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Saturday, November 30, 2002
I'm back...
Sorry for the time off. It's been soccer tournament weekend, with games played an hour and a half away with starting times at 7:45 AM. You do the math on getting up and driving there plus time for warmups. Needless to say, it's been 8PM bedtimes, leaving no time for snark. The good news, my daughter's team is in the finals Sunday morning. Bad news. 8:30 AM gametime. I can't wait to get back to work so I can rest.
Best news of the weekend. After a very nice Thanksgiving at my parent's house, my dad gave me a box of books that the lady next door gave him before she passed away, to give to me. In the box was a very nice 1st edition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Pretty cool, huh?
Two sad notes...this week saw the passing of Karel Reisz, director of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and Who'll Stop the Rain (adapted from Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers). Additionally this week we also lost Harriet Doerr, author of Stones for Ibarra, an absolute gem of a novel. Ms Doerr finished her BA in her late sixties and published Stones, her first novel, at the age of 74, giving hope to all aspiring novelists that sometimes that book inside of them just takes a little longer to incubate than expected.
Both are talents that will be missed.
I'll be back Sunday night. I did a little catching up below.
posted by tbogg at 9:56 PM
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I guess freedom of the press is contingent on who owns the presses....
Paul Krugman points out what is obvious, while the rest of the journalistic pack looks the other way and whistles tunelessly.
But my purpose in today's column is not to bash Fox. I want to address a broader question: Will the economic interests of the media undermine objective news coverage?
For most of the last 50 years, public policy took it for granted that media bias was a potential problem. There were, after all, only three national networks, a limited number of radio licenses and only one or two newspapers in many cities. How could those who controlled major news outlets be deterred from misusing their position?
The answer was a combination of regulation and informal guidelines. The "fairness doctrine" forced broadcast media to give comparable representation to opposing points of view. Restrictions on ownership maintained a diversity of voices. And there was a general expectation that major news outlets would stay above the fray, distinguishing clearly between opinion and news reporting. The system didn't always work, but it did set some limits.
Over the past 15 years, however, much of that system has been dismantled.
Will media critics Micky Kaus and Howard Kurtz take up the story, or just beat the messenger? Do you really have to ask?
posted by tbogg at 9:44 PM
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But enough about me...let's talk about me...
Peggy Noonan took time out from her Thanksgiving holidays to, well, lie about Tom Daschle so she can whine and ask for the country's pity while saying that she never asks for the country's pity because that would be...whining. You really have to read it:
Let me not pick on a teenager, for teenagers are by definition unfinished. They often confuse their needs and wants with the world's. Let's pick on adults. Let's pick on Tom Daschle.
He, as a leader of a great political party, is an example-setter for the young. Some of them might look to him as a famous man who knows how to be an adult. After the dreadful showing of the Democrats in the election he held a news conference in which he famously blamed Rush Limbaugh and other conservative radio talk show hosts for inciting people to . . . well, to not liking Tom Daschle. Rush says mean things about Tom. His listeners, who Tom Daschle subtly suggests are possibly unstable and insane--how could they not be, they're conservative--get a little too excited when they hear Rush, and start to make rude sounds. "The threat level goes up," says Tom Daschle.
Oh, please. Boo hoo. When people disagree with you they criticize you. When you're trying to tell an entire nation how to live, which is what big-time politics comes down to now, some people will fight back with terrible weapons such as sarcasm, irony and vulgarity. They will sometimes be mean. So what?
Whoa there, little filly. Let's look at what Tom Daschle said (according to faux media journalist, Howard Kurtz):
The conservative radio host has been all over the tube this week accusing Daschle of "whining," while casting himself as a champion of free speech and generally reveling in the attention that the senator has bestowed on him.
"What happens when Rush Limbaugh attacks those of us in public life is that people aren't just content to listen," Daschle told reporters. "People want to act because they get emotional . . . and the threats to those of us in public life go up dramatically, against us and against our families, and it's very disconcerting." He compared Limbaugh's "shrill" tone to that of violent fundamentalists abroad.
Let's review what Peggy said again:
His listeners, who Tom Daschle subtly suggests are possibly unstable and insane
Now Tom:
"What happens when Rush Limbaugh attacks those of us in public life is that people aren't just content to listen....People want to act because they get emotional . . . and the threats to those of us in public life go up dramatically, against us and against our families"
I'm still looking for the subtle suggestion that Daschle said these people are "...possibly unstable and insane". Under most circumstances I would bow to Peggy's expertise in this matter, using the time-tested axiom that it "takes one to know one", but, unless the Americans With Disabilities Act adds sexual hysteria as a covered disability, I'm not going to let her slide with 'shading' the story just so that she can vent farther down the page. To wit:
My political philosophy is conservative. I am pro-life. I live in New York City, surrounded by modern people. They are mostly left-wing, they are all pro-choice, many of them passionately and even furiously so. I have written books saying Ronald Reagan is a great man and Hillary Clinton is a bad woman. I know something about being a target, and I know something about hate mail. I have received not hundreds but thousands of the most personal and obscene denunciations; I have received death threats; I have been threatened with blackmail; I have been informed that I do not deserve to live; I have received a three page typed double spaced letter with perfect grammar and syntax the first sentence of which was "Dr. Ms Noonan, Let me explain to you why you are a . . ." and here I cannot suggest the word used. But damned if he didn't make a good case. I used to hear regularly from a woman who'd tell me she hopes I have a brain hemorrhage.
I have never talked about this because I would consider speaking of it both self-pitying and self-aggrandizing. But there's another reason. I'm a grownup. I know you pay a price for the stands you take.
Which is, of course, why she takes the opportunity to mention it. But she's not whining, you see, or looking for pity or attention. Oh no, she wants Daschle to be A MAN and take it like a man, because if there is one thing that Peggy loves, it's men. Big manly, testosterone-soaked, manly, male men. Up column she reverted back to her post 9-11 NY-Fireman-moist-panty stalking mode:
We are a big muscle-bound nation. We are so physically strong! We have muscles and missiles and more.
Muscles and missiles and more....oh my!
I have often refered to Peggy as the Blanche DuBois of the Wall Street Journal. But with this latest outburst of sexual aggression I have to amend my appraisal. I'm leaning more towards the voracious Sue Ann Nivens from the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
God help us all...the men, especially....
posted by tbogg at 9:16 PM
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National Retail Emergency Announced
With over $1.43 billion in sales on November 29, Wal-Mart has seriously depleted the United States Strategic Crap Reserve, leaving the country dangerously low. Manufacturers are adding additional shifts to crank out more Zip & Zoom Shannens, Dancing Ostriches, Spiderman bedsets, creepy nightmarish Diva Starz Fashion dolls, and Alan Jackson CD's.
The 23% of Americans who are morbidly obese will be happy to know that sales of stockpiled Segways stayed flatter than Dick Cheney's EKG, meaning that they may still be able to obtain one, speeding up that run from the couch to the kitchen to grab a 2 liter of Royal Crown Cola and a handful of Little Debbie Cakes without all the walking and huffing and puffing and sweating.
posted by tbogg at 8:27 PM
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Thursday, November 28, 2002
Beat me, hurt me...send me to Iraq
Looks like the State Department has changed quite a bit under the Bush Administration.
The United Nations launched perhaps its most important weapons inspections ever yesterday with a team that includes a 53-year-old Virginia man with no specialized scientific degree and a leadership role in sadomasochistic sex clubs.
An Internet search of open Web sites conducted by The Washington Post found that McGeorge is the co-founder and past president of Black Rose, a Washington-area pansexual S&M; group, and the former chairman of the board of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. He is also a founding officer of the Leather Leadership Conference Inc., which “produces training sessions for current and potential leaders of the sadomasochism/leather/fetish community,” according to its Web site. Several Web sites describe McGeorge’s training seminars involving various acts conducted with knives and ropes.
McGeorge said yesterday that a State Department official invited him to apply for the U.N. team, and officials at State and the U.N. did not ask about his S&M; background. But he said he would tender his resignation to Blix if The Post printed a story about it.
Is this what they meant when they said the adults were going to be back in charge?
posted by tbogg at 1:09 PM
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Wednesday, November 27, 2002
Football, food, and folks...feh
We're just not a big Thanksgiving family around our household. Outside of getting together with our extended family, it's just some days off...and that's about it. None of us like turkey or pie, and the idea of sitting around watching football all day doesn't exactly get our nipples hard. Shopping the day after Thanksgiving? We don't know anybody who needs the Christina Aguilera Bendable Dirrty Slut Doll, so "no thanks".
So there will be blogging on Thanksgiving as well as the day after (minus time out for a local soccer tournament). Not heavy blogging mind you, just some light blogging that will allow me to get caught up on some reading as well as time to make my wife scream out, "Make me a woman, Mandingo!!!", if you know what I mean, and I think you do....
Everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving whether you are Pilgrim or a bound-for-the-fiery-pits-of-hell-with-smoldering-entrails-and-a-wicked-headache-non-Pilgrim.
posted by tbogg at 9:20 PM
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Twas the night before Thanksgiving....
Just some quick hits to keep you informed Thanksgiving morning, unless you're the kind of person who watches the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in which case, well...seek help...
As expected, Chris Hitchens popped a hemorrhoid about Henry Kissinger. And for good reason....
But can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest
Next
Apparently you can change the past. Martha Brant points out the President 65% Approval can't seem to shake his predecessor (you remember, chubby guy, eight years of peace and prosperity, attracted blowjobs like Rush draws slack-jawed yokels...):
But whenever Bush has had to follow Clinton anywhere—notably to the D-Day ceremonies at Normandy last Memorial Day—his administration has been keenly aware of Clinton’s shadow.
This even carries over to the White House Web site. A friend who recently went online to look up remarks by Clinton and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa easily found the text of Albright’s four-year-old press statements on the State Department site. But on the White House site, the only reference he could find to Clinton was a standard biography. “I’ve checked out the ‘site map,” the ‘history’ section, the ‘current news’ etc,” quipped my friend. “It seems history began on Jan 21 of last year.”
Next.
I know Rittenhouse has this link up already, but he e-mailed it to me this afternoon and its way too good to not link.
Paul Musgrave on Peggy Noonan. Genius. Absolute genius.
Next
You'll forgive Howard Fineman if he's too full to eat Thanksgiving dinner. He spent Wednesday servicing President Poltical Powerhouse. He should have saved some room for pie.
A year ago this week, I was in the conference room of Air Force One, interviewing a still-new president about an uncertain new post-9/11 world. A year later, George W. Bush is a political powerhouse, at home and abroad. And yet Democrats are eager to run against him in 2004. Why? Because they know something his father learned, and that the current President Bush shouldn’t forget: A year is a lifetime in the turbulent world of American politics. He’s aced his exams so far – exceeding expectations that I always knew the Washington Establishment had set too low
Next
Micky Kaus is feeling neglected:
Hate Me, Please! My hate e-mail has all but disappeared, which is vaguely disconcerting. For the past two years (ever since the Florida recount) I've gotten at least two, sometimes 200, abusive missives a day -- until about three months ago, when the stream of vitriol seemed to dry up. Other bloggers still complain to me that they're oppressed by offensive correspondence. I join in the griping, not daring to tell them the truth. ... Does the link at the bottom of the page not work anymore? (No, it does.) Is nobody reading kf? (No, the stats look healthy.) Has the Web suddenly become more civil? Were all the nasty e-mails orchestrated by obscure talk shows and sites like Media Whores Online -- so that if you're not on their radar, you don't get flamed? I'm at a loss. ...Update: Now that's more like it! Thanks to all the kf readers who came through with vicious calumny and opprobrium. Glad to know you're still there. Have a good Thanksgiving! .. 3:03 A.M.
Irrelevance is a bitch...
And finally
Norah Vincent finds a reason to move to Germany. (Yes. More of that leftwing gay baiting....)
posted by tbogg at 8:58 PM
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The Music Critic Full Employment Act
I'm not sure where they come from, but it seems that we have more music critics than you can shake your groove thang at. There was a time when we enjoyed the psychotic, yet interesting, ramblings of a Lester Bangs, and it is my understanding that the turgid and calcified Greil Marcus was a critic of some repute, although I would tend to ask for at least three letters of reference and a blood test from Greil, if he has any blood left. Which brings me to David Samuels over at Slate. In his latest, The Real King of Rap he posits that Nas is a better rapper than Eminem.
I should say here that, back in 1994, the idea that Nas was the king of rap was a matter of local pride to many New Yorkers. After all, New York City had invented rap music—a genre that took brains and humor to master. At the time, to lose the rap crown to a rapper from Detroit—or, more to the point back then, Los Angeles—was widely understood to be impossible. Unfortunately, the West Coast then discovered Dr. Dre, the production genius who invented the sound of NWA (Niggas With Attitude) and then followed up that group's massive commercial success with the playful-yet-menacing bounce of Snoop Doggy Dogg and Tha Dogg Pound. Arguably the single most influential producer of popular music in the world during the '90s, Dr. Dre has a supernatural ability to write (and steal) hooks and beats that are simple and catchy enough to power hit rap songs. Eminem may have Hollywood and Dr. Dre behind him—but he's still nowhere near as good as Nas.
Okay. Let's stop right here. Would it be too much to ask that an "artist" be judged on the merits of his or her art without drawing into the discussion the whole East Coast vs. West Coast rap wars myth? Isn't the whole rap "rivalry" storyline kind of.....stupid? Like everything else in the music business, it's all about marketing which is all about the benjamins and the bling bling it can buy (as I go all urban for your reading pleasure). East Coast versus West Coast was just a way of selling a product that was cheap to produce thereby flooding the market. Why buy Tupac and not Biggie? East coast vs west coast, yo. When a critic spends their time, and ours, reinforcing the marketing people's message, they have stopped being a critic we should take seriously (which is a whole other can of worms) and become...a marketing person themselves. Although rap has a certain entertainment value, I'm not so sure that it really warrants any additional discourse on how culturally important it is, how it reflects the world the rapper lives in, how it keeps it real, or any other stock phrase from the rap critic's well-worn toolbox. Nowadays any discussion on rap is apt to be as important as a Gilligan's Island symposium combined with a Steel Cage Deathmatch over who would win a battle between Mighty Mouse and Superman. We're not talking Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan here. While " I like big butts" or "sippin on gin and juice" may appeal to the Clarence Thomas in us all, I don't feel any rush of enlightenment firing off any additional synapses.
What it gets down to is this: the average "rap" is about as culturally important these days as "My Sharona". It's a beat with words suitable for head nodding, not head expanding. If critics can draw a paycheck for discussing its merits, well, good for them. But don't expect me to take it seriously. Then again, as the Refreshments once said, “ Baby I was never cool enough to get a job at a record store”. So what do I know, yo.
posted by tbogg at 5:18 PM
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Thou shalt not commit hyperbole
Tis the season for Christian Fundamentalists to act crazier than usual (not that it's easy to tell).
Some Christians are lashing out at Planned Parenthood for a greeting card they say mocks their holiday season
The cover of the light-blue card features a snowflake design and the words "Choice on Earth."
Several national Christian groups opposed to abortion are protesting on Web sites, radio shows and in letters to newspapers nationwide. They say the language demeans the Christmastime "Peace on Earth" message proclaimed by the angels.
Charlotte's Diane Hoefling, who helps lead the anti-abortion effort at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, e-mailed 50 friends, family and supporters, urging them to protest the cards, which she claims "pervert the Biblical announcement of the Son of God as a newborn baby."
I wasn't aware that Christianity had trademarked "Peace on Earth". I know the Catholic Church has submitted the paperwork for "We're looking for a few young altar boys".
Then there is this calm well-reasoned statement of fact:
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America noted that Christmas celebrates the birth of a baby to a young mother -- a baby who was laid in a manger because there was nowhere else to go.
"If Planned Parenthood had been around 2,000 years ago," she said, "then Jesus would have been a target to be aborted."
Order you cards here.
Your t-shirt here
posted by tbogg at 9:25 AM
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The Kissinger Kommission
President Bush signed legislation creating a new independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks Wednesday and named former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to lead the panel.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the idea behind creating the commission to look into what went wrong? How the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Bush Administration failed the country? But, of course, that would increase the possibility of revealing to the country that that they were all asleep at the wheel, and we can't have that. So what is the commission going to do? Glad you asked. According to President I Didn't Do it:
However, Bush did not set as a primary goal for the commission to uncover mistakes or lapses of the government that could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks. Instead, he said it should try to help the administration learn the tactics and motives of the enemy.
“This commission will help me and future presidents to understand ... the nature of the threats we face,” he said.
Isn't that the responsibility of the CIA and the NSA?
Although they are a poor example, this is like asking the Warren Commission to make suggestions of how to keep Presidents from getting killed. In other words, the Kissinger Commission is just a big fraud. A way for the Bush Administration to look like they are doing something until the next election rolls around (also see: Homeland Defense Department). Democratic Senators should be howling from the rooftops over this, demanding real 9/11 accountability, but that is unlikely until modern medicine perfects the spine implant.
In the meantime we are left with a phony investigative panel run by a fraud selected by a fake President . Karl Rove must be laughing his ass off.
posted by tbogg at 9:02 AM
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I'd tell you, but then I'd have to actually show proof...
Michael Kelly, who gets a little bit stupider with every word he types, is oh so happy that those Clinton foreign policy types are gone.
The important person leaned forward, his eyes unusually ablaze with deep and subtle and clever thoughts, and he said, in a demi-whisper: No, you don't understand. As long as Hussein behaves like this, the U.N. sanctions will stay in effect, and as long as the sanctions stay in effect, Hussein will stay weak. If he obeys the U.N. mandates, then the sanctions will disappear, and he will become strong again. We've got him just where we want him.
