Headline Of The Day
Study finds dogs, robots cheer elderly
Dogs I can see but robots? Only if your want your granddad and gradma to be killed by vicious Islamodemocratfascist robots.
But who am I to judge?
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February 29, 2008
It's Not Just Us
Our neighbor to the north, the Canadian Soviet Socialist Republic, is discovering the joys of a Conservative government combined with wingnuts:
A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government's move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, said his lobbying efforts included discussions with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and "numerous" meetings with officials in the Prime Minister's Office.
[...]
Mr. McVety said films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violence should not receive tax dollars, and backbench Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers support his campaign.
Canada is semi-famous for it's support of its movie industry (Actually, many countries not called the "United states" are famous for their support of their film industry. But I digress.) so this action isn't sitting well mith some:
Arts groups say they will fight the change. Director David Cronenberg and other big industry names warned that the edgy, low-budget films that have garnered Canadians international acclaim will be at risk.[...]
Mr. Cronenberg, whose most recent film was the Oscar-nominated Russian mob thriller Eastern Promises, called the move an assault on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"The irony is that it is the Canadian films that have given us an international reputation [that] would be most at risk because they are the edgy, relatively low-budget films made by people like me and others that will be targeted by this panel," he said.
"The platform they're suggesting is akin to a Communist Chinese panel of unknown people, who, behind closed doors, will make a second ruling after bodies like Telefilm Canada have already invested."
The efforts to undo the Enlightenment continue.
As a side note, I'd like to point out that the Globe and Mail is Canada's second largest (circulation-wise) daily newspaper. I mention this because of the following paragraphs of the story cited:
Films with controversial subject matter, such as Lynne Stopkewich's acclaimed necrophilia film Kissed and Atom Egoyan's Where The Truth Lies (which got an NC-17 rating in the United States for a scene involving a threesome) could lose the right to tax credits under new public policy guidelines.Works by Martin Gero, the director of Young People Fucking (which opens in theatres in Canada in April), could also get a once-over from the panel.
Notice that a profane word was used. Not in a gratuitous way but simply to refer to a title. To those of us living in a country in which no "respectable" "news" organization would ever do such a thing (not even to quote the Vice President of These United States) it's quite refreshing.
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Up Chuck And Di-Fi
Gee, Schumer and Feinstein, are you happy?
Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday refused to refer the House's contempt citations against two of President Bush's top aides to a federal grand jury. Mukasey says they committed no crime.Mukasey said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet Miers were right in refusing to provide Congress White House documents or testify about the firings of federal prosecutors.
[...]
"The contempt of Congress statute was not intended to apply and could not constitutionally be applied to an executive branch official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege," Mukasey wrote, quoting Justice policy.
"Accordingly," Mukasey concluded, "the department has determined that the noncompliance by Mr. Bolten and Ms. Miers with the Judiciary Committee subpoenas did not constitute a crime."
Marcy has the reaction from Pelosi and Conyers.
Not to state the obvious but there are too many Republicans in the Democratic* caucus.
*At first I accidentally spelled this "Demoncratic." Freudian slip? You decide!
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Fun For Children Of All Ages
This is a two-fer: Instill fear into children and teach them to obey unquestioningly obey authority with the Playmobil Security Check Point!
As Threat Level mentions, the fun is in the customer reviews:
Missing an important item By Alexander E. Paulsen "AlexP" (Jacksonville, Fl United States)This is great learning too for young brownshirts.
I am waiting for a few accessories though, kids size jackboots and a toy Taser. Think how much fun that will be for your young Martin Bormann types. I envision a low voltage say 5KV instead of 50kv to give a realistic but non-hazardous jolt.
Next we can have a nice Nerf Nightstick and little Heinrich can have great start getting ready for his future job with the TSA, local police force or the new STASI ( Secure Transportation And Safety Inititive)
Be the first on your block.
I also look forward to the upcoming Halliburton Play detention center real simulated barbed wire.Needed the upgrade pack
By R. Dobson (UK)At first it looked as though my Playmobil terrorist cell was going have trouble getting through this security system - no naked flames, sharp objects, guns or bombs. Then I bought the Tobacco Lobbyist upgrade pack which allowed cigarette lighters to be carried through so they simply torched the plane instead. Hours of fun for all the family.
I have other ideas!
