know that the French and the Germans want to overthrow the US Government ( they're about two years too late, but nevermind that):
And they also know that by delaying the potential war until the autumn, they will help keep the U.S. economy depressed (investment being crippled by uncertainty) and help the growing appeasement movement gain more strength. By then, war will become an even greater political risk for London and Washington, which is, of course, part of the Europeans' plan. Schroder and Chirac want regime change - in Washington and London, not Baghdad. And they are using every ounce of their diplomatic influence to achieve that. You see? They can get off their butts now and again, if they need to.
Let me recap. A dangerous regime headed by an unelected leader threatens world peace with a countless weapons of mass destruction causing several countries to step up and say "No. We won't agree to that.". Sounds like the system works to me. In the months that Sullivan has been cheerleading for war he has yet to present one piece of evidence that Iraq is a menace to the United States. Not one damn thing, giving him something else he has in common with President Spongebob Poopedmypants besides being a physical coward. His whole argument is limited to the lie that somehow Iraq and Septmber 11 are related and anyone who doesn't agree is a Saddam puppet or a communist or a fifth columnist or what ever his wild hair of the day is.
Blow it out your power glutes, Andy. You know you won't be called to fight and those who will have to shouldn't have to die just because you still have the heebie-jeebies from 9/11.
posted by tbogg at 9:09 PM
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Tuesday, January 21, 2003
A Bilbo is not what you think...
Just trying to ruin Lord of the Rings for lil' Ben Shapiro.
( beware...sound...really, really bad sound)
posted by tbogg at 10:02 PM
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Looks like Bush has entered his refractory period.
This should perk up your morning:
Poll: Doubts grow about Iraqi war
Seven in 10 Americans would give U.N. weapons inspectors months more to pursue their arms search in Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll that found growing doubts about an attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
IN ADDITION to the public’s skepticism about military action against Iraq, the poll found that a majority of Americans disapproved of President Bush’s handling of the economy for the first time in his presidency. The number of Americans who regard the economy as healthy has not been lower in the past nine years, and fewer than half supported the tax cut plan Bush has proposed as a remedy.
snip
On the economy, Americans disapproved of the job Bush has done by a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent; that represents a 7-percentage point shift from December. Only a quarter of Americans described the economy as excellent or good, down 10 points from December.
Support for Bush’s remedy for the economy, a $670 billion tax cut unveiled earlier this month, has drawn lukewarm support. Most Americans — 61 percent — perceive that it benefits the wealthy, compared with 9 percent who think it helps the middle class or the poor and 23 percent who said it treats all equally.
By a margin of 7 percentage points, Americans opposed the cornerstone of Bush’s proposal, the elimination of the tax on stock dividends. By more than 2 to 1, respondents said they would rather have more spending on education, health care and Social Security than a tax cut, and a sizable majority said they would rather the money be used to balance the federal budget.
Call it the revenge of the lucky duckies....
posted by tbogg at 9:53 PM
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"...oozing war demons from deep within their bowels."
It must be Mark Morford:
--This is the Bush message. This is the smirky, self-righteous dogma. Life only has any sort of sanctity if you are, you know, unborn, as in fetal, and belonging to a nice blandly married Republican couple somewhere in Ohio or Colorado Springs, blindly supportive of both the multiple ongoing wars and the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the creation of the Homophobia Merit Badge for the Boy Scouts.
posted by tbogg at 9:35 PM
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The aard doesn't fall far from the vark
The ancient ancestor of all mammals that give birth to live young - including humans - probably had genetic similarities with the aardvark.
The elusive African mammal is a close match to our early cousin in the way its DNA is packaged into distinct bundles, or chromosomes, say scientists.
The last common ancestor of all placental mammals - possibly a shrew-like creature - scurried over the planet hundreds of millions of years ago.
Here's one, spotted recently in some dense foliage in the Washington area. Careful. When startled she has been known to rip a man's genitals off with her powerful mandibles. Just ask this guy, who had to start over as a woman. Well, sort of. There's still that adams apple problem that needs to be dealt with...and the vestigial penile tissue that...
You know? I really don't want to talk about this anymore...
posted by tbogg at 9:17 PM
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Tip number 4 from the Peggy Noonan Guide to Landing A Hunky Godly Man
A woman who slipped into an erotic lingerie store to look around drew far more attention than she intended when her hands got stuck in sexy handcuffs and she had to be rescued by firefighters.
A crowd gathered to watch the fire crew free the embarrassed shopper from the police-style cuffs with a hacksaw, Sarah Nosec, an assistant at the Ann Summers store in Wolverhampton, central England, said Monday.
Nosec said the unidentified woman was in the store in the city's central plaza on Saturday with two friends when she began trying on the handcuffs.
"People mess about all the time with the handcuffs and they jammed," she said. "We tried everything to get them off, but we couldn't, so we had to get the fire brigade out to saw them off. She was very embarrassed."
The West Midlands Fire Service said it sent out an entire crew to deal with the emergency.
"I think there was about six firefighters in the shop and they all wanted to come along as it was the highlight of their day," Nosec said
posted by tbogg at 9:06 PM
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There's class and then there's class, and then there's Bush
Mo Dowd must have fallen under the evil sway of Howell Raines:
When critics of W.'s tax cuts say they favor the wealthy, the president indignantly accuses them of class warfare. That's designed to intimidate critics by making them seem vaguely pinko. Besides, there's nothing more effective than deploring class warfare while ensuring that your class wins. It is the Bush tax cut that is fomenting class warfare.
When the University of Michigan tries to redress a historic racial injustice by giving some advantage based on race, Mr. Bush gets offended by arbitrarily conferred advantages, as if he himself were not an affirmative-action baby
That's gonna leave a mark...
posted by tbogg at 9:00 PM
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Did I mention that Harvey Pitt is still on the job? It shows...
The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission plans to recommend that the agency soften proposed rules that would impose new obligations on lawyers and accountants, government officials said today.
snip
Earlier proposals had been intended to instill investor confidence by imposing the new regulations. The rules would have required corporate lawyers, for instance, to report to regulators if they failed to persuade managers to fix potential securities law violations. The proposals would also have restricted accountants from auditing the same tax shelters they created. And corporations would have been required to spell out in more precise detail how much they paid their accounting firms for auditing and consulting services
But some of the toughest proposals appear to be dead, watered down or postponed, S.E.C. officials said today. Critics attributed the shift to heavy lobbying from prominent law firms, bar associations and some leading accounting firms and trade groups.
"This is very disappointing," said Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at the commission during the Clinton administration who is now a professor of accounting at Colorado State University. "We've had Enron, Tyco, WorldCom. We've had the most tumultuous year ever in corporate America. And despite all of that, the commission is softening, rather than toughening, the rules in favor of the attorneys and auditors to the great detriment of investors. To me, it's just amazing."
Officials said the provisions had been changed from earlier drafts after meetings with the commissioners, including Harvey L. Pitt, who has remained as chairman of the agency more than two months after announcing his resignation. Last month, President Bush announced his selection of William H. Donaldson to succeed Mr. Pitt, but Mr. Donaldson has yet to be nominated formally for the post.
Mr. Pitt played an active role in drafting the new rules. Before his resignation, he was the subject of intense criticism from members of Congress, who said his actions suggested that he remained too close to his former clients in the accounting business.
Officials say the commission will table the requirement that lawyers make a public or "noisy" withdrawal from their clients if they fail to persuade the company to fix potential securities law violations. The S.E.C. staff plans to back away from proposals that would have restricted accountants from providing advice on tax shelters for the clients they audit. It is also preparing to weaken — indirectly — existing rules requiring public companies to disclose how much they pay to accountants for auditing services and consulting services, the officials said.
I think I smell Paul Krugman's next column....
posted by tbogg at 8:54 PM
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Here's a dollar...go buy one of your books off the remainders table, Dave.
David Horowitz. Even the name has the scent of sweaty, grasping desperation. Hence, another column and another trip to post office to look for a money order from RM Scaife.
America's enemies within turned out in force on Saturday in Washington DC and San Francisco under the auspicies of the Communist Workers World Party operating under its front organization, A.N.S.W.E.R. Once again the demonstrators pretended to be peace activists, who found violence abhorrent and a willing media played along with the charade. Neither the New York Times nor the Los Angeles Times nor any media I saw identified the organizers as Communists who have a long record of support for world terror and its leaders including the Ayatollah Khomeini, Kim John Il, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
Yeah, yeah, Dave. We got the same talking points from the warbloggers, and they're amateurs.
