Good. More headlines for us.
Doesn’t look like she’s too upset. And, I might add, it’s nice to know that civil disobedience can be, on occasion, disobedient.
Would You Believe?
Don Adams ("Agent 86" on Get Smart, as well as the voice of Inspector Gadget) is dead?
I blame CHAOS.
Republicans Screw The Pooch
This news as huge ramifications for the upcoming elections. From Political Wire:
As the 2006 midterm election season approaches, Political Wire has seen a copy of a new Winston Group (R) poll that shows Americans turning away from the Republican party. (There’s no link yet on the firm’s website.)
Those surveyed had less confidence in Republicans to handle a wide range of issues, including education, Social Security, health care, jobs and energy prices. Democrats beat Republicans by at least 9 percentage points in each category. In addition, Democrats were also viewed as better able to handle war in Iraq and the economy.
In fact, the only bad news for Democrats is that they are viewed as overly partisan. In particular, Democrats were seen as more likely to instigate partisan attacks over two recent issues in the news — the federal government’s hurricane response and the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court.
Post Of The Day
From The Talent Show:
I gotta say, the federal, state, and local authorities did a fantastic job in responding to Hurricane Rita. It’s almost as if they were trying to make up for something. It’s funny how a "trial run" like the complete destruction of a major American city can motivate people. I just wish every major disaster was immediately preceded by one that’s nearly identical in its details, but much, much worse in its impact. Wait, that came out wrong….
Eye On Dover
Intelligent Design in schools comes to the courtroom. Keep an eye on this case. The New York Times sets the stage:
DOVER, Pa., Sept. 23 – Sheree Hied, a mother of five who believes that God created the earth and its creatures, was grateful when her school board here voted last year to require high school biology classes to hear about "alternatives" to evolution, including the theory known as intelligent design.
But 11 other parents in Dover were outraged enough to sue the school board and the district, contending that intelligent design – the idea that living organisms are so inexplicably complex, the best explanation is that a higher being designed them – is a Trojan horse for religion in the public schools.
With the new political empowerment of religious conservatives, challenges to evolution are popping up with greater frequency in schools, courts and legislatures. But the Dover case, which begins Monday in Federal District Court in Harrisburg, is the first direct challenge to a school district that has tried to mandate the teaching of intelligent design.
What happens here could influence communities across the country that are considering whether to teach intelligent design in the public schools, and the case, regardless of the verdict, could end up before the Supreme Court.
***
For Mrs. Hied, a meter reader, and her husband, Michael, an office manager for a local bus and transport company, the Dover school board’s argument – that teaching intelligent design is a free-speech issue – has a strong appeal.
"I think we as Americans, regardless of our beliefs, should be able to freely access information, because people fought and died for our freedoms," Mrs. Hied said over a family dinner last week at their home, where the front door is decorated with a small bell and a plaque proclaiming, "Let Freedom Ring."
What Mrs. Hied doesn’t know is that the government does not have a "right to free speech". And when you are talking about public school curriculums, that’s "the government", baby. There’s also this little thing called "separation of church and state".
But more importantly, there’s also this thing called "science":
But in a split-level house on the other side of Main Street, at a desk flanked by his university diplomas, Steven Stough was on the Internet late the other night, keeping track of every legal maneuver in the case. Mr. Stough, who teaches life science to seventh graders in a nearby district, is one of the 11 parents suing the Dover district. For him the notion of teaching "alternatives" to evolution is a hoax.
"You can dress up intelligent design and make it look like science, but it just doesn’t pass muster," said Mr. Stough, a Republican whose idea of a fun family vacation is visiting fossil beds and natural history museums. "In science class, you don’t say to the students, ‘Is there gravity, or do you think we have rubber bands on our feet?’
Anyway, Dover is where the first legal battle line is being drawn.
Monday Morning Fast Facts
* Number attending this weekend’s anti-war rally in Washington D.C.: 150,000 estimated (Photo at right from Bradblog)
* Number attending this weekend’s pro-war counter rally in Washington, D.C.: 400 (although wingers were expecting 20,000)
* Recommended reading: Time Magazine’s "How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?":
A TIME inquiry finds that at top positions in some vital government agencies, the Bush Administration is putting connections before experience.
* If conservatives think the war in Iraq is vital to our national security, how do they explain this:
Bush plea for cash to rebuild Iraq raises $600
An extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600 (£337), The Observer has learnt. Yet since the appeal was launched earlier this month, donations to rebuild New Orleans have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars.
The public’s reluctance to contribute much more than the cost of two iPods to the administration’s attempt to offer citizens ‘a further stake in building a free and prosperous Iraq’ has been seized on by critics as evidence of growing ambivalence over that country.