By Shabazz Friendly "katoshabazz" (Portland, OR)I think Playmobil is already working on this...an Abu Graib version that allows tykes to sodomize naked prisoners with blunt objects and stack them in human pyramids. Educational-icious!
And my favorite:
The traveler looks French By Sue Generous "reader_in_cahoots" (Seattle, WA)The French are why we need security checkpoints in the first place.
Heckuva country we live in.
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February 28, 2008
Wheeeeee!
Remember to keep your money in a shoebox because:
"Regulators are bracing for 100-200 bank failures over the next 12-24 months," says Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with the financial services firm, the Stanford Group.[...]
The problem areas will be concentrated in the Rust Belt, in places like Ohio and Michigan and other states like California, Florida and Georgia.
Let's party like it's 1930!
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We're #1! We're #1!
Using updated state-by-state data, the report said 2,319,258 adults were held in U.S. prisons or jails at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults, and more than any other country in the world.
Needless to say, there are a lot more criminals to be incarcerated, right?
The report said prison growth and higher incarceration rates do not reflect a parallel increase in crime or in the nation's overall population. Instead, it said, more people are behind bars mainly because of tough sentencing measures, such as "three-strikes" laws, that result in longer prison stays.
Ah, yes, that ol' bipartisan favorite - getting "tough on crime."
Of course, there's a great deal of money to be made in the privatized prison racket and in gerrymandering congressional districts (Google cache) so I doubt that we'll see significant reductions in the prison population.
As a result, we're likely to remain #1 in this category for years to come. Hooray.
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Hitlers! Hitlers Everywhere!
According to the ever-rational Billo the latest Hitler! is none other than Arianna Huffington.
To paraphrase Andy Warhol, in the future everyone will be Hitler! for fifteen minutes.
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We Know Which Way This Will Go
The Supremes look at Exxon's Valdez oil spill:
"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" [Chief Justice John] Roberts asked in court.The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."
The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.
[...]
Nineteen years after the Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound and spilled 11 million gallons of oil, the 32,000 plaintiffs -- mostly fishermen, cannery workers and Native Alaskans -- have received no punitive damages from Exxon.
A jury awarded them $5 billion in punitive damages -- a record level, for a record disaster -- and an appeals court cut that in half. Now, the Supreme Court seems inclined to deal another insult to the victims (as many as a fifth of whom have already died) by cutting the award further.
I've little doubt that poor widdle ExxonMobil will have the judgment against it reduced if not thrown out completely.
I'm in the wrong line of work.
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February 27, 2008
William F. Buckley
Legendary teevee moment - Buckley vs. Gore Vidal, 1968:
Robert Farley reminds us that today's rightwing turned on Buckley.
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Okle-Doakle
Myron Cope has died.
While this is a local event, Myron was a brilliant sportscaster and an even better writer.
Here's Myron discussing his great invention, the Terrible Towel:
A voice that could cut glass. Yoi! Double yoi!
See also: John Cole.
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Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid
Say "hello" to your new overlords:
Killer robots could become the weapon of choice for militants, a British expert said on Wednesday.[...]
"How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act? With the current prices of robot construction falling dramatically and the availability of ready-made components for the amateur market, it wouldn't require a lot of skill to make autonomous robot weapons."
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Debate Debacle
I don't watch these so-called "debates" - they're not debates but simultaneous press conferences - largely because of the so-called "moderators." It looks like my aversion payed off rather well for last night's ridiculousness. digby:
Judging by their silly questions tonight, Russert and Williams obviously know nothing about health care policy, Iraq, Islamic terrorism, economics, global trade or any other subject that requires more than five minutes study to come up with some gotcha question or a stupid Jack Bauer fantasy. It's embarrassing.These people guide the way citizens perceive politics even if the citizens don't know it. It's hard for me to see how anything can truly change until this is dealt with.
9:24 PM ... Russert: If I don't get a yes or no answer to my clownish question, you're toast, woman!---
9:31 PM ... Russert: I'm one hardass, Dude. You can't put anything past me.
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9:42 PM ... I love it when Tim goes into character as an Iraqi nationalist.
---
10:08 PM ... Russert spews the Farrakhan story. Russert: Let me take a few moments to read into the record some of Farrakhan's most rancid quotes.