The second thing Americans should think about is the fact that this anti-American support movement for America's enemies has deep roots in the Democratic Party. I am a firm believer in the two-party system. I find it extremely worrying, therefore, that one party can no longer be trusted with the nation's security. This problem will not be easily fixed. But it won't be fixed at all unless attention is drawn to it, and we cannot do that unless we stop the charade of calling this a "peace" movement and recognize instead that it is anti-American movement to divide this country in the face of its enemies and give aid and comfort to those who would destroy us.
Commies and terrorists and antisemites..oh, my.
posted by tbogg at 8:47 PM
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Heh heh..heh...heh...heh...bwahahahahahaha
This is not from The Onion.
Fox News Channel is jumping into the talk radio business with both feet and its first star will be Alan Colmes, the liberal counterpart to Sean Hannity on the cable channel's popular "Hannity & Colmes."
It's kind of ironic that it's "Fair and Balanced FoxNews" doing this and not the DNC who was complaining last month that FoxNews, Rush Limbaugh, and the Heritage Foundation were dominating the media with conservatism.-----Jonathan A. Garthwaite]
Garthwaite wouldn't know irony if it drove over him in a Segway.
posted by tbogg at 8:37 PM
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Let's ask the people
Abolishing taxes on stock dividends?
"Maybe this will inspire America's poor to not be so poor all the time."
posted by tbogg at 1:20 PM
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Every picture tells a story
Avedon Carol provides a link to a great picture from Time.
Official Warblogger crowd counters put the crowd at "...about 17...maybe 18, if you count the guy with the dog."
posted by tbogg at 12:24 PM
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I'm flattered...I guess
I see I got a referral from here.
I just want to say that I absolutely agree with this statement:
langaði bara að segja ykkur að ég er að fá mér nýtt símanúmmer: 6167-9877 og ég held það byrji að virka á mánudaginn (gerði þetta á netinu og á eftir að fá sim-kortið sent
Ditto!
posted by tbogg at 12:14 PM
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He's "thought-neutral"
Stressing his belief in "race-neutral" solutions, President Bush said Tuesday he would let the U.S. Supreme Court decide whether it is appropriate for a university to consider race in its admissions process.
Bush, speaking to reporters briefly after a meeting with economists at the White House, declined to say whether he thought race could ever be taken into consideration in deciding admissions.
"We'll leave the courts to define the outer limits of the Constitution," Bush said.
Leaving aside a general 5-4 conservative court, including one Justice who owes his college and professional career to Affirmative Action (you know who you are, Stephen Breyer...) lets cut to the chase when it comes to Too Dumb For Law School's feelings on the matter of the Michigan case.
Outside of political considerations (the new, improved Southern Strategy with stronger "whitening power"), George W. Bush has given absolutely no thought to whether Affirmative Action is right or wrong. That would call for the kind of deep thinking that he reserves for such things as counting the change in his pockets or deciding what he wants for lunch. The guy isn't interested in hard work, he never has been. He's Wally from Dilbert, but with less personality.
Everytime I hear about Bush "focusing" on some important policy or crisis, I'm reminded of Peter Fonda's comment about the motion picture studio executives when they first saw " Easy Rider":
"They went from shaking their heads in incomprehension to nodding their heads in incomprehension"
That's our Bush-baby.
posted by tbogg at 12:03 PM
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Malpractice, tort reform, and most importantly, money.
Last week I posted the damage Bush would do in his pursuit of "tort reform". I also posted a letter that asked some very good questions. It should come as no suprise that Kevin Drum over at CalPundit had the answers. Last year.
Kevin is really smart.
posted by tbogg at 8:51 AM
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Ted Barlow: Cultural Anthropologist with an emphasis on lightbulbs.
As I'm sure you're aware, Ted Barlow has been collecting the absolute best in "lightbulb" jokes. Today it reaches it peak:
Q: How many Michael Kellys does it take to change a light bulb?
A. The conventional wisdom among the braying Washington elites is that the light bulb needs changing. But as sophisticated society works itself into a tizzy, it’s worth considering some facts. In 1999, when the light bulb was originally installed, it was apparent to all but the most cretinous observers that some day it would have to be replaced. There was only one responsible option: Destroy the fixture. But remember, this was also the era of President Beezelbub Clinton. Our repulsive leader was too interested in wallowing in his own filth to be distracted by such petty concerns as the continued existence of the nation. In the most disgusting act of perfidy in the history of mankind, the obscene boy-king installed the light bulb. Today, the liberal jackaninnies and simpletons that populate the media can be counted on to make their feeble defenses on his behalf. These witless apologists are nothing more than Golliwogs and Mugwumps. Bazzomba! Habblubaoa!! ZZHHablsibasap! ...
posted by tbogg at 8:31 AM
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ANSWER this.
Lisa over at Ruminate This takes on the rightwing's obsession with ANSWER which allows them to conveniently dismiss a growing anti-war sentiment in the country.
A quick glance around the internet shows us that the warbloggers as well as such low-brow luminaries such as David Horowitz would like us to focus on the organizers of the march and not the message. That could be because they have no answer to the message. Attack the messenger, ignore the message. FOX has taught them well.
What is really sad is seeing someone as obviously bright at Professor Instapundit riding this Trojan horse. I guess with all of his duties these days, he doesn't have the time to really give much thought to his posts. It's starting to show...
posted by tbogg at 8:07 AM
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Leave it to Andy
Sullivan writes:
THE GAY LEFT'S MYOPIA: Some leftist gay groups, like the extremist National Gay Lesbian Task Force, have come out against a war against gay-hating tyrants. They hate Bush more than people who crush gay people under stone walls. Now another gay group is organizing a trip to Cuba! I'm not sure if they'll visit any of the sequestered camps for people with HIV. Maybe they'll just wave to the imprisoned gay Cubans from their plane.
ANDY SULLIVAN'S SELLING OUT: Should Andy Sullivan continue to write for, and collect a paycheck from, a newpaper that hates gays homosexuals? Discuss amongst yourselves...Andy surely hasn't given it any thought.
posted by tbogg at 7:48 AM
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Monday, January 20, 2003
For a Super Bowl ticket, the Congressman will not only spend the night, he'll bring his own tube of Astroglide.
"I see my job as to keep people out of trouble," said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House ethics committee. "We don't want to have the impression, nor the reality, that we're trying to weasel around ways to live high at someone else's expense."
Hefley said he was blindsided earlier this month when Hastert decided to weaken the gift ban without consulting him. At the behest of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Hastert drafted what Hefley and others worry might become the biggest loophole in the gift ban yet: allowing members to take all-expense-paid trips to charity fundraising events. The 1995 gift ban outlawed such trips because the practice was routinely abused.
Under the new rule, which passed 221-203, a corporation could anonymously underwrite a charity event on the greens of, say, Pebble Beach in Northern California and provide accommodations at a five-star resort. The corporation then could send its top executives and lobbyists to the event for a weekend of schmoozing with lawmakers.
I hear a well-placed twenty between Hastert's man-boobs will get you a handjob in the parking lot.
Don't tell his wife, though....
posted by tbogg at 10:13 PM
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Actually, its the only way that most conservatives can get a Hummer
Businesses can buy bigger SUV's and trucks that they don't need and let the "lucky duckies" pick up the tab.
The Bush administration's economic plan would increase by 50 percent or more the deductions that small-business owners can take right away on the biggest sport utility vehicles and pickups.
The plan would mean small businesses could immediately deduct the entire price of S.U.V.'s like the Hummer H2, the Lincoln Navigator and the Toyota Land Cruiser, even if the vehicles were loaded with every available option. Or a business owner, taking full advantage, could buy a BMW X5 sport utility vehicle for a few hundred dollars more than a Pontiac Bonneville sedan, after the immediate tax deductions were factored in.
Tax experts and environmentalists say the plan would provide incentives for businesses to choose the biggest gas-guzzling trucks because it takes several years to depreciate the cost of passenger cars and smaller sport utility vehicles. The ramifications of the Bush plan on S.U.V. buyers were reported today in The Detroit News.
Then again...
But a top budget official said today that the administration might be open to changes in the tax code that would bring cars more in line with big trucks.
"We have an open mind about whether the deduction for cars needs to be refined," said Dr. John Graham, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget.