This Thanksgiving, I am thankful that this person, and all the other deep and subtle and clever people of the Clinton White House, and all the thoughts they thought, and all the damage they wrought, are history.
Kelly then explains to us how Hussein has become powerful again, and how he is a threat to the US.
Actually, he doesn't. Because then he would have to play journalist and marshall his facts and explain why we have to go get the Evildoer Saddam. But he isn't and he can't so he doesn't. It's so much easier to start off with a few self-deprecating remarks followed by a campy over-dramatization with an unnamed Clinton source, before proceeding to what should be the meat of the column. But there's no main course served here. Instead he delivers a smirky (it must be in the air during this administration) condemnation of the Clinton Administration while extolling the "accruing foreign policy triumphs of the Bush administration". Evidence of the triumphs? We don' need no steekin' evidence....
Basically, Kelly's column is as fact-free as a Christy Whitman EPA report, so the question is, if Kelly couldn't take the time to do just a little bit of research, give us a little taste of those Bush foreign policy triumphs or how Saddam threatens the US, then why should we take the effort to read it?
posted by tbogg at 8:39 AM
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Maybe the Tea Cup ride on the Lido deck was a bad idea...
60 Disney cruise passengers fall ill
I will die a happy man if the cause is mouse droppings.....
posted by tbogg at 3:52 PM
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The Bush twins suffer denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance
Three University of Oklahoma students were ticketed after Norman police stopped them and found 2,100 cans of beer in their truck.
The three said they were taking the beer to the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house about two hours before Saturday's football game between the University of Oklahoma and Texas Tech University
Officers have poured the 70 cases of beer, valued at $836, down a sink. Each case contained 30 cans.
Jenna Bush later found on her bed crying and moaning, "Oh, the humanity...".
posted by tbogg at 3:42 PM
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Okay. I got "ladies" to rhyme with "Euphrates". But I can't get "Mecca" to rhyme with "Lexus".
Yo yo yo..check it out. Muslim hip-hop group draws on Islam in America
So wave your hands in the air, like Muhhamed don't care.....
posted by tbogg at 3:28 PM
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Okay...I'm going.....
This week's Onion may be one of the best ever.
posted by tbogg at 2:09 PM
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Have you heard the news...there's no bloggin' tonight...
No blogging tonight as I will be spending the evening with Shirley Manson and Gwen Stefani (and my wife and daughter too). I'll bring everyone home a t-shirt. Garbage? Or No Doubt?
Please use the time to keep up with the 24/7 coverage of the Lisa Marie/Nicholas Cage divorce and recriminations.
posted by tbogg at 12:42 PM
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Activating nerd deflector shields...
Rittenhouse Review has taken the view that he won't link to any blogs that link to Little Green Footballs because, well, LGF is kinda rabid hate-mongering nutso. I can respect that. I've been to LGF and it's not my thing. What is hard to respect is the aptly named USS Clueless criticizing the decision. I'm sure that my lack of respect has as much to do with the ludicrous Star Trek theme of the blog as for statements such as this:
Initial examination of RR's site instantly conveys an unmistakable pomposity anyway
After which Star Fleet Commander den Beste cites reasoning gleaned from John Stuart Mill, and further comments:
I found all of his arguments persuasive; Mill was an amazing philosopher, and Mill and Bertrand Russell are the two historical minds who have influenced me the most strongly.
Yeah. And episode 49 The Trouble with Tribbles was a landmark in my life too.
Quite frankly, anyone who blogs outside of his Star Trek ring, criticizes someone as being pompous while citing Mill, and expects to be taken seriously, really needs a slap upside the head, or at least needs to be deprived of conjugal visits from his imaginary girlfriend.
Added: Counterspin and Eschaton are already on this. Okay. So I'm late coming to the party. But it's fashionably late....
posted by tbogg at 10:19 AM
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Georgia out of its mind
Jeff Berry at Creative Loafing doesn't think much of the recent election in Georgia.
What you heard on Nov. 5 was not a Republican earthquake. It was the sound of progressive men like William B. Hartsfield and Robert Woodruff and Charles Weltner rolling over in their graves. For the first time in a generation, the reins of Georgia government have been handed over to a wide-eyed hick who proudly panders to the neo-confederate crowd, a shadowy and racist gang of baccer-chewin' morons most city folks had believed to be extinct, if not permanently powerless
posted by tbogg at 9:38 AM
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A travellers guide to the vast wasteland
Outside of The Simpsons I just don't watch TV. It's not a snob thing, I can be just as low brow as the next guy (within reason). It's just that with the Internet, magazines, newspapers, books, and servicing my wife's unnatural, but delightful, cravings, I just don't have the time to invest in TV. But I still want to know what is going on in the world of TV since it's a window to the nation's soul (cue: chill going up your spine). For that reason, I enjoy Television Without Pity. It lets you know what is going on without watching TV, and if you are watching TV, it lets you know how bad you should feel for watching what you watch. (That sentence sounds better spoken than read). Anyway, check it out for a heaping helping of snark with a side order of guilt. Kind of like having Janeane Garofalo as your mom....
posted by tbogg at 9:14 AM
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Should I stay or should I go?
Rep. Ken Lucas of Kentucky is thinking about jumping parties.
Rep. Ken Lucas, the only Democrat in the Kentucky congressional delegation, is considering switching parties to become a Republican, congressional sources said Monday.
Lucas, a conservative, is considering the change in an effort to head off what is expected to be a strong GOP challenge in the 2004 election, the sources explained.
I'm sure that Republicans will deplore his jumping parties so soon after the election and will hold him in the same contempt that they hold Jim Jeffords.
Yeah. That'll happen...
Meanwhile, Lucas could not be reached since he was busy serving as Grand Marshall in the annual Greater Louisville Rickets Parade.
posted by tbogg at 8:08 AM
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Monday, November 25, 2002
Hey mister, where you headed? Are you in a hurry?
Punk pop band Green Day (one of the greatest live acts...ever) have an anti-war petition going. Sign here.
posted by tbogg at 11:03 PM
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Suffering from poverty envy...
EJ Dionne points out what most of us already knew: the editorial page writers at the Wall Street Journal are nuts.
I am not making this up. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page always provides important clues about the Next New Thing among conservatives, and there it was last week assailing "The Non-Taxpaying Class."
snip
The editorial writers are roiled by the fact that the richest Americans, those with incomes of more than $500,000 a year, account for 28 percent of total tax revenue and that the top 5 percent "coughed up more than half of total tax revenue." The Journal contrasts these unfortunate souls with the thriving person who earns $12,000 a year and ends up "paying a little less than 4 percent of income in taxes."
Worse yet, various tax credits, mostly aimed at helping families raise children, further reduce the income tax burden on low-income folks to the point that "almost 13 percent of all workers have no tax liability and so are indifferent to income tax rates. And that doesn't include another 16.5 million who have some income but don't file at all."
Then comes this remarkable sentence: "Who are these lucky duckies?"
posted by tbogg at 10:50 PM
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The parent trap
Some Financially Strapped Parents Dipping Into Their Unwitting Kids' Credit
CHICAGO (AP) - It was her first credit card application, or so she thought, prompted by an offer on her Ohio college campus for a free T-shirt.
But a rejection letter uncovered troubling news - someone had already opened four credit cards in her name and racked up $50,000 in debt.
That someone, it turns out, was her father.
"I couldn't believe it," says the young woman, who asked not to be named for fear of humiliating her father, who was never charged criminally.
Now 25 and living in Chicago, she says she knew her father was struggling financially after his divorce from her mother and the failure of his restaurant. But she never imagined he'd fill out credit card applications sent to his home in her name. "He completely violated my trust and my privacy and my future," she says
I see the credit card companies are doing their due dilligence.
posted by tbogg at 9:38 PM
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Barbie's plus-sized friend who has a real pretty face and a sunny outlook on life
With her inhumanly tiny waist and ample bosom, she's long been criticized as sending the wrong message to girls about how they should look when they grow up.
But this holiday season, Barbie will have to make room on the toy store shelf for a new friend, the plus-sized Emme doll -- fashioned after the model of the same name.
Emme, which was introduced at FAO Schwarz in New York and Hamleys in London last month in time for the holiday shopping season, is a 16-inch collector's doll. Tonner is working on a 12-inch play doll version to be released in the spring.
"It was fun to sculpt -- I got to put weight on her -- and then dressing her was a blast," said Tonner, who worked in fashion in New York for 20 years. "I wanted a new canvas to put the clothes on."
The Emme doll comes with a sweat pants, oversized t-shirt, nine cats, a Diana Gabaldon novel, and a phone that never rings on Saturday night.
(Man...that was mean. Even by my standards)
posted by tbogg at 9:29 PM
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He ain't heavy. He's my moron.
Canada's prime minister Jean Chretien has told his country's media that George W Bush is not "a moron".