10:10 PM ... I guess it's good in some way that this sludge gets thrown around now in advance of the general. But Russert is well beyond the normal bounds of disgusting on this front. As a separate matter, the covert campaign to smear Obama with the Jewish community is a topic of great importance that I've been meaning to hit on and haven't done enough on it yet. At least we know now that Russert's enlisted with the cause.
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10:33 PM ... TPM Reader MF chimes in: "It seems that Russert is asking the questions in the aspect that the candidates are guilty of something. It is really quite odd. And when did it become okay for a moderator to be an antagonist in a Presidential debate. I thought the job of a moderator was to moderate and not antagonize."
Josh also has video of Russert's most noxious moment here.
Debate (such as they are) moderators are supposed to moderate not display prosecutorial zeal or personal pique. Russert and Williams and Blitzer and King and all the other members of what Atrios calls "The Villiage" are, as Jon Stewart famously put it, "hurting America."
When are we as citizens going to stand up and say, "ENOUGH!"?
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February 26, 2008
Asinine Quote Of The Day
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Closet):
The truth is that political reconciliation in Iraq is going better there than it is here at home because of better security.
How does one even address that?
Video at link.
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Ick
The Pride of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School, Monica Goodling, is getting hitched to rightwing blogmeister Mike Krempasky*.
May they have many Aryan babies.
[Via watertiger.]
*If you've never visited Red State you're a much happier person.
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Jesus Saves
That's as may be but Hillary cozying up to Pat Robertson probably won't help save her campaign.
Ye gods.
[Via Tapped.]
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Headlines That Frighten
Portman backs McCain
It turns out that it's referring to Rob Portman, the director of the OMB.
At first I thought it was referring to a different Portman.
(This post wasn't an excuse to put up a picture of Natalie Portman. Well, not entirely, at least.)
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I Get Letters
Dear michael,We have been through a lot in this past year and your friendship and support have meant so much to me. That is why I wanted to let you know of my decision to endorse a Democratic candidate for President - and that I have decided to support Barack Obama.
We all understand how much is at stake in this election and that it is more important than ever that we put a Democrat in the White House.
And while both of our Party's remaining candidates are extremely talented and would make excellent commanders-in-chief, I am throwing my support to the candidate who I believe will open the most eyes to our shared Democratic vision.
I'm deeply proud to be the first 2008 Democratic presidential candidate to endorse Barack Obama. He is ready to be President. And I am ready to support him - to work with him and for him and help elect him our 44th President.
Put simply, I believe Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to help us face this housing crisis, create good jobs, strengthen America's families in this 21st century global economy, unite the world against terrorism and end the war in Iraq - and perhaps most importantly, call the American people to shared service and sacrifice. In this campaign, he has drawn millions of voters into politics for the first time in their lives and shown us that we are united by so much more than that which divides us.
That is why I believe the time has come for Democrats to come together as a Party and focus on winning the general election. The stakes are too high not to.
The last seven years have been as difficult as any I can remember. More than ever, we need a President who will inspire us to take part in the political process and change our country's path.
Today, when we need it most, we are hearing a new call from Barack Obama. And I hope you, like me, will answer it in the affirmative.
Please get involved in Barack Obama's campaign now: http://action.barackobama.com/doddsupporters
Sincerely,Chris Dodd
Paid for by Chris Dodd for President, Inc., PO Box 51882, Washington, DC 20091, Info@ChrisDodd.com
To stop receiving email from Dodd for President, Inc., visit http://ChrisDodd.com/de-list
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Remember Iraq?
The "government" in Baghdad is unhappy with the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan:
"The cabinet expressed its rejection and condemnation for the Turkish military interference, which is considered a violation of Iraq's sovereignty," the Iraqi government said in a statement released by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh."The cabinet stresses that unilateral military action is not acceptable and threatens good relations between the two neighbors."
Iraq "sovereign"? Yes, of course. Just ask the BushCheney administration:
In Washington, the Bush administration left no doubt of its overall support for the Turkish operation to deal with the Kurdistan Worker's Party, commonly known as the PKK, which both the Bush administration and Europe consider to be a terrorist organization.
So much for the propaganda about sovereignty.
And the award for Stupid Comment of the Day™ goes to Dana "Don't Know Much About History" Perino:
"It's obviously not an ideal situation," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Indeed, Dana, indeed.