So maybe they'll do the right thing?
Nope.
But the administration says that greater business deductions will be a potent economic stimulant.
"Many small businesses have genuine needs for large vans, pickups and S.U.V.'s, whether it be for a farm, sales or industrial application," Dr. Graham said. "An updated tax deduction for small businesses is certainly needed."
Consider the Hummer H1 as an example of the new deduction. It is one of the largest and most expensive S.U.V.'s, with a base sticker price of $102,581, including destination charge. Under the Bush plan, small-business owners could use all of an annual $75,000 capital equipment deduction toward the purchase; the current equipment deduction allowance is just $25,000.
That is in addition to thousands of dollars in other deductions. Under existing rules, a business could deduct 30 percent from the base price left after the capital equipment deduction, a benefit put in place as part of a post-Sept. 11 stimulus package. In the case of the H1, that would be a further deduction of $8,274.
Finally, 20 percent could be deducted from what is left, part of the business deductions available for automobiles. For the H1, that would be $3,861 more in deductions.
The total would be more than $87,000 in deductions, or about $33,500 in savings in federal taxes alone for buyers in the highest bracket. Under current rules, just less than $60,000 could be deducted.
Another day...another obscenity.
C'mon. You're not suprised, are you?
posted by tbogg at 10:01 PM
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Paul Krugman
A liberal and a conservative were sitting in a bar. Then Bill Gates walked in. "Hey, we're rich!" shouted the conservative. "The average person in this bar is now worth more than a billion!" "That's silly," replied the liberal. "Bill Gates raises the average, but that doesn't make you or me any richer." "Hah!" said the conservative, "I see you're still practicing the discredited politics of class warfare."
posted by tbogg at 9:48 PM
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If you're lucky enough to be at the beach, you're lucky enough...
Sure it's a desert that runs into a beach, but you can't beat it if you love to be outside and you love sports.
Welcome to California.
And if you still aren't convinced that California is the place for sports and for sports fans, consider this: While the Raiders rolled to victory on hotel TV screens Sunday, five guys in shorts played beach volleyball in the January dusk.
posted by tbogg at 9:42 PM
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All the news that doesn't get reported
Media Whores Online has lots today. From Bush pandering to the Southern Heritage crackers...to Bob Novak admitting that the Administration wants war just because they can...to Matt Drudge working with Ken Starr's elves.
It's an ugly world out there...made uglier by Republicans.
posted by tbogg at 1:35 PM
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Affirming 'separate but equal"
Since President Low SAT Score wants to keep "those" people out of "his" schools he throwing them a little extra hush money for "their" schools.
To coincide with the holiday, the White House announced Sunday the president will propose increasing spending by 5 percent for grants to historically black colleges, universities, graduate programs and Hispanic education institutions.
snip
“It is fitting that we honor this great American in a church because, out of church comes the notion of equality and justice,” the president said.
“Even though progress has been made,” he said, “there is still work to do. There is still prejudice. ... There’s still a need for us to hear the words of Martin Luther King so that the word of hope reaches everywhere in the land.”
Prejudice Indeed:
This is a country virtually designed for terrorist attacks and yet there has not been a second major terrorist act since 9-11. We are a big multicultural society full of densely packed cities with large foreign-born populations and lots of illegal immigrants. Angry primitives are relentlessly staging raids on our border, which is defended by a hapless bunch of incompetents at the Immigration and Naturalization Service
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the '60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga's United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, blowing away Black Panthers and adopting invented "African" names. (That was a big help to the black community: How many boys named "Jamal" currently sit on death row?)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The videotaped confessions of the animals convicted in the Central Park attack were not thrown out. They were admitted into evidence and believed by two unanimous juries.
In 10 videotaped statements, members of the wolf pack implicated one another as well as themselves. They corroborated aspects of one another's stories. The police obtained statements from literally dozens of teenagers who were in the park the night the jogger was attacked. In the end, only five of those who gave statements were prosecuted for the attack on the jogger.
Consider that when the savages confessed, it was still possible that the jogger would emerge from her coma, remember everything, and identify her attackers with blinding clarity. Of course, if that had happened, we would now be reading copious articles in The New York Times about how head injuries can easily distort memory and render eyewitness testimony unreliable.
It is more likely that the Central Park jogger was raped by space aliens than that Matias Reyes acted alone. But through their loud-mouthed lobbying in the media, criminal defense lawyers are determined to turn these beasts into their latest Sacco and Vanzetti case
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patriot Eunice Stone took down their license plate numbers and called the police as the mirthful Muslims left. (I'd give you the names, but they're too complicated. There's a reason they use numbers at Guantanamo.) Despite the racist hysteria sweeping the nation, the police did not rush out and start rounding up Arabs. They interviewed Stone in person to evaluate her credibility and corroborate her story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity
posted by tbogg at 1:23 PM
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....and they're not "johns". They're dates...who give me money.
Assistant Commerce Secretary Nancy Victory apparently has more friends than sense...or ethics.
The Bush administration's point person for telecommunications policy allowed wireless phone company lobbyists to help pay for a private reception at her home, and then 10 days later urged a policy change that benefited their industry, according to documents and interviews.
Assistant Commerce Secretary Nancy Victory said she regards the lobbyists as personal friends, and cleared the arrangement in advance with her department's ethics office. She did not report the October 2001 party as a gift on her government ethics disclosure form.
"My friends paid for this party out of their personal money," Victory said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Victory added she believed it was "ridiculous" to draw a connection between the party and her letter 10 days later to the Federal Communications Commission urging an immediate end to a decade-old restriction on wireless spectrum.
snip
Victory serves as administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and is the administration's policy representative before the independent Federal Communications Commission.
The party Oct. 14, 2001 was paid for by six hosts, including lobbyists for three companies with a stake in wireless communications and an attorney from Victory's old law firm where her husband is a partner specializing in communications law.
Corporate representatives from the telecommunications industry were among the dozens of party guests, according to Victory.
A copy of the party's invitation, obtained by AP, clearly names at the top lobbyists Brian Fontes of Cingular Wireless, Priscilla Hill-Ardoin of SBC Telecommunications and Rich Barth of wireless phone manufacturer Motorola.
It said the hosts "invite you and your guest to a reception in honor of Nancy Victory," and urged attendees to RSVP to a number or e-mail address at Victory's old law firm.
Ten days after the catered reception at Victory's million-dollar home in Great Falls, Va., she asked the FCC to immediately repeal restrictions that Cingular, SBC and other major cellular companies had long complained about.
The FCC voted two weeks later to phase out the limits on how much of the spectrum individual carriers could own in a geographic area. The agency had put the limits in place in the early 1990s to promote competition.
Nothing to see here...just move along
posted by tbogg at 12:47 PM
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"This is Eleanor Clift, reporting from Mars...."
Speak, Eleanor:
Then there’s the question of votes. The black vote is pretty much lost to the GOP anyway. And blue-collar Democrats, who say affirmative action is one of the reasons they vote for Republicans, live in states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the battleground for 2004. “In raw political terms, Bush benefits from this,” says a Senate Republican. The soccer moms Rove worries about are filling out college applications, and they don’t want their kid edged out because of some perceived wrong. Every parent knows a horror story that pits an upper-middle-class black kid against a poor white kid.
posted by tbogg at 12:22 PM
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What to do with those uppity employees
President Hide From the Protestors was off at Camp David (codename: Chicken Coop 2) this weekend when Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice declared their independence from the Bush plantation when it came to race-based admission programs. Needless to say, overseer Ted Olson found this most vexacious and took it out on his manservant, Clarence, giving him a choice between the lash or having the Spice channel no longer piped to his shotgun shack.
Clarence's back is healing nicely....
posted by tbogg at 12:12 PM
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I don't believe that The Handmaid's Tale was meant to be a primer for Republicans
Post-menopausal Peggy Noonan is living vicariously through the uteruses of younger women.
It is now 30 years since the Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade vision, blew down the barriers to abortion on demand, using as the essential rationale a constitutional right of privacy that the court had discovered less than eight years earlier. Since 1973 roughly 40 million abortions--that seems to be the generally accepted number--have been performed in America, and 40 million children banished from life.
Forty million. There isn't a country in the world with an army that big. Many don't have a population that big. Among the 40 million were, as romantics like to point out, a Leonardo, a Dr. Salk, the man who'd make the rocket to Mars and perhaps the first American pope. But there were men and women among the 40 million who would have grown up to be destructive too, and cruel. It seems realistic to assume the 40 million would have included your average mix of heroes, villains and those undistinguished by recognizable gifts.