According to the New York Daily News,
Mr Chretien said: "He is a friend of mine. He isn't a moron at all."
Then Mr Chretien went and had sex to keep up the National average. (see below)
posted by tbogg at 9:17 PM
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More fallout from the Bush administration.
Sex 138 times a year is U.S. average
Americans have sex an average of 138 times a year, according to a survey released Monday by condom manufacturer Durex. The British have sex more often than Americans, but are outdone by the French, Dutch, Danes and Canadians
The Canadians!
Of course we all know why our National average is down.
The Virgin Ben.
Just like him to make the rest of us pick up the slack. Maybe he could start pulling his weight instead of his pud. Then again...look at him. It's not like he has many outlets for...expression.
posted by tbogg at 9:11 PM
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One time, at band camp....
The Freeport High School Rock 'n' Roll Club
Last spring, Green became one of the founding members of Freeport High School's Rock 'n' Roll Club, a unique extracurricular activity group that teaches budding musicians how to perform rock music ranging from Chuck Berry to Green Day. The club now has 12 members and two bands — "The Hawks," mostly made up of freshmen, and "Tuck and Roll," which includes mostly sophomores and juniors.
Led by Ed Roy, a Freeport dentist and parent of one of the members, and Jerry Parent, owner of The Music Center in Brunswick, the youths have learned about 20 cover songs and performed at least 10 concerts so far. They plan to begin song-writing workshops soon and perform a spring concert with new, original material.
"It was an idea whose time had come," said Roy, whose wife, Jane Roy, is a math teacher at Freeport High School and serves as the club's adviser. "When young people get together to have a band, they don't always have this kind of focus and direction," Roy said
Note to the Freeport Rock 'n' Roll club: If you have advisers and one of them is a kid's dad who is a dentist.... it's not "rock 'n' roll". Like " South Park Republicans, written about by Stephen W Stanton who is not a dork regardless of the picture, high school "Rock 'n' Roll club" members are just band geeks with enough attitude to make their parents shake their collective heads and wonder if those "crazy kids" have been smoking Ecstasy or huffing Pop Rocks or something.
With a bit of work though, they may get a gig at at a Trekie Convention...Live long and prosper.
posted by tbogg at 2:40 PM
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You got to give Drudge credit for linking this:
KEEP BIG BROTHER'S HANDS OFF THE INTERNET
The Clinton administration would like the Federal government to have the capability to read any international or domestic computer communications. The FBI wants access to decode, digest, and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail, and proprietary information sent abroad -- all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.
This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans' privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that our U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of international cyber-surfers, but the administration threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete and unemployed.
There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should we grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?
Then again, the internet is Drudge's basket of eggs that he doesn't want scrambled...
posted by tbogg at 1:51 PM
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What a difference two years make...
Todays headline:
Bush signs homeland security bill
a couple of years ago it would have said:
Clinton creates massive new bureaucracy. Hillary thought behind it. Burton vows hearings.
posted by tbogg at 1:09 PM
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When did America become the short-bus country?
From the NATO meetings Elisabeth Bumiller writes:
Mr. Bush has also been at ease, American and foreign officials said, in one-on-one meetings. His style will never be that of former President Bill Clinton, who could talk for hours on a breadth of subjects. But Mr. Bush does not live up to his reputation in parts of Europe as a know-nothing lone ranger, diplomats said.
"You go in there thinking, `Oh my God,' and you come out thinking, `Hmmm, not bad,' " said a senior European diplomat who has been in meetings with Mr. Bush. "Maybe it's a triumph of low expectations, but the reality is that this is the experience a lot of people have had. Clinton was like a charisma bomb — he just wowed people. But Bush comes across as a decent guy who's up to the job.
"Hmmmmmm, not bad"...the "gentleman's C" of foreign diplomacy.
Jeez. Our "President" gets applause for not putting his pants on backwards in the morning.
(Thanks Kimberly...)
posted by tbogg at 12:51 PM
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Getting ahead of the Sullivan curve.
Well obviously this John Reed guy is an America hater.
What if Snowball had his chance? An American novelist has written a parody of "Animal Farm," George Orwell's 1945 allegory about the evils of communism, in which the exiled pig, Snowball, returns to the farm and sets up a capitalist state, leading to misery for all the animals. The book, "Snowball's Chance" by John Reed, is being published this month by Roof Books, a small independent press in New York. And the estate of George Orwell is not happy about it
Here is where it will get fun:
Snowball's Chance" is being published at a time when Orwell's reputation has been under attack because of revelations that in the late 1940's he gave the British Foreign Office a list of people he suspected of being "crypto-Communists and fellow travelers," labeling some of them as Jews and homosexuals as well. One of those condemning Orwell has been the writer Alexander Cockburn, whose father, Claud, a British journalist and member of the Communist Party, was a bitter foe of Orwell's.
"How quickly one learns to loathe the affectations of plain bluntishness," Mr. Cockburn writes in an introduction to Mr. Reed's novella. "The man of conscience turns out to be a whiner, and of course a snitch."
Coming to Orwell's defense in a book published in September, "Why Orwell Matters" (Basic Books), Christopher Hitchens calls Orwell "a great humanist" whose opinions still hold water. "It has lately proved possible to reprint every single letter, book review and essay composed by Orwell," he writes, "without exposing him to any embarrassment."
The debate is set to continue this evening, when Mr. Hitchens is scheduled to appear at Cooper Union with Simon Schama, James Miller and the New Yorker writer Bill Buford for "Orwell Now," a symposium presented by the PEN American Center.
Mr. Reed said he was watching the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on television in his East Village apartment on Sept. 11 when the idea came to him to rewrite the Orwell classic. "I thought, `Why would they do this to us?' " he remembered. "The twin towers attack showed us that something is wrong with our system, too."
After Sully gets over the vapors after reading that last comment, what do you think? Begala Award or Sontag Award? I can hear his power glutes tightening up from all the way across the country. Taking on American corporatism using Orwell? My god!. ..the depths to which the depraved, despicable, deluded, debauched (wait a minute, Sully likes debauched...) liberals will go to! Shame! Shame!
posted by tbogg at 12:43 PM
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Man. I'm glad Rittenhouse is back.
This is really good. Take the time to read it.
posted by tbogg at 11:33 AM
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Born for the role: Or why I love it when conservatives play stupid...
Sullivan has company. Eugene Volokh, who is supposed to be smart, jumps on the bashing-Krugman/neoptism- bandwagon.:
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS: The Phantom Tollbooth forcefully criticizes Paul Krugman's complaint about powerful Republican children of powerful Republican parents. (Yes, it's just the Republicans who come in for criticism, and not Democrats, such as Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo, Jesse Jackson, Jr. -- and this partisanship is part of The Tollbooth's complaint.)
Three out of the four cited by Volokh were...here it comes....wait for it....elected to office, not appointed.
But what particularly bothers me is the way that Krugman lambasts the children without any inquiry into whether they might have actually earned the jobs on the merits. After all, isn't it possible that children of smart people may be smart (partly out of heredity and partly out of upbringing)? That children of ambitious people may be ambitious? That children of successful politicians might have the attitudes or experiences that are helpful to making them successful politicians? (Actually, both Bush 43 and Jeb seem to be more gifted in the political arts than their father.)
Krugman points to the Bush brothers, Elizabeth Cheney, Eugene Scalia, Eugene Scalia (sic), Janet Rehnquist, William Kristol, and John Podhoretz, and says "What's interesting is how little comment, let alone criticism, this roll call has occasioned." Now maybe some of these people got their posts chiefly because of their lineage, and maybe others didn't. But shouldn't it occasion comment and criticism that Krugman is essentially impugning the qualities of each of these people -- by suggesting that each got his or her post as a matter of "inherited status," which is to say based primarily on family connections -- without any attempt to prove this?
As Volokh points out, Krugman says:
"What's interesting is how little comment, let alone criticism, this roll call has occasioned."
Volokh leapfrogs over Krugman's comment and asks 'shouldn't we comment and criticize Krugman for asking if we should comment on and criticize these appointments'. Which means that Volokh has chosen to not answer Krugman's assertion (offense being easier to play than defense). It's a nice rhetorical dodge made all the easier by the unfounded charge that Krugman "lambasts" the children. Evidence of "lambasting"? It looks like counsel has chosen to not submit it.
Now let's look at the names involved here: Cheney, Scaila, Rehnquist. Not exactly children of the First Assistant to the Under Secretary of Dairy Products Assigned to the World Bank. To say that these three were the best possible choices who got where they are by hard work and pluck, and not by their names, is to give new meaning to being obtuse. And, just in case you weren't entirely thrown off the scent by Volokh's tapdance, he provides the obligatory immigrant-child-who-pulled-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps stories of Viet Dihn and himself so that we can forget what the gist of the Krugman story was. Because no matter how sad the story, everyone enjoys a happy ending...
*******
One last comment. Volokh also writes:
Is having a prominent Republican father prima facie evidence of inadequate competence?