Meanwhile, so much for troop reductions:
The United States expects to have 140,000 troops in Iraq in July after withdrawing five combat brigades, leaving a force larger than before it began pouring in troops last year, the Pentagon said on Monday.
One can't help but smile at this golden oldie from before the war and occupation:
We don't talk about deployments in the specific, but we have brought a good many Guard and Reserve on active duty. Fortunately, a great many of them were volunteers. We have been able to have relatively few stop losses. There are some currently, particularly in the Army, but relatively few in the Navy and the Air Force. And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.
Now we're just hoping to outlast the next eleven months.
Heckuva job, Georgie.
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We Live In A Very Silly Country
Remember all of those problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? Well, the Army has finally decided to do something to fix them:
A year after a scandal erupted over the long-term treatment of soldiers at the hospital, the Army has turned to Disney for help. "Service, Disney Style" is newly required for all military and other government employees at Walter Reed.Lafferty and her fellow Disney trainer, Mike Donnelly, handed out little plastic Goofy and Mickey Mouse figurines as they led Wednesday afternoon's discussion with the workers -- some in uniform, some in scrubs, some in civilian clothes.
[...]
The Army is paying Disney $800,000 to help revamp attitudes at the hospital.
Yes, that's right, the filth, the crumbling structure, the untreated wounds (physical and psychological) are all going to be fixed by...Donald Duck.
Lafferty, who was a Navy lawyer before she started a second career with Disney, led the audience in a discussion of similarities between Disney and the Army hospital. (Both are dedicated to "making people feel better"; both are "subject to media scrutiny"; both are named after famous people named Walter. )The Walter Reed employees learned the Disney lexicon. Employees are called "cast members." Customers -- or patients -- are "guests."
Yes, as a "guest" I really want a "cast member" to perform abdominal surgery on me. Or, hell, empty my bedpan.
As a contrast to the irate Donald Duck, the trainers showed a slide of a beatific Snow White, holding a broom in a spic-and-span room and surrounded by happy animals. (Lesson: "You can't sweep it under the rug," Lafferty said.)
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
It's at this point I start to wish for Gen. George S. Patton to come back to life and head over to Walter Reed. He's fix things up real fast. And it wouldn't be a Mickey Mouse fix either.
[Via The Washington Independent.]
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February 24, 2008
A Bit Of Tony Oursler
(It's difficult to capture the sheer creepiness of Oursler's work on video.)
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Pure Ego
I doubt that this will affect the election in any way but still it's sad to see someone who has accomplished so much for so long trash his reputation for...what, exactly? As Steve Bennen notes, "By his own admission, Nader doesn’t expect to win, he doesn’t expect to change the Democratic Party’s agenda, he doesn’t expect to appear in the debates, and he doesn’t even expect to make the ballot in every state."
Now let's go back to ignoring him.
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February 23, 2008
Saturday Palate Cleanser
Happy healthy hygiene tips:
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Better Democrats Please
And this Liebermanesque specimen nearly became head of the DNC.
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ADDED: KagroX has much much more on Ford.
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No One Could Have Imagined
St. John of MarverickStraightTalk a liar?
Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain's office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. "Was Vicki there? Probably," Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. "The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings."
The recollection of the now-retired Paxson conflicted with the account provided by the McCain campaign about the two letters at the center of a controversy about the senator's ties to Iseman, a partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay.
St. John of MaverickStraightTalk is ethically challenged?
But when McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.[...]
But even as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.
Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.
St. John of MaverickStraightTalk did favors for a felon?
Iseman and her colleagues had been lobbying the FCC, the House of Representatives, and the Senate (including John McCain, with whom McCain's advisors believed Iseman had an inappropriate relationship at the time) to win approval for the foreign purchase of American broadcast companies--that is, Conrad Black's properties, which were headquartered in Chicago.
The Straight Talk Express has blown a tire and slid into a ditch.
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The Last Refuge Of Scoundrels
Pretending to be ignorant of a political opponent's position is a proud American tradition. It is convenient for Barack Obama's ideological opponents to pretend that Michelle Obama is the second coming of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.Conservatives who argue that waterboarding is a "benign" interrogation technique feel no shame in passing judgment on Michelle Obama's patriotism.
Ideologues who started a war that will accrue trillions in debt and undermine American military readiness for decades have the nerve to call Michelle Obama unpatriotic?