But actually I wonder about that. It has seemed to me over the years that so many of the 40 million were the children of bright or educated or affluent parents, lucky young people and, in the way of things, might likely have gone on to--well, we might have lost more curers of cancer than we know. In any case, whatever these individuals would have become, they were all unique, blessed. They all deserved the same thing, life, and all suffered the same fate.
Then she goes on to make the important point that, apparently, the conventional wisdom is wrong. The Democratic Party isn't made up of teachers, lawyers, union members, women , minorities, students, suburbanites, and intellectuals. It is the party of abortion:
Why haven't our courts and lawmakers made greater progress in protecting the unborn when polls suggest public support is there? Lots of reasons, but one that I think is not sufficiently appreciated is this: Abortion is now the glue that holds the Democratic Party together. Without abortion to keep them together, the Democrats would fly apart into 50 small parties--Dems for free trade, Dems for protectionism; for quotas, for merit. All parties have divisions, the Republicans famously so, but Republicans have general philosophical views that keep them together and supported by groups that share their views. They're all united by, say, hostility to high taxes, but sometimes they have different reasons for opposing tax increases.
The Democratic Party, in contrast, has exhausted its great reasons for being, having achieved so many of them during the past 75 years. The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less. It is composed not of allied groups in pursuit of the same general principles but warring groups vying for money, power, a louder voice, the elevation of their particular cause.
The one thing they agree on, that holds them together and finances their elections, is abortion
Of course it was only two years ago that the "exhausted party" managed to scrape by with a only a half million more votes in the Presidential election over the party that does have a philosophy ("It's mine! Gimmeeeeeee!") and that never fights over such pedestrian topics such as power (except over women), or money (as long as it comes from the poor) or a louder voice (unless it is the voice of Jesus) or a particular cause (unless it is taking the money from poor oppressed women and giving it to Jesus-based organizations who will, in turn, dole some of it back to those same women, but only if they keep having babies to feed the greedy maw of adoptive Christian parents who can't generate their own litter of potential Bible thumpers).
But I digress. To recap: Republicans=lower taxes. Democrats=baby killers.
Peggy then finishes with what can best be described as a "Coulterian" flourish:
No party can long endure, or could possibly flourish, with the unfettered killing of young humans as the thing that holds it together. And so a prediction on this grim anniversary: Someday years from now we will see abortion's final victim, and it will turn out to be the once-great Democratic Party, which was left at the end deformed, bloody and desperately trying to kick away from death, but unable to save itself.
Of course Coulter would have metioned "sucking their brains out" but that image would have been too much for our delicate little flower, Peggy. I think a picture of a unicorn prancing in front of a rainbow with a baby speared on it's horn is more her style...
posted by tbogg at 9:44 AM
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I like the one with the Hollywood sign mounted on a set of fake boobs.
Vote here for the "California Quarter".
posted by tbogg at 8:57 AM
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Failure to report a violation may result in the loss of your white hood
Talking Points Memo points out the kind of fun Southern Republicans have now that cross burning isn't politically correct anymore. Or at least until Charles Pickering lands a new gig.
Whom do you report it to? Your first contact should be your Camp Commander or Heritage Officer. They should in turn report the heritage violation to the Heritage Chairman in your Brigade. The Brigade Heritage Chairman should then contact his Brigade Commander and the Division Heritage Chairman. Heritage violation responses are best handled at the local level, in cooperation with Brigade and Division level officers. A plan of action to deal with the heritage violation should be developed by these Brigade and Division officers, acting in concert with the local camp and member (or other person) that initially reported the violation.
The Division Heritage Chairman should report the violation to the Division Commander, and the SCV’s Chief of Heritage Defense. The Chief of Heritage Defense can call upon the national organization to respond to the violation, if such action is required. The Chief of Heritage Defense is assisted by a members of a Heritage Defense Committee, appointed by the Commander-in-Chief.
For the Chief of Heritage Defense to have a heritage situation officially deemed as a violation by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, he must have consent from the Commander-in-Chief and such other members of the General Executive Council as the Commander-in-Chief may designate, as well as a consensus of the Heritage Defense Committee.
I used to prefer it when they had cool names like Grand Kleagle , Imperial Wizard, or Just Another White Guy with a Little Dick. It looked better on a resume...
posted by tbogg at 8:39 AM
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Kill them all. Let Will sort them out.
George Will is in a killing mood lately. If it's not Saddam, it must somebody, anybody, on death row in Illinois:
Illinois Gov. George Ryan's commutation of the death sentences of all 167 inmates in Illinois prisons is another golden moment for liberals that underscores how many of their successes are tarnished by being explicitly, even exuberantly anti-democratic.
Speaking at Northwestern University to a celebrating audience of opponents of capital punishment, Ryan, two days from leaving office under a cloud of scandal and the threat of indictment, said of capital punishment: "The Legislature couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. But I will not stand for it." Translation: The chief executive vowed to not carry out the consensus of the people, as carefully codified by their elected representatives, in conformity with U.S. Supreme Court standards.
I guess we can disregard the fact that Ryan is a Republican (after all, Will does) just so that he can pin this on those evil "liberals", in much the same way that Will ignores the will of the people that "codified" the Illinois law that allows the Governor to do exactly what Ryan did. Will also doesn't want to address the factors that led to Ryan's move such as this.
Ryan said he was pardoning Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, Aaron Patterson and Leroy Orange. All of them were on death row for at least 12 years.
"We have evidence from four men, who did not know each other, all getting beaten and tortured and convicted on the basis of the confessions they allegedly provide," Ryan said. "They are perfect examples of what is so terribly broken about our system.. … I believe a manifest injustice has occurred."
Ryan spread the blame in his hour-long speech, calling the state's criminal justice system "inaccurate, unjust and unable to separate the innocent from the guilty, and at times very racist."
He blamed "rogue cops," zealous prosecutors, incompetent defense lawyers and judges who rule on technicalities rather than on what is right. He also criticized the Illinois Legislature for failing to enact his proposals to reform the death penalty system.
Ryan said he felt he had little choice when declared the moratorium on executions after 13 men were freed from Illinois' death row because new evidence exonerated them or there were flaws in the way they were convicted.
"How do you let innocent people march to death row without somebody saying stop the show?" Ryan said.
Of course, sinced Will doesn't know the names of the thirteen (he's a pundit not a journalist, dammit!) there is no reason that the killing should stop.
George Will: Third, in the last 25 years, 13 men have been released from Illinois' death row -- three of them in 1999 -- as a result of exonerating evidence. This might seem to justify the inference that, nationally, some innocent persons have been executed. But none of the many groups opposed to capital punishment provides the name of any such a person.
By causing courts to multiply restrictions on the imposition of capital punishment, opponents of such punishment have helped make its administration capricious, thereby doubling the arguments against it: Capriciousness, and the fact that this reduces the death penalty's ability to deter, and even the ability of social science to measure its deterrent power. So the remaining realistic case for capital punishment is proportionality: It is disrespectful of life, and of the victims' survivors, not to take a life for an especially heinous murder
So by building in safeguards to keep the innocent, the railroaded, the poor, or the not-white-like-Will from being executed by an imperfect system, Will would have a few innocent people die to make sure that the death penalty acts as a deterrent and can be measured. To Will this must be like "taking one for the team" only in this case, the innocent person won't be around to see the final score or if George Will's team of grim social Darwinists win.
How very gracious of him.
posted by tbogg at 12:46 AM
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Those who have never experienced history...are bound to be ignorant about it.
Matthew Hoy thinks racism is dead or is dying, all evidence to the contrary:
Wednesday President Bush came out against what he termed a "quota system" in place at the University of Michigan's campuses.
The time for affirmative action at the nation's universities needs to come to an end. Is racism in American society eradicated? No. Some people will always harbor hate for those different from them in their hearts. But, especially among Gen X and Y, there is significantly less racism than at any time during our nation's history. We've come a long way in the nearly four decades since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Just look at our popular culture -- most people no longer bat an eye at interracial couples. The movie "Finding Forrester," one of my favorites, features a bit of interracial romance (though never fully realized). Thirty years ago, that sort of thing could be cause for riots in the South. Nowadays that sort of thing causes nary a whimper.