I rest my case.....
posted by tbogg at 11:28 AM
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Reporters accidentally given access to unscripted, kinda-stupid-looking President.
We got'cher picture right here.
A surprised President Bush (news - web sites), right, in his running tights, looks at reporters and photographers spilling out of vans, which were accidentally driven onto the grounds of Fort McNair, Sunday, Nov. 24, 2002, in Washington. In the background is first lady Laura Bush, and a Secret Service agent, left. The news media was immediately told to get back in the vans by security agents and driven off the Army grounds
Crisis averted. What if they had asked him some questions and he had felt compelled to answer without Karl's scripted comments?
Hope the reporters enjoy their stay in Camp X-Ray.
posted by tbogg at 10:54 AM
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Now if we can only get Michael Jackson on that Child Safety Board....
Jeb! (you remember, chubby guy, got a daughter who's a crack whore...) anyway, Jeb! has decided to appoint hapless butterfly-ballot-designing Teresa LePore to Florida's 15-member, 2002 Select Task Force on Election Procedures.
That's right. Teresa LePore who had a claw in screwing up the 2000 election (in favor of Bush's brother, oddly enough) is going to share her experience with the good people of Florida so that they get the elections that they deserve.
Meanwhile South American strongman dictators are having peasants shot for refering to their country as a "Florida Republic"....
(Thanks to Maia for pointing this one out)
posted by tbogg at 9:20 AM
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Journalistic shortcuts
Normally, I like Frank Rich's columns but this one seems like he just mailed it in.
Republicans profess to be delighted at this prospect while non-Gore Democrats are despondent. They are united in their recognition that he is the least spontaneous presidential contender since Richard Nixon, who similarly kept rolling out "new" incarnations of his public persona after each defeat.
It would be safe to say that any journalist that rolls out the old "Gore-is-re-inventing-himself" storyline just didn't feel like working that week. I mean, jeez, it took Rich fourteen days to come up with that? Every time Gore speaks you've got some lazy pundit lurking around the corner ready to jump in a say, "Gore says he like chicken. But two weeks ago he said he liked pizza. There he goes again re-inventing himself and pandering to people who like chicken...".
Rich can do better...and so can the other "reporters", if they feel like actually working.
posted by tbogg at 8:27 AM
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We may have to build a new wing in the Spin Hall of Fame....
for Ken Kachigian. Kachigian, famous for advising Gov. Pete Wilson to alienate Hispanics during his last campaign, thereby condemning Republicans to wander for 40 years in the Inland Empire without holding a statewide office, now thinks that the Republicans are poised to take back California. While many of his points are debatable, one is, well it's downright hilarious:
The governor and his entrenched legislative allies served up a $24 billion budget deficit this past year, and just last week the state legislative analyst projected another $21 billion shortfall for 2003-04. The botched state finances are tied right into an energy crisis that also took place on the Democrats' watch. Their party has hitched its wagon to a couple of ugly horses. And neither taints the popular president.
Yes. While the energy companies were doing their best to rape the California economy during the energy "crisis" where were the Republicans? Oh, that's right. Holding the energy company's coats and making suggestions for a few new positions. Kachigian complaining about the Democrats letting the energy crisis happen on their watch is like having the getaway driver point out that the bank never would have been robbed if they hadn't opened for business.
posted by tbogg at 8:15 AM
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...stock in Anheuser-Busch Companies doubles on early trading.
President Bush’s daughters turn 21
posted by tbogg at 7:41 AM
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Friday, November 22, 2002
Andy degenerates into pure stupidity
While I think that Andy Sullivan is a fairly intelliegent person, I have to wonder if I am giving him too much credit. Case in point:
KRUGMAN'S NEW LOW: If you want a good example of the sheer partisan degeneracy that now marks Paul Krugman's New York Times columns, check out today's. It's about the rise of nepotism in America's political system. It's a worthwhile point, and one I've made myself on several occasions. But Krugman manages to make it an entirely partisan issue. Every example of nepotism he gives is Republican or conservative, implying a seamless connnection between family favors and his increasingly unhinged idea that America is now in the grip of a brutal plutocracy. He doesn't mention Al Gore or Nancy Pelosi, for example, two of the most prominent Democrats whose families were already in the business
From Krugman:
America, we all know, is the land of opportunity. Your success in life depends on your ability and drive, not on who your father was.
Just ask the Bush brothers. Talk to Elizabeth Cheney, who holds a specially created State Department job, or her husband, chief counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Interview Eugene Scalia, the top lawyer at the Labor Department, and Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services. And don't forget to check in with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and the conservative commentator John Podhoretz.
With the exception of Jeb Bush, everyone mentioned by Krugman in the government jobs, (George W Bush, Elizabeth Cheney, Janet Rehnquist, and Eugene Scalia, and let's not forget Jim Bunning and Strom Thurmond's sons, or Michael Powell) were appointed to their positions. Not elected, like Al Gore or Nancy Pelosi. Once again, they were A-P-P-O-I-N-T-E-D. Nepotism is part of the patronage system that was supposed to have fallen by the wayside, but is rearing its ugly little head again during the Bush Administration, with the appointment of the sons and daughters of the well connected. Al Gore ran for his first offices and won, and we will grant that Gore had the advantage of his famous last name, but he was voted into office by the citizens of his district, not handed the job like the others. Pelosi was elected to office in San Francisco which, last I checked was not Baltimore.
Why can't Andy get this through his head? He's really starting to look like an idiot about this...
Talk about "partisan degeneracy"...
posted by tbogg at 10:43 PM
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Thomas Title Time
So what should Clarence Thomas call his book?
I will admit that I had some that were funnier than hell but didn't pass the Websense test (meaning they were too racist or obscene to get through many people's work firewalls). We started with these:
The Pinhead from Pinpoint
Not Black Like Me
Scalia's Bitch: The Supreme Court Years
The Founder's Intent, Natural Law, and Why I Like Big Butts
Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Holmes, and Me
and collected these:
Long Dong's Journey On The Right
No Man Is A Hero To His House Boy.... The Real Antonin Scalia
SCOTUS Gone Wild!
How To Sublimate Blind Rage Caused By Guilt Over Your Unearned Status In Life, By Dr. Phil
I Done Paid His Daddy Back
Black Like Me? I Could Give A Shit
Clarence Thomas: Pubic Servant
Judicial Legislation and Judicial Sexification
Fade to Black
Roe Vs. Wade?... Tommy Lee Vs. Pamela...Now You're Talking My Kind Of Law
Uncle Tom's Justice
...and my favorites:
My Big Fat White Wife
and
Boyz In Da Robez
Thanks for all the submissions.
posted by tbogg at 9:59 PM
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Well, it would be quieter and it would eliminate those late night calls for bail from the twins...
Judge: Allow woman in coma-like state to die
No word on whether Laura Bush will take him up on the offer as she still has a few more Lavyrle Spencer novels to finish.
posted by tbogg at 12:55 PM
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Another book George Bush won't read.
I still have Clarence Thomas book titles coming in, so I will post them tonight about 10 Pacific Time, I-Don't-Give-A Crap-What-Time-It-Is Central Time.
If you've got a good one, get it in: tblogg@hotmail.com.
Remember I'm not getting any younger, and Proust isn't getting any more enjoyable....
posted by tbogg at 12:48 PM
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Everybody loves a Top Ten list...
..because it gives them something to make fun of and helps establish the cultural pecking order. Cal Pundit links an interesting article on the musical tastes of Princess Di:
The list of her 10 favourite artists is almost shocking in its banality. In order: Elton John, Verdi, Billy Joel, Sinead O'Connor, George Michael, de Burgh, Supertramp, Duran Duran, Leo Sayer, Cliff Richard.
to which Kevin adds:
No, this one is easy: it's a good excuse for a shot across the bow at people who mock others for their taste in art. Not the art itself, mind you, criticizing that is part of the human condition. But people who think that it's sophisticated to make snarky remarks about someone else's taste in books, or popular music, or movies, or whatnot, need to grow up.
I agree with Kevin that is easy to mock others for their cultural tastes, and that it's a cheap shot to boot. But c'mon, don't you think that anybody who reads the Left Behind books or listens to Creed has it coming? I mean, really. I think that we should expect at least a modicum of cultural taste from people, even if they did grow up in Indiana. If Americans stopped making fun of other Americans this country would become quieter than the Philosophy Annex of the George W Bush library.
With that in mind, and since I feel it my both my right and my duty to make fun of other people's taste (as well as their clothes, hairstyles, children, jobs, and physical disablilities) here is my Top Ten "Favourite" Artist's of the Moment (in a vague order) that you may use to mock/look down your nose at/be appalled/and feel culturally superior to:
Nine Inch Nails, Aimee Mann, Diana Krall, Dead Can Dance, Tool, The Stone Roses, The Crystal Method, Green Day, Cassandra Wilson, and The Jesus and Mary Chain. I also like White Zombie...so there.