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February 22, 2008
The Hell?
Rightwing propagandist Frank Luntz:
On the February 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, while conducting a focus group analysis of the February 21 Democratic presidential debate, Fox News contributor Frank Luntz asked focus group participants if they "wanted" to see Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton "argue." When several of the participants responded, "Yes," Luntz asked, "You want them to take it on? You all agree with that?" After more participants concurred, Luntz asked: "How many of you want them to really argue? Raise your hands." Luntz then asked: "And how many of you want them to make love to each other?"
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Luntz was trying to plant the idea of miscegenation in people's heads. That sort of thing is effective with some of the lizard-brains out there.
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Another Day...
...another Republican criminal:
Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.
But wait, there's more! Via Laura Rozen, Renzi has a mysterious background:
For a national political figure who served on the powerful House Intelligence Committee, Renzi's background is, as described by Wikipedia, "unclear."[...]
Exactly what Renzi did for the next two decades is blurry. He has said he worked overseas for the Defense Department, but research turned up no information on which agency, where he was assigned or what duties he had.
Gee, do ya think Renzi might have been/might be a spook?
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They Can Put A Man On The Moon...
...but they can't write software that recognizes apostrophes and hyphens:
It can stop you from voting, destroy your dental appointments, make it difficult to rent a car or book a flight, even interfere with your college exams. More than 50 years into the Information Age, computers are still getting confused by the apostrophe. It's a problem familiar to O'Connors, D'Angelos, N'Dours and D'Artagnans across America.[...]
It's not just the bad luck o' the Irish. French, Italian and African names with apostrophes can befuddle computer systems, too. So can Arab names with hyphens, and Dutch surnames with "van" and a space in them.
And in this age of electronic voting it can even affect elections:
That's what happened during the Michigan caucus in 2004, when thousands of O'Connors, Al-Husseins, Van Kemps and others who went to the polls didn't have their votes counted."It was a real slapped-together computer system the party put together and a lot of people were left out who were registered to vote, it was a real pity," said Michigan political consultant Mark Grebner.
What leads to this?
"It's standard shortsightedness," he said. "Most programs set a rule for first name and last name. They don't think of foreign-sounding names."[...]
"It depends on the form filters and it depends on the database program," he said. "Basically, there are a lot of programmers out there who forget that a growing portion of the American public are not called John Smith or Mary White."
Quite.
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Dallas, Texas
I'm with Steven D. You just can't be too paranoid these days. To wit:
Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.
[...]
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
"How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman.
Deputy Police Chief Lawrence also said that the crowd "looked friendly."
I'm reminded of something that was said in 1963. Nellie Connally, wife of then Texas governor John Connally, turned around in her seat in the presidential limousine and said to President Kennedy, "You can't say Dallas doesn't love you, Mr. President!"
Apparently there was a bit of a to-do a moment later.
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Wheeeee!
Turkish troops launched a ground incursion across the border into Iraq in pursuit of separatist Kurdish rebels, the military said Friday — a move that dramatically escalates Turkey's conflict with the militants.It is the first confirmed ground operation by the Turkish military into Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. It also raised concerns that it could trigger a wider conflict with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds, despite Turkey's assurances that its only target was the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
[...]
"The United States continues to support Turkey's right to defend itself from the terrorist activities of the PKK and has encouraged Turkey to use all available means, to include diplomacy and close coordination with the Government of Iraq to ultimately resolve this issue," he added.
I'm sure glad that the war over there is over!
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February 21, 2008
Make That 11 In A Row
Obama wins the Democrats Abroad primaries.
(Annoyingly, the AP doesn't give the vote tally.)
UPDATE: CNN: Obama - 65% Clinton - 32%
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It's Not The Sex...
...it's the ethics. Or lack thereof. First the NYT then the WaPo (apparently more to follow) report on St. John's "inappropriate" "relationship" with a telco lobbyist named Vicki Iseman.