Guess who doesn't know his movie history?
Look, the Democrats, Civil Rights leaders and assorted members of the liberal left that have spent the last two days implying that Bush is anti-minority (if not harboring a little bit of barely repressed racism in his heart) are mostly in their 50s, 60s and up. These people remember Jim Crow -- many of them lived with it for some portion of their lives. But times have changed. For the overwhelming majority of the people applying for admission to the University of Michigan for this coming year, Jim Crow is something they learned about in their high school history class (hopefully).
...and here is Generation X & Y showing how far we have come "in the nearly four decades since the Civil Rights Act of 1964"
posted by tbogg at 12:10 AM
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Sunday, January 19, 2003
Little shop...little shop of porn.....
"... he's thumbing his nose at the laws of God."
posted by tbogg at 11:56 PM
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American ingenuity comes through again.
Really. Is it any wonder why the terrorists hate us?
Action figures that smell like poop.
It's a stinky idea but a toy company is set to release a line of dolls that smell like poop, body odor, rotten fish, and sour cheese.
The so-called Stink Blasters from Morrison Entertainment Group are three-inch-tall action figures with names like Dog Breath Danny, Tony Anchovy, and Silent Gasser.
This one smells like chicken.
posted by tbogg at 11:52 PM
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Did I mention the fish tacos?
Jim at Rittenhouse is making fun of my hometown.
I suppose if your city is at risk of losing its NFL team, can’t field a respected symphony orchestra, has no world-class art museums or prestigious universities, and boasts that the local utility is the largest corporation in town, you might as well talk about the weather.
We do have golf courses...lots and lots of golf courses....
posted by tbogg at 11:37 PM
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It's all so very sad
For those who are not familiar with the term, fisking is a form of criticism that is used to deconstruct an argument, generally by a bylined pundit or columnist, by breaking it down into bite-sized chunks that are then refuted, questioned, or generally ridiculed. Which makes Ben Shapiro's latest rather pathetic.
SF Gate: Singers Joan Baez and Bonnie Raitt performed for the crowd, which police estimated at 50,000 and organizers pegged at more than 200,000. By either estimate, it was among the largest of a series of anti-war protests across the country.
Ben: That figures.
SF Gate: In a region that helped give birth to the protest movements of the Sixties, the crowd also reflected the long history of San Francisco Bay Area activism.
Ben: Long and retarded history of activism. The last good cause anyone in that area for which anyone was active was the 1849 Gold Rush.
SF Gate: Protesters included teenagers with their parents and retirees with their children.
Ben: A bunch of teenagers and their hippie/Commie parents -- the ultimate decision-makers in American foreign policy.
With bon mots such as those, is it any wonder that David Limbaugh says: "If you haven't yet partaken of Ben Shapiro's writings you are missing out. His columns are crisp, witty and topical. More than that, they are provocative, controversial and courageous."
...or Ann Coulter says: "Ben Shapiro's columns are smart, informative and incisive. He is wise beyond his years without losing the refreshing fearlessness of youth."
Well, consider the source...
posted by tbogg at 11:23 PM
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More proof that the media might just be waking up
While we wait, an anxious nation whiles away the time with "Joe Millionaire," a "reality" TV show in which a sweet-talking con man charms a bevy of credulous women into believing he will give them a fairy-tale ending. And why not? It's a perfect reflection of the reality of this moment, right down to its predictable, all too inevitable, denouement.
Oh, sure, it might be Howell Raines NY TImes, but Frank Rich puts it in terms that even...well, George Bush could understand if he were interested in the damage he was doing.
posted by tbogg at 10:50 PM
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Time for a history lesson
Abortion is taken so much for granted in America today that most women surveyed by a group of clinics in Washington State did not know that it had ever been illegal.
Re-elect Bush in 2004 and they'll get to see what it was like.
If there are two hallmarks of the Bush administration, it is making the rich richer, and making women second-class citizens again.
Meanwhile, Atrios points us to the great state of Alabama, still wallowing in the fifties.
posted by tbogg at 10:37 PM
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Friday, January 17, 2003
No wonder the Republicans are worried...
...of this.
It almost as big as Clinton's penis. Fortunately it's not as powerful.
posted by tbogg at 2:14 PM
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Hi. I'm Colin...Fill her up? You do have credit references, don't you?
The oil lines start right over here....
posted by tbogg at 12:57 PM
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For you folks that are snowed in
I haven't put this link up for some time, but if you're living in one of the snowy states (you know who you are) have some fun with this.
Sodaconstructor
By the way. It's in the seventies here today...neener neener neener.
posted by tbogg at 12:55 PM
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Take my word for it...no! don't clink on the link...really, trust me
Kevin Drum, who lives up the coast from me, fact checks John Derbyshire's ass. Needless to say, it isn't pretty.
posted by tbogg at 12:27 PM
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The One Minute Math Lesson.
Attempting to sell the Steve Forbes Tax Relief Act to an anxious public, the administration keeps pointing out the "average amount" taxpayers will be putting in their pockets under the plan. Here is how the "average" works:
I have $1000 to use for bonuses for my ten employees. I give one of them the whole $1000, and the rest get nothing. Each of my employees has just received an "average" of a $100 bonus.
This has been brought to you by the Fuzzy Math Department of the OMB.
posted by tbogg at 10:10 AM
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Micky's Pickering Sampler...no dark chocolate allowed.
It must be candy analogy day. Roger Ailes shows us that Micky Kaus is the kind of guy who sticks his fingernail in the bottom of each chocolate in the box so he can find the ones that he wants.
"This one likes Pickering...he exists. This one doesn't....back in the box."
posted by tbogg at 9:34 AM
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Bush: I used to think a "mandate" was something that Mary Cheney has never had...
If the Bush administration reminds you of a kid left in a candy store overnight who shoves as much chocolate in his mouth as possible before he gets found out, then you'll understand what Lisa at Ruminate This is talking about. We are witnesssing an administration forcing through as many cultural changes as it can before the media wakes up and it gets voted out in 2004. There is a class war being fought in America, but only one side is fighting.
posted by tbogg at 8:49 AM
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More on malpractice in America...
After posting this I received the following email from Steve posing some interesting questions:
Interesting NYT article on malpractice insurance. Several interesting facts that suggest more questions.
Total payouts, even adjusting for inflation, look like they have indeed risen by about 38% in 10 years ($5.05b from $3.66b). But did they use the inflation rate for the whole economy or just the health care sector (which is typically higher than for the overall economy)? Since presumably a big chunk of the malpractice payouts are for the health care costs associated with those cases, I would argue that they should use the inflation rate for the health care sector.
Second, does anybody know what percent of the total awards are for "pain and suffering?" With that information, we could see whether payouts for damages are driving the increase in total awards.
Third, is the crisis already abating? Annualizing the 9-month figure suggests that total payouts for 2002 will be about $4.71b ($3.53b/.75), down from the $5.05b of 2001. Don't know if the 2002 number is adjusted for inflation.
Fourth, part of the reason insurers are being squeezed is that their investment return rate dropped 11%! If my return rate dropped that much I'd be losing money on my investments (oh wait, I am but that's another story). Has anyone calculated what that means in absolute dollars? One would think it's had a big effect on what insurers need to charge.
Anyway, if I had time to do research, those are the questions I'd be looking into.
Thanks for a great blog site, enjoy reading it daily.
Steve
posted by tbogg at 8:35 AM
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Thursday, January 16, 2003
A black woman made me do it.
White House sources are spreading the blame for Legacy Boy's decision to come out against quotas, even when no quotas were involved. It was Condi Rice. She's black and she has apparently made George Bush her bitch when it comes to policy decisions that don't involve whether to have cheeseburgers or tacos for lunch.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice took a rare central role in a domestic debate within the White House and helped persuade President Bush to publicly condemn race-conscious admissions policies at the University of Michigan, administration officials said yesterday
snip
Bush's aides said the decision emerged from more than two dozen meetings over the past month, almost all of them with a small group of advisers consisting of Rice, Gonzales, Vice President Cheney, Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., senior adviser Karl Rove and Jay Lefkowitz, director of the White House's Domestic Policy Council.
"In these meetings, the president would pepper the group with questions: 'When can race be used? How do you achieve diversity?' " a senior official said. "He wanted to get at reality."
I believe a "Bwahahahahaha" is order here.