C'mon you bastards...I can take it....
posted by tbogg at 12:29 PM
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Rittenhouse is back....
...now if we can only get those slackers at Media Whores Online back to work.
posted by tbogg at 11:32 AM
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Vaseline on the teeth?...check....Kevlar swimsuit?...check...
Miss World pageant riots.
You know, I always thought we were just one more rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings away from something like this....
posted by tbogg at 10:14 AM
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Getting all giggly about naked people
America's virgin (no, not Erika Harold) Ben Shapiro saw a naughty picture on the Internet and couldn't wait to type, one-handed, about it:
In West Marin County, Calif., home to such world-renowned figures as John Walker Lindh, anti-war protesters simultaneously revealed their breasts and their stupidity. Believing that boobs do more for world peace than bombs, 50 intrepid women shed their clothing, then lay in the aptly named Love Field and spelled out the word "PEACE" with their bodies to show solidarity with the Iraqi people. But before you run to your computer to find the picture, be warned: It's ugly. Many are seniors, and there is at least one morbidly obese woman posing in the buff. Some people were just not meant to undress. Ever.
You know, I saw this picture, but I wasn't so interested in it that I F11'd it so I could make out which women were seniors and which one was obese. Looks like that 24" monitor is really paying off for Ben these days.
Then he writes this:
What's even funnier than batty women getting naked for peace is what they said while they were doing it. "Women from all ages and walks of life took off their clothes, not because they are exhibitionists but because they felt it was imperative to do so," the organizers solemnly explained. "They wanted to unveil the truth about the horrors of war, to commune in their nudity with the vulnerability of Iraqi innocents." What a great idea! To promote peace with Islamic fanatics who hate women, have a mass pseudo-lesbian event!
"Pseudo-lesbian event"? Yeah, he wishes...
..and finally The Virgin Ben writes this:
In Sydney, Australia, three women ripped off their clothes and poured red paint on themselves and then arranged themselves on a homemade American flag under a sign reading "Stop the war on women." Sorry, fellas, no pictures of this one, but it's safe to assume it wasn't too pretty either -- the police picked the protesters up for "offensive conduct."
A less dirty but similarly moronic protesting technique is the die-in.
I have to ask: In Ben's case, was the protest "dirty" because they poured paint on themselves or because they got (snicker snicker) all naked and stuff showing their boobies and other parts that Ben isn't even vaguely familiar with?
You can learn a lot about an author when they write on topics that are important to them, and, although Ben seems to want to write about how the war protestors are "funny", what comes through loud and clear is Ben's attitude towards women in general. In his case it is helpful to remember that some people choose celibacy, while others have it thrust upon them. Poor Ben. He no more chose abstinence than Clarence Thomas chose to be black.
I'd buy Ben a ticket to see The Vagina Monologues, but lately he's been too busy looking for the dirty parts in Lysistrata. After all, a boy has to have a hobby....
posted by tbogg at 10:02 AM
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The one minute Noonan watch.
Thankfully, Peggy has made it easy today. She writes:
The big things to say about the recent JFK allegations--amazing, isn't it, that "recent JFK allegations" is still an operative phrase in 2002?--are obvious.
• Illnesses as serious, varied and potentially debilitating as JFK's, which included Addison's disease, chronic and intense back pain due to the collapse of bones in his spinal column, intestinal problems including colitis and ulcers, chronic prostatitis and urethritis, frequent fatigue, high fevers, increased vulnerability to infection, frequent headaches, diarrhea and a chronic abscess in his back, should have been fully divulged to the American people before they voted in the 1960 election.
Reading through the column, there exists an elephant bigger than Manhattan sitting in the middle of the room.
Whither Reagan?
I mean, if there is one thing that Peggy is known for it's her attachment to Ronald Reagan. Yet not once does she mention Reagan's Alzheimer's and whether it might have begun while he was in office (...as my daughter would say, "no duh"). Isn't this sort of like Robert Caro discussing Kennedy, but avoiding Johnson?
I'll give Noonan a mulligan on this one. After all, with Reagan in a race with Strom for a plot with a view at Arlington, Peggy looks to be in the denial stage. And when he's gone, she is going to have to be strong to lead the country in a nationwide Reagasm, so it's best that she save her strength. She, of all people, is going to need it....
posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM
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A lesson in nepotism.
A week or so ago, Andrew Sullivan accused Nancy Pelosi and Harold Ford of being beneficiaries of nepotism, showing a disregard for what nepotism really is. Paul Krugman today shows us the true meaning of the word and why it is wrong.
America, we all know, is the land of opportunity. Your success in life depends on your ability and drive, not on who your father was.
Just ask the Bush brothers. Talk to Elizabeth Cheney, who holds a specially created State Department job, or her husband, chief counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. Interview Eugene Scalia, the top lawyer at the Labor Department, and Janet Rehnquist, inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services. And don't forget to check in with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and the conservative commentator John Podhoretz.
Let's also not forget Tucker Carlson, Jonah Goldberg, Michael Kelly, and L. Brent Bozell.
Later today, Micky Kaus will criticize Krugman for dangling a participle, which will negate everything that Krugman wrote. Count on it.
posted by tbogg at 8:34 AM
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Thursday, November 21, 2002
Buy a book at Amazon and keep Coulter from turning tricks. A win-win plan for America....
Ann Coulter, the vaguely female-like homunculus of the right-wing apparently isn't getting much...in the way of pay from David Horowitz. How else to explain her continual linking to books at Amazon throughout her columns. It would appear that Ann has an afiliate program going with Amazon that makes her enough money to keep her in botox, vodka, and Newport Menthols, but apparently not Xanax . Shouldn't commerce be kept seperate from the serious writings of a "Constitutional" expert? Nevermind, we're talking about Ann... This week's latest binge/purge contains links to:
Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential
George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage
Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right
Militant Islam Reaches America
and
Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right
...again.
Oddly she doesn't have links to:
Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines, Practical Information, and Personal Accounts
Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception
or
Looking for Mr. Goodbar
Maybe next week...
posted by tbogg at 2:53 PM
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...and I am not trying out for the NBA.
Diane Feinstein is not running for President.
Who in the hell thought she would?
posted by tbogg at 2:00 PM
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On the matter of Andrew Sullivan's "Eagles"
Another one of my very smart readers (Richard P.) sent this to me:
Consider the following from Ben Franklin to his daughter on the choice of a national bird. . .
"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
"With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country . . .
"I am on this account not displeased that the figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the truth the Turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on."
posted by tbogg at 1:49 PM
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For God's Sake! Someone close the casket before he bounces out again!
Dr. Earl Warwick dies. Created Silly Putty.
posted by tbogg at 1:39 PM
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Woo-Hoo! Hooters comes to Springfield!
SPRINGFIELD - A Hooters is coming to town, and owners of the sexy, campy restaurant are hoping to hire a staff of women with very specific qualifications:
Big personalities.
snip
"I'm in this phase where I want to try things I've never done," said LaNarshia Bell, 21, a college student from Springfield who last week hopped a bus with her cousin to fill out applications.
The restaurant is scheduled to open next month. Owners are seeking to hire 40 to 50 Hooters girls and 20 to 30 kitchen staff. A spokesman for the restaurant said salaries for kitchen staff will be $8 to $9 an hour and waitresses will earn $2.67 an hour plus tips.
Bell, who is black, wears glasses and has a pierced tongue, looked around at the walls where posters depicting blonde, buxom Hooters girls were hung.
"I don't even know if they'd hire any minorities here," she said doubtfully.
The official position of Hooters is not to judge an applicant by the color of their skin, but by the content of their D-cup.
posted by tbogg at 12:57 PM
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If you don't find Jesus in thirty minutes...your pizza's free!
Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza is building a Catholic college/town in Florida.
Ave Maria University should start classes in a temporary location in Naples next fall, then move several years later to 750 acres near the Collier County hamlet of Immokalee, about 20 miles northeast of Naples. The campus would be the hub of a new college town.
"Our goal is nothing less than to build the finest Catholic university that we can build," Monaghan said at the announcement in Naples.
snip
A major partner in the venture is the Barron Collier Companies, which donated the land. The Naples-based developer owns thousands of acres of rural farmland where the development will be located.
Gov. Jeb Bush praised the Ave Maria backers as "visionaries" in a video played at the announcement.
"As a Catholic, I am very proud that students will be able to obtain an education with the highest academic standards and with firm grounding in religious and moral values," he said.
If a developer is giving away land and Jeb! is involved...you know that a dead fish or two will be rising to the surface any day now.
posted by tbogg at 12:49 PM
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Just use the standard press release form. It already has the heading.
Security flaw disclosed in Windows
posted by tbogg at 12:29 PM
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Peggy gets the night off....
Since I will be attending a Tool concert tonight, with my lovely and talented daughter, Peggy Noonan gets a free ride this week...unless, of course she says something profoundly stupid in which case I will weigh in tomorrow night. With any luck, I will be able to combine the two with a discussion of both Peggy Noonan and the lyrics to either Eulogy or Aenema.
posted by tbogg at 12:19 PM
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Not the evil faux journalist one
Roger Ailes added to the Hot Links today. Always worth a read.