* Remember Pat Tillman? He was the NFL player who gave up a multi-million dollar contract to fight in Iraq. When he was killed in April 2004, he became a darling of the right wing. Here’s what Captain’s Quarters wrote in "Pat Tillman, American Patriot, KIA":
In a society sometimes dominated by loudmouthed, preening, self-involved individuals, Tillman stood out for his refusal to think only of himself. Tillman was no one’s fool, either; he graduated early from Arizona State with a degree in marketing and a 3.84 GPA, and conducted himself with both intelligence and honor in his career and personal life. At one point, Tillman turned down an opportunity to make more money with another team because he felt loyalty to the Cardinals, who had given him his chance to play even though he was undersized for his position.
In the intervening months, it was learned that Tillman was killed by friendly fire, taking off some of the sheen for his famous-in-death self-sacrifice. Now, it turns out, he apparently wasn’t all that was anti-Bush and anti-IraqWar:
Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty.
Desert Fox
Remember this story?
Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday the city would not accept a $10 million donation for disaster relief from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal after the prince suggested U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the September 11 attacks.
"I entirely reject that statement," Giuliani said. "There is no moral equivalent for this [terrorist] act. There is no justification for it. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered 4,000 or 5,000 innocent people."
Well, Prince Alwaleed bin Talel is back in the news:
Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal has purchased 5.46 percent of the Fox corporation, according to Gulf Daily News, raising concern that the conservative Fox News may soften its anti-terror stance due to the views of the new shareholder.
So far, the Fox followers are silent.
NotKatrina Ruins Bush Photo-op
Bush was hoping to show the nation that he learned something from his pathetic non-response to Katrina. So he was all set to go to Texas. One problem, though. The weather was too nice.
President Bush was supposed to land here on Friday afternoon on the first stop of a tour intended to make clear that he was personally overseeing the federal government’s preparations for Hurricane Rita’s landfall. But the weather did not cooperate.
It was too sunny.
Just minutes before Mr. Bush was scheduled to leave the White House, his aides in Washington scrubbed the stop in San Antonio. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, explained that the search-and-rescue team that Mr. Bush had planned to meet and thank here in San Antonio was actually packing up to move closer to where the hurricane would strike.
***
Another White House official involved in preparing Mr. Bush’s way noted that with the sun shining so brightly in San Antonio, the images of Mr. Bush from here might not have made it clear to viewers that he was dealing with an approaching storm.
Hey Big Spender!
Conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute did a study on the budgets of the last 9 administrations (LBJ to present) and wrote an article proclaiming "President Reagan, Champion Budget-Cutter".
"Yea! Reagan! He was soooo good!" You get the idea.
Sadly, the AEI buried the lede. You have to go to the bottom of the article to find out who was the biggest spender since LBJ. Here’s the graphic for Change in Real Spending for Each Presidential Term since LBJ:
Okay. So the next time some neo-con Bush supporter says that Bush had to run a huge deficit because he was fighting a war, please direct him to the above chart. Specifically, the column marked non-defense discretionary. Then, when they get that dog-hearing-a-high-pitched-whistle look, explain to them what non-defense discretionary is.
You also might want to show them this:
There you go. Bush 43 — drunk on spending and booze.
Dr. Dobson On Beating Teens
Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson longs for the good old days:
When I was a kid, it was easier for parents to keep their children in line. They didn’t have to depend as much on closeness and communication.
Yeah. Fuck "closeness and communication". When I have kids, I’m never going to speak with them, or even allow them in my presence.
Parents could control and protect their kids, more or less, by the imposition of rules and the isolation of their circumstances.
Shoving them into closets and car trunks works wonders, I hear.
Farmer John could take his sassy son out to the back forty acres and get his mind straight.
Farm tools — good for working the land and working over your kid!
Just the threat of that happening was enough to keep most teens from going off the deep end.
Yup. Keeps your kids in line so they can grow up and beat their wives and kids, too.
“Sweet Jesus, There’s Always A Tape”*
* Spoken by a Washington Post reporter in the film "Courage Under Fire"
And so there is with Katrina. NPR got a hold of several taped conference calls between local, state, and federal authorities to discuss emergency plans, evacuations, supplies, coordination, etc. You should listen to them.
Shakespeare’s Sister describes one such conference call, the last call before Katrina hit:
Jeff Smith, the [federal] deputy director of Louisiana’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness . . . tells them to request everything they need on some computer program designed for that purpose, and they’ll get it. The next call doesn’t happen until Sept. 9, and when [Jefferson Parish Emergency Manager] Maestri asks where the FEMA generator packs they were promised are, Smith tells him “that’s a good question,” and when Maestri then angrily complains about how FEMA ballyhooed during planning exercises that they would be ready in a moment’s notice but “now that we’re on our knees” they’re nowhere to be found, Smith assures him “there will be time for that kind of rhetoric later.” It’s really unbelievable.