Meanwhile, Ted Olson has made yet another stunning move to hold onto his title as the Ugliest-Son-of-A-Bitch Alive with his recent appearance before Congress. Looks like a three-peat for single-and-available-for-a-reason Ted.
posted by tbogg at 11:18 PM
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A pre-emptive strike on John Edwards
President Couldn't Get Accepted To Law School is going after lawyers. Well, not the lawyers who helped get him selected to his job, but those other lawyers who hurt decent saintly heart surgeons, who may or may not kill cats, like Bill Frist.
With doctors across the country protesting the cost of malpractice insurance, President Bush is making a renewed push for strict limits on the jury awards he blames for skyrocketing premiums.
Insurers have indeed been paying more in recent years to cover lawsuits and malpractice settlements.
But many experts cite other factors, including poor investment returns and the insurers' own business practices, for making significant contributions to the premium increases. Even representatives of the insurance industry blame factors in addition to jury verdicts.
And figures collected by the federal government show that court judgments in malpractice cases have not risen nearly as fast as some advocates of new limits have asserted. In fact, the average size of judgments against doctors and other health care workers dropped in the first nine months of 2002, according to the government numbers.
In a speech in Scranton, Pa., today, Mr. Bush said that "frivolous lawsuits" were the source of the problem. "We're a litigious society," Mr. Bush said. "Everybody is suing, it seems like."
Bush v. Gore
Mr. Bush's plan tracks closely a bill that passed the House last year, which would set the maximum damage award for "pain and suffering" at $250,000 and reduce lawyers' fees
$250,000...hmmmm...that's about what Dick Cheney received in dividends in 2001. Of course they were taxed back then. I guess a person could make do with what Dick gets off of his investments...for one year.
Combined, the total annual amount of malpractice settlements and judgments rose to $5.05 billion in 2001
from $3.66 billion a decade ago, adjusted for inflation. In the first nine months of last year — the most recent data available — total payments were $3.53 billion.
Some advocates of new limits have argued that the rate of increase has been sharper. For example, a Health and Human Services Department report last summer that is often cited by Congressional supporters and other advocates of malpractice overhaul asserted that "the number of megaverdicts is increasing rapidly," adding, "The average award rose 76 percent from 1996-1999."
But according to the National Practitioner Data Bank the average malpractice judgment against doctors and other health care professionals rose 8.5 percent from 1996 to 1999, or 2.1 percent if adjusted for inflation. Insurers are required to report malpractice payments to the databank.
Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services based their number on data from the insurance industry, according to the report's footnotes. An agency spokesman, Bill Pierce, said the statement about a "76 percent" increase reflected only doctors who had seen the largest premium increases — something the report did not mention.
More fun with numbers from the folks who are bringing you record deficits for ever and ever and ever and ever....
posted by tbogg at 10:53 PM
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A message on the gate from the Scarlett Pimpernel
I get letters:
Did you know the difference between "Patriot" and Traitor" is just two letters? Not surprisingly, those letters are "PR". Here are some examples:
We know that Saddam Hussein has Anthrax, as well as botulism and bubonic plague, because the Reagan Administration GAVE him the starter cultures. The emissary on that mission? None other than Donald Rumsfeld. Don'tbelieve me? Type "Rumsfeld" + "Anthrax" + "Iraq" into your search engine.
Boy that Dick Cheney sure is a patriotic guy - he'd never give aide andsupport to our enemies, right? Think again. As CEO of Halliburton, he went around the UN embargo by using foreign subsidiaries Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump to rebuild Saddam Hussein's oil infrastructure just three years ago. Not only did he seek to do business with Mr.Hitler-with-a-bigger-mustache, he actually broke the law for the privilege! Estimates of the deal vary from between 23 and 78 million dollars, but Cheney's take amounted to approximately thirty pieces of silver (adjusted for inflation from 33 A.D.) Need proof? Type "Halliburton" + "Iraq" into your search engine.
Admiral John Poindexter, recently put in charge of going over your e-mails and credit card receipts, is a convicted felon who sold Stinger missiles to the Iranians, used the profits to fund an international terrorist organization, and then lied to congress about it. Along with the Stinger missiles, Poindexter also delivered to the Ayatollah a Bible and a key-shaped cake. Go ahead and and call us democrats as unpatriotic as you like, at least we didn't bake any cakes for the Ayatollah.
Too young to remember this? Keywords are "Poindexter" + "Iran".
Worried that you or a loved one may have to serve in the Persian Gulf? Take a tip from the President: "George Bush" + "AWOL"
To put all this in perspective, remember that Bill Clinton was hounded for six and a half years by the GOP over a two-bit Arkansas land deal where he actually lost money. Throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton was accused of practically every crime in the book except the one he was actually guilty of: not being a member of the Republican Party.
Let's face it, if any of these clowns had been democrats, the GOP wouldn't be putting them into high office, they'd be putting them to death. For their own sake, please encourage your local democratic party representatives to grow a spine. Quickly. Failing that, here's some advice from Billy Bragg: "Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman."
posted by tbogg at 10:25 PM
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Internet Porn Queens...tonight on Larry King.
Our bendable buddy, Laura " You Never Call Your Mother" Schlessinger was on Larry King tonight. Sorry I missed it. But I was doing.....something, I guess. Something that was important or educational or fun or mentally challenging or that causes cancer or might possibly provide me with enough funds to get a really cool foosball table. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was important enough for me to pass on listening to two people who look like they do, yet have managed to have about 17 marriages between them.
It's a strange world....
posted by tbogg at 10:16 PM
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...and they didn't even talk to Ben Shapiro.
College Students Aren’t So Savvy About Birth Control, Safe Sex
If you want to know how misinformed college students can be about sex, just ask Casey Blaustain. Blaustain, a sophomore at the University of Southern California, says she's heard a lot of strange theories on campus."I heard you could bathe in hot water and salt after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy," she told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "I was also told if you go to the gynecologist every six months, you are less likely to get pregnant."
John Pytnia, a senior at Indiana University, said he was led to believe that if he took Viagra before he went out drinking, it would help him keep up his sexual prowess later that night — another falsehood with potentially dangerous side effects.
What is not a myth is that, if you look like this, you will never, ever get laid.
posted by tbogg at 10:03 PM
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Crapapalooza coming to your town.
Aguilera to Tour with Timberlake
Justin Timberlake is getting together with Christina Aguilera -- but it's strictly professional. It is being reported that Timberlake and Aguilera are planning to go on tour this summer as co-headliners.
Aguilera says they may even write a song together.
Let's call it: "I've Got Eight Minutes of Fame Left. How About You?" (The Remix).
posted by tbogg at 9:57 PM
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Shane!...come back!
Lots of bloggers taking hiatus. Jesse at Pandagon and Smarter Andrew Sullivan.
I blame it on Joe Millionaire fever. I mean, who can even think straight these days wondering how that is going to turn out? Just like The Bachelor where that guy picked that girl over that other girl. That was cool. And then there was Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? where another guy picked some girl and married her and we all got a vicarious thrill for about 17 minutes before we moved on to Survivor or The Mole or The Osbournes or Real World: Bedford Stuyvesant. Yup. Life is pretty full these days...
Hurry back guys....
posted by tbogg at 9:50 PM
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"This policy shall not be construed to legitimize or protect any sexual conduct deserving of regulation in the public interest."
Simple logic.
Unlike homosexuality, heterosexuality is immutable. To define heterosexuality as merely sexual conduct between people of compatible genders is to suppress a fundamental truth about what it means to be human. All human beings with the exception of hermaphrodites (people with genital deformities) are born with a reproductive system that is heterosexual by nature. We are either male or female. We have sexual feelings only because of chemical and other processes that are rooted in our procreative heterosexual design. Thus, a male sexual orientation toward a female (or vise versa) is self-evidently normal and natural. By contrast, a male-to-male or female-to-female orientation is self-evidently abnormal and unnatural. For homosexuality to be equivalent to heterosexuality, it would need to be rooted in its own homosexual physiology.
Lewis Carroll didn't have the imagination of Scott Douglas Lively, Esq. of the Pro-Family Law Center when it comes to sharing the twists and turns of a fevered imagination. Every link in the site is a treasure trove of tortured reasoning and obsession with the "love that dare not speak it's name", although it seems to be the raison d'etre for Mr. Lively.