...also Road to Surfdom link is fixed.
(Company is coming over so it's house-cleaning day)
posted by tbogg at 11:56 AM
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If there were fewer Republicans would that make them more valuable?
See the Forest has this:
"...rub-their-noses-in-it statement offered recently in a court case brought by the Center for Biological Diversity. In a feather-brained brief, the administration argued that conservationists should consider the upside of bird deaths at a remote Navy live-fire range. "Bird-watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one." Besides, the government added, Navy bombardment keeps away people who might otherwise disturb the birds."
Go read it.
posted by tbogg at 11:01 AM
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After you're done shaving my back-hair, you may annoint my loins with oil
Gee. I never thought of Howie Kurtz as a chubby chaser, but he's sure got a Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name thing going with Rush that he owned up to today.
What we can't understand is how the South Dakotan can suggest that a mainstream conservative with a huge radio following is somehow whipping up wackos to threaten Daschle and his family.
Has the senator listened to Rush lately? Sure, he aggressively pokes fun at Democrats and lionizes Republicans, but mainly about policy
Let's see: Chelsea Clinton dog jokes, jokes about Janet Reno's Parkinsons Disease, Barney "Fag" jokes, Clinton "Bubba" jokes...when did these all become "policy?
I guess someone had to be Rush's suppository, and Howie is just the man for the job....
Update...From Drudge:
NOW MCCAIN BASHES LIMBAUGH: Arizona talk radio station KFYI 550 AM, morning host Barry Young asked Senator John McCain (R-AZ) about the flap created by Sen Tom Daschle's (D-SD) comments criticizing talkradio host Limbaugh. The Snowy-Haired Senior Senator from Arizona replied that he thinks of Limbaugh as a 'circus clown' and is 'entertaining' in much the same way as a clown...
...except there's no room in the little car for all the other clowns.
Good thing that Rush has Kurtz to fight his battles for him since that anal cyst is flaring up again...and, well, you know.
posted by tbogg at 10:04 AM
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That's Andrew Sullivan, Grand High Supreme Uber-Klaxon of the Secret Order of Eagles, to you buddy...
Neologist and Pet Shop Boys aficionado Andrew Sullivan really wants us to use his latest term "Eagles" because of that tired old hawk/dove paradigm:
There's a new group of people out there who are socially liberal but also foreign policy realists, especially among those who have been awakened to political engagement by September 11. Some of these used to be Scoop Jackson Democrats, but today's breed doesn't buy into the big government liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s either. Some are neocons who don't love the social right. Others are just Generation X and Y, who simply accept the social diversity of modern culture and want to see it defended against theocratic barbarians. These people are not comfortable with the Republicans' flirtation with the religious right, or their prosecution of the drug war or mixing of church and state; and they're not impressed by the Democrats' lack of seriousness in foreign policy or enmeshment with public sector interest groups. They're politically homeless, these people - but were probably key swing voters in the last election. Instead of hawks and doves, call these people "eagles." I think they'll play a key part in shaping the politics and culture of the next few years.
Therefore, Andy has taken to using it with greater frequency here and here:
"Good for liberal Polly Toynbee for seeing what we eagles have long argued:"
"AHNOLD THE EAGLE: Schwarzenegger is surely the Eagle candidate par excellence"
Sullivan continuing usage of the term (much like Micky Kaus' equally laughable "faster") reminds me of a person who receives a word-of-the-day calendar, and then proceeds to use each day’s word at every available opportunity no matter what the context. But then I started to wonder...
Outside of Andy's mind, do the "Eagles' really exist, or is this his Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius claim to immortality? I don't hear anybody else using it, so maybe it’s a secret society that we just don't know about yet. Late night meetings in mysterious dark places with secret hand shakes, blood rituals, and the trading of tracts that can only be deciphered using the Official Eagles Secret Decoder Cock Ring.
Now that I think about it, I'd rather not know....
posted by tbogg at 9:37 AM
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Terrorist attack or Nebraska...Terrorist attack or Nebraska...Terrorist attack or Nebraska...Well, how bad of a terrorist attack?
Bush has his Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to run to. Cheney has his "undisclosed location" which happens to be a Hooters out on Lee Highway in Fairfax. But what about the rest of us? Where is a safe place for common Americans just like you and me, with the threat of additional terrorism hanging over our heads?
The U>S> State Department has some advice:
This Worldwide Caution supersedes the Worldwide Caution dated November 6. It is being issued to alert U.S. citizens to the need to remain vigilant and to remind them of the continuing threat of terrorist actions that may target civilians. This Worldwide Caution expires on May 20, 2003
Feeling better? How about this?:
On November 14, 2002, the State of Virginia executed Mir Ahmad Kasi, a Pakistani national, who was convicted in 1997 of the 1993 murders of two CIA employees. The potential exists for retaliatory acts against U.S. or other foreign interests in response to the execution.
Attacks on places of worship and schools, and the murders of private American citizens and other westerners, demonstrate that as security is increased at official U.S. facilities, terrorists and their sympathizers will seek softer targets. These may include facilities where Americans or possibly other foreigners are generally known to congregate or visit, such as residential areas, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events or resorts and beaches. Americans should increase their security awareness when they are at such locations, avoid them, or switch to other locations where Americans in large numbers generally do not congregate. There is a possibility that American citizens may be targeted for kidnapping or assassination.
So. Since security is being beefed up at government offices and military bases, the terrorists will now be coming after...us. Nice to know that my ass can get blown up while President Gameboy is sitting in a bunker in Nebraska playing Quake Arena.
Remember when Bill Clinton was President and all we had to worry about were sloppy blow jobs?
Sigh.....
posted by tbogg at 10:28 PM
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Does this mean that they kill last years winner?
According to the People Magazine which is high literature to people who take the short bus to work if-you-know-what-I-mean, Ben Affleck is this year's "Sexiest Man Alive," meaning that last years winner, James Bond star Pierce Brosnan, is either no longer sexy, or he will be put to sleep, much like the viewers who saw him The Tailor of Panama.
Now I have no quibble with People annointing Affleck "sexy", yet I am appalled at their referring to him as a "actor". Affleck is an "actor" in much the same way that Michael Bay is a "director" as opposed to a guy who films shit blowing up. But it gets worse:
Also included on the 2002 "sexiest" list are Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, gospel singer Kirk Franklin, "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell and chef Rocco DiSpirito.
Donald Rumsfeld? Could it be that there are some women in this country who find a smirky 70 year-old man who smells of Brylcreem, scotch, and bloodlust, sexy? I mean, besides Lynne Cheney and Howard Fineman?
posted by tbogg at 10:12 PM
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The wonderful Pauline Kael
Salon has a terrific review up of "Afterglow: A Last Conversation With Pauline Kael" by Francis Davis. Allen Barra doen't hide his affection for Kael, which is fine with me. Growing up in San Diego I lived just a few blocks from a little theater just three blocks from the beach, called the Roxy, where I coulld be found every Saturday afternoon watching a double feature with cartoons in between. I briefly studied film in college and spent most of my evenings at the Ken Cinema in Kensingtion, which was (and still is) an "art house" run by Landmark Theatres. But it wasn't till I bought a copy of Kael's Reeling with it's reviews of Mean Streets, Nashville, The Long Goodbye, and Shampoo, that I learned to love the movies.
Like the best fiction, Kael's reviews were completely immersive and made me feel that I was seeing and understanding something fresh, new, and important. Although there are many Kael detractors out there, I have never lost the feeling that she was the most important film reviewer of our time, as well as one of our best writers (along with John McPhee, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo). All quality film writing begins from where she stopped.
posted by tbogg at 1:09 PM
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Anti-abortion activist stops a beating heart.
James Kopp is really, really sorry that he killed Bernard Slepian. Sort of.
"The truth is not that I regret shooting Dr. (Barnett) Slepian. I regret that he died," Kopp told the newspaper in an interview published Wednesday. "I aimed at his shoulder. The bullet took a crazy ricochet, and that's what killed him. One of my goals was to keep Dr. Slepian alive, and I failed at that goal."
snip
"To pick up a gun and aim it at another human being and to fire, it's not a human thing to do," Kopp said. "It's not nice. It's not pleasant. It's gory, it's bloody. It overcomes every human instinct.
"The only thing that would be worse, to me, would be to do nothing, and to allow abortions to continue."
That kind of moral clarity must be blinding.
posted by tbogg at 12:34 PM
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...and Michael Kelly as the Beaver.
Yes. It's another Michael Kelly column.
Along with some reflexive Gore bashing, he throws in a little gay bashing as well the "other" bashing:
So, "Joined at the Heart" is an extended celebration of what the Gores call "new family forms," in which the family is bravely and newly seen not in the old moralistic Mom-and-Dad terms, but as "a group of people who love and care about each other, regardless of blood relation or marital status."