There's even a Pittsburgh angle. Via smintheus at dkos we find that:
On November 17, 1999 the Senator and Presidential candidate instructed the FCC commissioners to take action on the deal no later than December 15, 1999. "If in your judgment the Commission cannot meet this request, please advise me of this fact in writing, with a specific and complete explanation, no later than November 18, 1999," wrote McCain.In a second letter, dated December 10, 1999, written to FCC Chair William Kennard, McCain was even more forceful in his resolution. He demanded, "if the license applications were not acted upon" that Chairman Kennard "...explain why." Obviously feeling the pressure, the commissioners voted to approve the application. However, the FCC press release indicated that the 30-page opinion included four separate dissenting opinions.
Kennard responded to McCain's letter by saying, "It is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending." He said such inquiries "could have procedural and substantive impacts on the Commission's deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties."
Save Pittsburgh Public Television campaign's director Jerry Starr, said, "This is the latest and most flagrant example of Washington insiders riding rough-shod over community sentiment. The pressure to resolve this by December 15th comes from the applicants, Paxson Communications, WQED, and Cornerstone TeleVision, whose contract expires at the end of the year." Starr added, "McCain is making big statements about taking the money out of politics, but we have discovered that Paxson, his people and his attorneys have contributed at least $15,000 to McCain's campaign in the past few months."
(Paxson and Cornerstone are fundie outfits; WQED is the local PBS station.)
I don't really care if McCain was having it off the Ms. Iseman (it wouldn't be the first time he's done such a thing) but I'd hope, tough wouldn't bet, that this puts to rest his image of Mr. Ethical Maverick Straight Talk Express. That's almost entirely a creation of the "liberal" media. However, they have there narrrative and they'll likely stick to it.
Jane: "No jokes about "lobbyists" and "pork.""
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ADDED: JMM:
Reading all of this stuff I have the distinct feeling that only a few pieces of the puzzle are now on the table. Given unspoken understandings of many years' duration, a lot of reporters and DC types can probably imagine what the full picture looks like. But we're going to need a few more pieces before the rest of us can get a sense of what this is all about.
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February 20, 2008
February 19, 2008
February 17, 2008
Of Cults And Cowardice
So we're all bloodless now, and along comes a reason for us to get flushed and excited, for us to stand up and wave our arms and shout and cheer. Along comes the passion we feel we've been missing in American life and in politics, and we throw ourselves at it like prom dates two minutes to midnight. Can you blame us? It's not just Obama, or just blogs, where I find the thundering power and might of the righteous voice these days. It's not just one candidate over another. It's that for too long we've been told to sit down and shut up and that it's rude to give a damn, and that isn't living, that isn't life, that's not even death, not even that honest. That's slow suffocation by superiority, that's what that is.
Read the whole thing.
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Reel Life Vs. Real Life
Despite how they're portrayed in movies it turns out that most art thieves simply aren't that bright:
The mundane reality is that many art thieves are simply not the sharpest grappling hooks in the toolbag; the smart ones choose to steal things that can be much more easily converted into money — or just money itself.Thomas McShane, a retired F.B.I. agent who led many art investigations in the 1970s and 1980s, said the motivations and methods of many of the thieves he came across could only be described as humorous. One man tried for years to fence a Rembrandt stolen in 1971 from a museum in France, dropping his street price from $5 million to $25,000, Mr. McShane recounted in his 2006 memoir “Stolen Masterpiece Tracker,” written with Dary Matera. “His only accomplishment,” Mr. McShane wrote of the criminal, a would-be Mafioso nicknamed Johnny Rio, “was expanding the ever-widening circle of people who knew he had it.” (He was caught and served a short prison sentence.)
So forget your Pierce Brosnans and Steve McQueens, this lot is more like Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg.
It's depressing, in a way.
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February 16, 2008
Saturday Palate Cleanser
That's nobody's business but the Turk's:
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Crisis Averted
In one of the sillier art disputes of late officials of the London Underground decided to ban the display of a poster promoting an exhibition of Lucas Cranach the Elder at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The offense? The poster, depicted the 16th-century Cranach's Venus, was judged improper because "it breached advertising guidelines on sex and nudity." A spokesperson for the Royal Academy commented dryly:
"We don't have a version B where she's got her clothes on. We're just hoping they change their minds and accept her."
Now comes news that after much laughing at Tube officials they have indeed changed their minds and will allow the poster to be displayed saying, "On reflection, given its context, the Cranach exhibition poster should not have been rejected and we have now approved the ad to be carried on the tube."
Final score: 16th-century German painters - 1, British Comstocks - 0.
Click the thumb to see Venus in all her full-frontal glory.