Fortunately he has provided us with the Triangle of Tolerance so that we can live a godly life. My guess is that watching Will & Grace falls under "Reasonable Tolerance" while actually enjoying Will & Grace thrusts you into "Zero Tolerance", somewhere between drunk driving and violent crime. Enjoying Queer as Folk, however, sends you straight to "Re-education Camp and Possible Shock Treatment", so watch your ass, Mary.
And if you like your history with just a touch of revisionism, you're really going to want to settle into a comfy window seat with a copy of Counselor Lively's lively history of gay Nazis and the men they didn't love: The Pink Swastika . Why, just look at what the critics say:
"As a Jewish scholar who lost hundreds of her family in the Holocaust, I welcome The Pink Swastika as courageous and timely... Lively and Abrams reveal the reigning "gay history" as revisionist and expose the supermale German homosexuals for what they were -- Nazi brutes, not Nazi victims." -Dr. Judith Reisman, Institute for Media Education
So toss aside that John Lott fiction and delve into some real history with lots of schnapps, sodomy, and one-testicled fuhrers. As our current President might slur: It's fabulous fun for the whole family....
posted by tbogg at 9:31 PM
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Don't think of me as a Latina...think of me as an owner of slaves.
Linda Chavez is really, really against "diversity".
But the administration must go further than simply criticizing Michigan's program. Unless the Supreme Court once and for all throws out the "diversity" rationale as the basis on which schools can elect to take race into account in picking their students, this issue will continue to fester. And the president should lead the way by urging the Court to abandon racial discrimination in the name of "diversity."
Of course we all remember those heady days, right after the Supreme Court selected President Lost By A Half Million Votes, when the Heritage Foundation was assembling his Cabinet and they went the "diversity" route in selecting Linda Chavez (hispanic), Rod Paige (black), Norman Mineta (Asian), and Mel Martinez (Cuban). Unfortunately, Linda had a little "illegal immigrant" problem when she kept a pet Guatemalan to do some light housekeeping and the occasional tire rotating for very little pay. That kind of diversity, Bush didn't need, so Chavez was shoved aside for Elain Chao (Sen. Mitch McConnell's wife and..ta-da!...Asian).
And remember, Linda Chavez doesn't want to be known as a Latina, which is why she promotes herself as " the Most Hated Hispanic in America"
posted by tbogg at 9:18 AM
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Don & Pete....your backdoor men.
Unable to get drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge approved the honorable way, the oilman's buddies, Nickles and Pete Domenici are going to try and sneak it through in a backhanded, backdoor manner:
Domenici, who is taking over as chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in an interview Wednesday that ‘‘there will be an effort" to include the refuge provision in the annual budget reconciliation process, which is not subject to filibuster.
That process could lead to a showdown vote on refuge drilling by late February or early March, according to sources familiar with the process.
Nickles spokeswoman Gayle Osterberg acknowledged discussions between Domenici and Nickles over the use of the reconciliation process for the refuge provision. But Osterberg said it's ‘‘only an option the senator is looking at."
snip
Republicans are expected to use the same budget reconciliation process to try pushing a tax cut package through Congress this spring based on Bush's $674 billion, 10-year economic growth proposal.
‘‘I don't know any way that would get it done any quicker," White House budget chief Mitchell Daniels told reporters Wednesday
posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM
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Quotas for me, not thee...
Kevin at Leanleft cuts to the chase on Bush's use of the term: quotas.
posted by tbogg at 8:53 AM
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Is Wirthlin worthy or worthless?
The Washington (Moonie) Times is reporting that a new poll shows that Americans are are swinging the other way when it comes to a woman's right to choose.
Nearly 70 percent of Americans say they favor "restoring legal protection for unborn children," according to a new poll that pro-life groups say shows public opinion is swinging their way on the abortion issue
"This is the new, big change in this country," Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, said yesterday as she and other leaders of pro-life and traditional family groups released the findings of a Wirthlin Worldwide poll taken last month.
Some 1,000 adults were asked whether, in light of medical advances that reveal the unborn child's body and facial features in detail, "are you in favor of restoring legal protection for unborn children?" Sixty-eight percent of the randomly surveyed adults said they were in favor of legal protection, with 44 percent in strong agreement of such action.
Almost the same number — 66 percent — said they favored nominees to the Supreme Court "who would uphold laws that restore legal protection to unborn children."
Unmentioned in the article is who commisioned this "poll", although it is implied that it was the Concerned Women of America:
"This is the new, big change in this country," Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, said yesterday as she and other leaders of pro-life and traditional family groups released the findings of a Wirthlin Worldwide poll taken last month.
The CWA, of course, being an organization founded by Beverly LaHaye, best known as the wife of evangelist Tim LaHaye, author of the the Left Behind (beware...sound)series of really crappy Endtime adventures. Living in San Diego, I am more than familiar with the LaHayes, who got their big start here as one of the first proponents of "creationsim".
As for Wirthlin, I wasn't familiar with them, so I did a little checking. I decided to go to their website to see what kind of polling organization they are. What I found out was...they aren't a polling organization. A little background on Wirthlin:
The company's background in politics provided the seedbed for lessons learned about the value of timely information, the need to identify and focus resources on your most persuadable "swing" targets, the elements of effective leadership, and the power of values-based communication. Those lessons have been applied with great success in our consulting for corporate and institutional clients around the world.
In fact, even the way in which we work with our clients grows out of our heritage. Dr. Wirthlin's close relationship as a counselor to Ronald Reagan and others over a long period of time is the model for the ongoing partnerships we strive to form with all of our clients; where trust is foremost, and where the incremental knowledge and experience we gain over time adds tremendous value to what we are able to contribute in a consultative role. (my emphasis)
So what we see is that Wirthlin is what used to be called a "PR firm" before Newspeak turned them into "consultants" or "brand managers" or "people who will tell you what you want to hear for a big fat contract".
Interestingly one of Wirthlin's bigger political clients is Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, one of the Senate's fiercest opponents of a woman's right to choose.
I'm sure this all just a big coincidence, but that shouldn't stop the "read it off the fax page" media (Fox) from reporting this poll as God's honest truth.
posted by tbogg at 8:38 AM
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Marlene on the wall
Jim at the Rittenhouse Review has written a very nice piece on two very special people.
posted by tbogg at 7:53 AM
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Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Making America stupider...one word at a time.
Bushisms " resignate" with Americans.
Those verbal Bushisms are beginning to "resignate" with the American people. Maybe they'll even "embetter" the English language.
They may have started out as verbal slip-ups but several of President George W. Bush's mangled phrases found their way on Tuesday to a list of the top words of 2002.
"There are already 11,000 instances of 'misunderestimate' on the Web. The more people use words, whether jocularly or seriously, the more likely they are to enter the language and last for generations," said Paul J.J. Payack, chairman of yourDictionary.com, which compiled the list.
War, unemployment, illiteracy. Looks like, in Bush, America hit the trifecta.
posted by tbogg at 10:10 PM
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Say it ain't so Joe
Our little buddy, Ben Shapiro, tells us how Joe Lieberman broke a little Jewish boy's heart.
Now, I never supported Lieberman's run. I never hoped that he would win -- both my mother and my father voted for George W. Bush (I wasn't old enough to vote at the time). But I did hope that Lieberman's exposure could help change the media-created perception of Orthodox Jews as closed-off-to-the-world, ghetto Jews who could not function in the secular world. I hoped that Lieberman would provide an example of Orthodox Jewry at work. Thousands of Orthodox Jews like me hoped for the same thing.
Lieberman let us down
I have said before that I would not comment on Orthodox Judaism, about which I have as much firsthand information as Lil' Ben has about female anatomy. However I thought it was important to pass on this comment from Ben:
While Judaism does not ban interracial marriage as long as both people are Jewish, marriage between Jews and gentiles is completely banned.
So, when it comes to Ben Shapiro, all you shiksa's out there can breathe a sigh of relief...
posted by tbogg at 9:26 PM
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After six minutes he starts to chew on his tie....
President White Legacy doesn't think that minority students should get the same preferential treatment that Legacy or big donor kids get. You know, kids with gentleman's "C's" who can get into prestigious Ivy League colleges, bypassing the common riff raff with the higher SAT scores. Give me a minute and I'll think of someone...
In the meantime, George W. Bush, whose handlers live in sweaty ball-shrivelling fear of him making any off-the-cuff remarks, read his statement and was then was hustled out of the room before he wet himself or asked the assembled press if they would like to see him "clap real good with the music because I like the music a lot when we go on the bus".