The problem with this is the preponderance of evidence that the old Mom-and-Dad model is the only one that, speaking generally, really works -- in terms of taking care of children, building a constructive society and broadly advancing the happiness of the species.
I'm so relieved that Kelly has pointed out that the "happiness of the species" can only be acheived in a family like...well, his. You know, a married white couple with two boys, practicing the Catholic faith. Not those nasty divorced people or that gay couple or the unwed mother who manages to raise her kids well while balancing a carrer. No, for the species to be happy and constructive they need to be like the Kellys: Ward, June, and the two darling little boys. Hilarious hijinks to follow.....
posted by tbogg at 10:13 AM
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The Gods of Poetry stand mute and horrified
No More Mr Nice Blogg points us in the direction of the poetry of Alabama whackaloon Judge Roy Moore. Should you click on the second poem, beware it comes with the kind of cheesy music which is an affront to cheesy music. Here is an poetry excerpt form OUR AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT (poetry lovers may want to avert their eyes):
So with a firm reliance on Divine Providence for protection,
They pledged their sacred honor and sought His wise direction.
They lifted an appeal to God for all the world to see,
And declared their independence forever to be free.
I'm glad they're not here with us to see the mess we're in,
How we've given up our righteousness for a life of indulgent sin.
For when abortion isn't murder and sodomy is deemed a right,
Then evil is now called good and darkness is now called light.
While truth and law were founded on the God of all Creation,
Man now, through law, denies the truth and calls it "seperation."
No longer does man see a need for God when he's in full control,
For the only truth self-evident is in the latest poll.
But with man as his own master we fail to count the cost,
Our precious freedoms vanish and our liberty is lost.
Children are told they can't pray and they teach them evolution,
When will they learn the fear of God is the only true solution.
Holy crap!
No really....this is holy crap.
posted by tbogg at 8:47 AM
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Too bad...The Human Stain is already taken.
Clarence Thomas is writing his memoirs.
PUBLISHERS are said to be looking at a proposal for a memoir from conservative and controversial Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
"He has written about 100 pages himself," said one source with knowledge of the project.
So far, no ghost writer is attached to the project, but according to the source, "he needs one."
Thomas is hoping to snag big bucks - possibly as high as $1 million - for the book.
Wonder what he's going to call it?
The Pinhead from Pinpoint
Not Black Like Me
Scalia's Bitch: The Supreme Court Years
The Founder's Intent, Natural Law, and Why I Like Big Butts
Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Holmes, and Me
I'm open to suggestions E-Mail me
posted by tbogg at 8:14 AM
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Sullivan asks a rhetorical question...
BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: "The legacy of Harry Potter in popular culture remains to be seen - those who'd burn the books as demonic are encouraged to get library cards pronto - but at present, despite its sophomoric awkwardness, the film of Chamber of Secrets is a welcome delivery of childlike wonder for a planet of ever-increasing ugliness. We've accidentally allowed a retarded monkey to rule America, but otherwise it's not such a whimsical place. Perhaps works like this can help set that to rights." - Gregory Weinkauf, Dallas Observer. What must it feel like to lose an election to a retarded monkey?
I don't know and neither does Al Gore.
...then Andy makes a stupid statement
THE YOUNG AND WAR: I've been impressed by George W. Bush's support among the young. Maybe it's not as anomalous as I thought. Here's a study by blogger Jim Miller that shows how the young were consistently more supportive of the Vietnam War than their elders - throughout the conflict.
Seeing as Andy has already misrepresented war-poll numbers by the young weeks ago, and was called on it, it's surprising to see him make this apples/armadillos comparison. Then again, lets ask the youth of today if they would be for Bush's war if they faced a draft..
Oh. That's different.
posted by tbogg at 10:09 PM
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Jessie's Girl, Dean Barkley gets his fifteen minutes of fame
Dean Barkley got to go on Crossfire and explain about how unhappy he was with the Homeland Security bill on Friday. Then today he voted for it. So what did he find in his bed over the weekend?
A) a bag of cash
B) A horses head
C) A horses ass
Well we know it wasn't C because Rush was in Florida, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Too bad, Barkely would have made a good Senator, he already had the comb-over down pat.
posted by tbogg at 9:59 PM
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What do you give a guy who's way past his sell-by date?
Senate Republicans gave the decaying-and-most-probably-already-dead Strom Thurmond a parting gift today by promoting U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Shedd to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. It would appear that the Senate was in a hurry as Thurmond was going bad faster than a bowl of potato salad in a hot car, and they just wanted to get him out of the Senate quarters before they had to fumigate for that old man smell...again.
(Anyone else think Shedd looks like actor Bruno Kirby on the Spencer Abraham diet?)
posted by tbogg at 9:42 PM
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The bitter Mr Krauthammer cracks a morbid little smile
Talking Points Memo directs us to the 1200 word spinfest by the dyspeptic Charles Krauthammer. I know that Mr. Krauthammer doesn't get out much, but what to make of the fact that he glosses over so many of the Bush Administration’s initiatives and achievements and their ramifications? Shall we say that he is obtuse, willfully ignorant, or just a liar who brushes aside facts in order to make a point?
To start with let us remember that up until the election the conventional wisdom was that the election would revolve around "local issues". For example, for the people of Georgia it was a debate about whether the state would keep a symbol of the Confederacy as a part of the flag. Nothing riles up the crackers like the joys of battles lost. In the process a war hero was beaten by a coward. After the election, the Republicans began to immediately crow about a mandate for George Bush. After all, all the Karl Rove-selected candidates Bush campaigned for won...not so fast there John Thune, wait a second Greg Ganske, sit down Bill Simon. Surely, Charles Krauthammer would have us believe, the Republicans are fully in control of this great nation of ours. Except that the election may indicate otherwise. According to the all-wise Daily Kos:
In the final tally, the GOP lost 1 governorship, while the Democrats picked up 3. The two independent governorships (in ME and MN) split evenly between the two major parties.
The GOP picked up: AK, AL, GA, HI, MD, MN, NH, SC, and VT.
The Democrats picked up: AZ, IL, KS, ME, MI, NM, OK, PA, TN, WI, and WY.
An extraordinary 20 governorships changed parties, out of 36 contested. Democrats did far better in picking up key swing states for 2004. CW is that a governor can give his or her party's presidential nominee a 1-3 point boost through the use of the gubernatorial bully pulpit and state party apparatus.
As such, the following GOP pickups could help Bush's chances in 2004: MN, NH, and VT (17 electoral votes). On the Dem side, we have AZ, IL, MI, NM, PA, TN, and WI (95 electoral votes).
It is more than fair to say that Bush has control of all three branches of the government (Scalia and Rhenquist have seen to that), but as far as a mandate or a repudiation of everything that the Democrats stand for...not so fast Charlie. (Keep in mind the Republican Rule of Elections: when a Republican wins by a single vote it's a mandate. If he loses by a single vote, it's because of voter fraud). Recent polls have shown that Bush hasn’t even hit the fifty percent mark when it comes to “would you vote for George Bush for President again”.
There are two selections from Krauthammer's House of Bile that are worth reviewing. First:
Odd. In a country where the great assault, such as it is, on "choice" consists of parental notification of teenage abortions, in a country where most people don't particularly enjoy having their wealth "transferred," where they support reasonable environmental regulation and believe in some separation between church and state, how could this conjunction of "piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money"--Moyers's summary of Republicanism--command such public support?
With a litmus test for judicial appointments based on "pro-life" credentials, a massive tax-cut for the wealthy with a tuppence for the masses, environmental regulations dictated by former industry lobbyists/lawyers/shills, and a Majority party that includes religious freak acts like John Ashcroft, Orrin Hatch, Tom DeLay, Asa Hutchinson, and John Walters...why doesn't Krauthammer's vision of America look like mine? Oh, that's right, he's in gloat mode.
Then he writes:
This is truly bizarre. George Bush, extremist? This is a president who passed an education bill essentially written by Ted Kennedy. His tax reform involves the most modest of rate cuts for the upper brackets and is what any Keynesian would have done in the face of a recession. It is, for example, more moderate than the (John) Kennedy tax cuts. The other alleged parts of his agenda--the environmental rape, the imposition of theocracy, the abolition of civil liberties (Moyers: "secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine")--are nothing but the delusion of liberals made quite mad by defeat.
Leaving aside the notion that Bush "passed" an education bill (although he did pass on his obligation to fulfill his military duty) Bush did sign the bill...then proceeded to not fund it. It's a unique Bush trick. Money for New York reparations? Sure, I’ll sign that! Oh, you actually want the money...can I get back to you? As far as the other "alleged parts of his agenda" I give you the Environmental Regulations by industry insiders, for civil rights I've got your Patriot Act right here and here, and for the Bush theocracy we have this. If Krauthammer sees nothing extreme in any of these, I suggest he get himself to an optometrist. That tunnel vision of his is getting worse…
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