The Liberal Avenger Must Be Stopped
Comrades, I regretfully inform you that one of our brothers-in-revolution is divulging secret communiques from the Central Committee. If you see him at this weekend’s Lenin-palooza, eliminate him at once, without prejudice. It is your duty to the Motherland.
UPDATE: I want to write about this a little more.
The underlying message from the rightosphere (as Liberal Avenger points out) is this: "People who demonstrate against the war are either (a) commies; or (b) dupes of commies". It’s basically the same meme trotted out almost 40 years ago, and it is just as silly now. More silly, in fact, because communism pretty much died some, oh, fifteen years ago.
But here is my prediction. On Monday, on some right wingnut blog, someone will post pictures of the American Communist Party handing out leaflets at the anti-war demonstration. Or something along those lines. The implicit (if not explicit message) is that anti-war people are in tacit cahoots with communists; therefore, their opinions should be taken with a grain of salt.
To demonstrate, let’s take a look at what Captain Ed wrote:
That doesn’t mean that everyone who attends these rallies lacks sincerity in the message. It should warn them, though, that continued association with such groups will eventually destroy their credibility.
Ever hear of a logical fallacy known as "guilt by association"? That’s exactly what Captain Ed is employing. Oddly enough, in his post, he quotes from the Washington Times, which is operated by Reverand Moon, who — aside from being a six-time felon — and a buddy to North Korea’s Kim Jung Il — thinks that Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves because they haven’t repented for killing Jesus.
So Captain, maybe you should check out your bedfellows.
Anyway, I don’t doubt that communists are against the War in Iraq. So is David Duke. And so are literally millions and millions of people — of all political stripes — in between. Trying to "swiftboat" all of them as fringe simply does not pass the laugh test.
Captain, wake up. The people who oppose this war — including a significant percentage of Republicans and a majority of Independents — are NOT the fringe. It is a broad coalition — so broad, in fact, that I suspect many of them disagree in their fundamental political philosophies. Thankfully, those disagreements are irrelevant; it is an anti-war protest — not a pro-A.N.S.W.E.R. rally, or a pro-whatever rally. The people who attend, whether they are affiliated with a group or not (and I suspect most of them won’t be), are there for one thing only: to show their disapproval a war that was, and is, folly.
So try as you might, Captain, you cannot marginalize the majority of American people with smears and generalized labels. YOU are in the margin, Captain, and if you care to venture outside of your echo chamber and go to Washington (leave your blinders at home, please), you’ll see for yourself. Asshole. And fuck you too, Glenn "Spinning the Protests" Reynolds.
Friday’s Random “Titles I Made Up For The Paintings They Just Hung On My Floor At Work”
- "A House, And It’s Snowing"
- "Autumn"
- "Country Boy Standing In A Swamp For Some Reason"
- "A Bunch Of Seashells In Front Of A Couple Of Windows"
- "Strange Lady (Badly In Need Of A Hairdresser) On Her Porch"
- "Another House – Gee, That’s Original"
- "Abandoned Boats"
- "A French Fop, A Lady From the Folies Bergere, And Spilled Paint"
- "Poster From What Was Probably A Really Bad 1980 Art Exposition"
- "Shit And Mud Collage #4"
- "Yet Another Trippy Sunset"
- "Not Leroy Neiman’s Best"
- "Painting That Is Part Of A Set #1"
- "Painting That Is Part Of A Set #2"
- "What The Fuck?!? Somebody Paid Money For This?!?"
- "Sailboats, I Guess"
- "American Gothic, Except With Frogs"
Beginning Of The End For Frist
WASHINGTON – When Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked a trustee to sell all his stock in his family’s hospital corporation, a large-scale sell-off by HCA Inc. insiders was under way.
Shares of the Nashville, Tenn.-based hospital company were near a 52-week peak in June when Frist and HCA insiders were selling off their shares — just about a month before the price dropped.Information about the insiders’ moves was publicly available through disclosures required by the Security and Exchange Commission
About 2.3 million shares, worth about $112 million, were sold by HCA insiders from January through June, with sales getting larger as the spring wore on, said Mark LoPresti of Thomson Financial. In May and June, 770,629 shares were sold for total gains of $42 million, he said.
The sales, which included moves by Hospital Corporation of America’s chief executive, treasurer, senior vice president for government programs and several directors, were among the largest insider selloffs analysts had seen, LoPresti said. Many officers made their largest trades ever in April, only to top them again in May and June, LoPresti said.
Meanwhile, HCA shares continued a steep climb that would ultimately take the price up 56 percent from October 2004 to July 2005, peaking in late June, LoPresti said.
But insider selling is sometimes seen a sign of looming trouble. Uninsured patient admissions were rising faster than those of insured patients, federal reimbursements were declining in real terms and payments did not keep up with cost increases. LoPresti himself discussed the insiders’ moves on an April 11 broadcast on the cable channel CNBC.