Bush’s six-minute address from the Roosevelt Room, after which he took no questions from reporters, followed a statement Wednesday from presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer, who said race-dependent policies “do not serve to lift up our country and to help the average American.”
...who is white and makes over $125,000 per year. The Republican underclass...pity them.
posted by tbogg at 3:48 PM
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The One Minute Self Esteem Booster
If you ever feel like your life truly sucks, that you are worthless and nobody takes you seriously, just remember...you could be Alan Colmes:
BOB GARFIELD: I'm not, I'm not insulting you! I want you to look at your, yourself in the dynamic that is created on Fox News Channel in, in the Hannity & Colmes program. Are you there from the perspective of the listeners as an equal to Sean Hannity or are you a foil?
ALAN COLMES: According to whom?
BOB GARFIELD: In, in the minds of the people who are watching the program?
ALAN COLMES: Well I, I'm not in their minds. I don't-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]
BOB GARFIELD: Let's just say -- let's just -- to say most of the audience is conservative, let's -- for argument's sake.
ALAN COLMES: I would concur that there are probably a large number of those people, because they automatically agree with Sean Hannity, and automatically disagree with me. Many conservatives feel that for so many years their voice was not heard, and that to have a strong conservative voice on this medium encourages them and gives them hope that they previously didn't have, and some of them may view me as window dressing or think that I'm there simply as a foil. But that's their problem.
BOB GARFIELD: Well then what's it like to go on the air every night knowing that the audience is pre-disposed to disregard whatever you say, no matter how well you say it?
ALAN COLMES: Well you made a monolithic comment! I think there's a large part of the audience that, that does not agree with me, and they're pre-disposed not to believe the things I say; but on the other hand, I -- it's more fun for me to be in a situation like this than to preach to the choir!
Imagine having to play a part where you have to be dumber than Sean Hannity? There's more dignity in playing the before model in a hemorrhoid ad. No wonder Alan cries himself to sleep everynight...
posted by tbogg at 1:54 PM
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Charles Pickering...meet Ronnie White. No, you can't lynch him, Chuck...
Attempted lynching of privileged white guys shocks Republicans.
By renominating Pickering, the Republicans have proven that out of a nation of 150 million white adults, they still find it hard to find white guys who synchronize their watches to the year 2003. The Republican senators who cry that Pickering's leniency is being unfairly used against him were the same senators who let John Ashcroft hang Ronnie White's nomination for a federal judgeship from the Senate's rafters in 1999. Ashcroft, now our attorney general despite his honorary degree from racist and homophobic Bob Jones University and his hero worship of Confederate leaders, grossly distorted and misstated the record of White, an African-American, as ''pro-criminal'' when White had actually upheld the death penalty on the Missouri Supreme Court about as much or even more than his colleagues.
Even though Ashcroft all but lied, Hatch found White ''very troubling'' and voted against him. Frist also voted against White. But for Pickering, who defanged existing hate laws for a cross-burner, Frist says he is ''eminently qualified.''
Someone should ask Bill the Cat Killer Frist why he voted against Ronnie White. I'm sure the media will hop right on this...
posted by tbogg at 1:40 PM
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Gee. It looked like real grass...
Atrios provides us with a good example of Republican Astroturfing
Fake letters in support of a fake President.
posted by tbogg at 1:31 PM
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Repeat after me: Bush is not America personified...
Resident alien, Andy Sullivan is getting confused again. He seems to think that criticism of President Psycho Killer is the same as attacking America. Today he is upset with John Le Carre:
JOHN LE CARRE HAS GONE MAD: Circumstantial evidence, paranoia, denial, and as so often before with Le Carre, pathological hatred of America.
Let's look at how Le Carre exhibits his "hatred of America":
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions
snip
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.
Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall — just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.
Actually, I guess we should thank Sullivan for pointing out this piece. Read the whole thing, it's brilliant. And it's not anti-American in the least. It's anti-Moron-American.
His name is George Bush.
posted by tbogg at 9:02 AM
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Well, listing Porn Czar on your resume should liven it up...
Hit & Run points out that Utah's Porn Czar, Paula Houston is going to have to start pounding the pavement looking for a new gig.
Houston, a former local prosecutor, was believed to be the nation's first state official whose job was solely to fight pornography. The Republican-dominated Legislature created the post of Obscenity and Pornography Complaints Ombudsman two years ago.
Houston fielded calls about how parents and businesses could fight unsolicited e-mail promoting pornography, Internet pornography and unsavory shops in their communities.
"I think it's really important that thousands of people called for information. People want to protect their kids. This is a huge issue that's growing daily and it's not going away," she said.
She said she prosecuted three cases during her tenure, and has 15 others moving through the courts. She also helped draft legislation, including a measure that clarified a vague state law regulating public displays of indecency that could have included art works, she said.
I'm sure the good folks at Butt Plugs, Ben Wa, and Beyond, in downtown Orem, are heaving a big sigh of relief.
posted by tbogg at 8:45 AM
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We'll all meet a the Westwood Chuckie Cheese at 3pm, okay?
It's Ben Shapiro's birthday today:
Today I turn 19. To paraphrase Daniel Stern in Breaking Away, you get to drive when you're 16; you get to see R-rated movies when you're 17; you get to vote when you're 18, and you get to drink when you're 21. What do you get to do when you're 19?
Well, most of us got laid...but I guess that's out of the question in this case. Looks like another solo viewing of The Two Towers is in order. And Ben, try not to think about the homoerotic overtones in the relationship between Frodo and Sam.
It'll only ruin any future viewings...
posted by tbogg at 8:34 AM
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Basso not-so-profundo.
The Rittenhouse Review points out that you can download putative-female Ann Coulter's book Slander narrated in the Barry White-like tones of Ann herself. Extra credit should be given to Ann for not snorting and grunting during the reading of all her fake footnotes.
posted by tbogg at 8:05 AM
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George Will, Aaron Brown, AOL.
Yup. All whores. Which is why they are featured on Media Whores Online today.
posted by tbogg at 7:52 AM
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Sunday is National Sanctity of Human Life Day...no execution planned in Texas that day
Pledging to build a culture that respects life, President Bush is declaring a National Sanctity of Human Life Day.
The president heralded the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act he signed last year, which amends the legal definitions of "person," "human being," "child" and "individual" to include any fetus that survives an abortion procedure.
Bush also underscored his administration's efforts to champion "compassionate alternatives" to abortion, such as promoting maternity group homes, encouraging abstinence and adoption and passing parental-notification and waiting-period laws.
But the president also stopped short of condemning abortion — or the cause of abortion rights activists — outright, using only the veiled language of the anti-abortion movement.
"Every child is a priority and a blessing and I believe that all should be welcomed in life and protected by law," he said. "Through ethical policies and the compassion of Americas, we will continue to build a culture that respects life."
Here is a brief history of Bush respecting life.
As of 7:30pm EDT, December 7, 2000, 152 people have been executed during Bush's tenure as governor. This makes Texas Governor George W. Bush the most-killing Governor, in the history of the United States of America.
Here is Bush being compassionate.
In the second presidential debate, for instance, Bush argued that a stronger hate-crimes law was not needed in Texas because three men were facing the death penalty for the racially motivated murder of James Byrd, a black man dragged to his death behind a pickup truck.
'It's going to be hard to punish them any worse after they're put to death,' Bush said, with an out-of-place smile across his face.
But Bush wasn't telling the truth. One of the three killers actually had received life imprisonment, not the death penalty. Bush had misstated or exaggerated the facts of a major criminal case that had occurred during his tenure as Texas governor.
One could only imagine how the press would have played up a similar mistake by Gore. It would have been all the voters would have heard about for a week.
With its penchant for cookie-cutter 'themes' used to define candidates, the press also might have seized on Bush's smirking comment about the condemned men and used it to remind the public about Bush's earlier insensitivity when he mimicked condemned murderess Carla Faye Tucker as she was pleading for her life.
'With pursed lips in mock desperation, [Bush said] 'Please don't kill me',' wrote Talk magazine's conservative columnist Tucker Carlson.
Here is Bush planning on respecting life.
U.S. and British warplanes have bombed more than 80 targets in Iraq’s southern “no-fly” zone over the past five months, conducting an escalating air war even as U.N. weapons inspections proceed and diplomats look for ways to head off a full-scale war.
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