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February 15, 2008
Regulation? What Regulation?
Our FDA:
The drug Trasylol was withdrawn in November at the request of the FDA after an observational study linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased death of those patients.[...]
Dr. Dennis Mangano, the study's researcher, said during the program that 22,000 lives could have been saved if Trasylol had been taken off the market when he first published his study in January 2006, according to a CBS News report on its Web site ahead of a broadcast slated for next Sunday.
He said in the broadcast that Bayer failed to disclose to the FDA during an FDA advisory panel meeting in September 2006 -- at which Mangano's negative findings were discussed -- that the German drugmaker had conducted its own research which confirmed the same dangers established by his study.
The chairman of the FDA advisory panel, Dr. William Hiatt, told 60 Minutes he would have voted to remove Trasylol from the market had he been informed about Bayer's study, according to the CBS report.
22,000 dead. 22,000. 3,000 die and we put the Constitution through the shredder yet 22,000 die and few care.
Gotta protect those corporate profits, don't'cha know.
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KO
Keith finally uses the "F-word."
"You are a liar, Mr. Bush. And after showing some skill at it, you have ceased to even be a very good liar.And your minions like John Boehner, your Republican congressional crash dummies who just happen to decide to walk out of Congress when a podium-full of microphones await them, they should just keep walking, out of Congress and, if possible, out of the country."
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February 14, 2008
Hitlers! Hitlers Everywhere!
We should have seen this coming. The latest Hitler? Barack Obama.
Honestly, the Republican wingers need to be driven out of this country.
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No Matter How Low You Think They Can Go...
...the Republicans can go lower. Aravosis:
Even the dead are political pawns to the Republicans (then again, we already knew that post-September 11). House Republicans, at the bidding of the Bush White House, are upset that House Democrats are voting on contempt citations for Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton today. So the House GOP members are disrupting proceedings in the House today, calling for "protest votes" and the like that eat up 15 minutes of the day at a time. Well, they just called one such protest vote in the middle of recently-deceased Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos' memorial service, which they certainly knew was taking place. This is akin to forcing people to leave a wake on purpose. The House Republicans and the White House couldn't wait for Lantos' service to be finished before forcing everyone back to the House floor to vote for something silly. They intentionally disrupted a dead man's memorial service for political gain. But as was already noted, the Republicans have been abusing the memory of 3,000 dead for seven years now, so why expect anything new and better from them now.
Disgusting.
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Shooting From The Hip
Decent article on New York City street photographers in yesterday's NYT.
But dealing with dim cops can be perilous.
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The Nuclear Option
One of the things that's been worrying me of late is the possibility of Hillary losing the primary vote and refusing to concede thereby taking the party down with her. By way of Josh, it looks like this might be the case:
Hillary Clinton will take the Democratic nomination even if she does not win the popular vote, but persuades enough superdelegates to vote for her at the convention, her campaign advisers say.[...]
But Clinton will not concede the race to Obama if he wins a greater number of pledged delegates by the end of the primary season, and will count on the 796 elected officials and party bigwigs to put her over the top, if necessary, said Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson.
[...]
"We don't make distinctions between delegates chosen by million of voters in a primary and those chosen between tens of thousands in caucuses,'' Wolfson said. "And we don't make distinctions when it comes to elected officials'' who vote as superdelegates at the convention.
"We are interested in acquiring delegates, period,'' he added.
Now, I've never been a big fan of the Clintons (note: I will vote for Hillary in November if she's the nominee) for many reasons but the pertinent one now is their tendency to make everything about them. There's already a lot of bad blood between the Clintons and Obama (and among their supporters) - to, I think, a ridiculous extent - and losing the popular vote, whether measured in ballots cast or pledged delegates, but winning the nomination thanks to party apparatchiks will simply blow the party up. Not surprisingly, the Clintonites dismiss this possibility:
Clinton advisers rejected the notion that the candidate -- and the party -- would be badly wounded in the general election if the nominee were essentially selected by a group of party insiders."This is a nomination system that exists of caucuses, primaries, superdelegates and also the issue of voters in Florida and Michigan,'' states whose delegates currently will not be seated at the convention because they broke party rules by moving up their primaries to January, said Mark Penn, senior strategist for the Clinton campaign. But "whoever the nominee is, the party will