Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Let there be snark.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / 2003 / Archives for June 2003

Archives for June 2003

More Bad News

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From the continent that is by and large a basket case:

The unregulated supply of Aids drugs in the non-industrialised world threatens to accelerate the development of drug-resistant HIV strains.

That is the conclusion of a study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, just published in the British Medical Journal.

Apparently, Africa is currently a laboratory perfectly set up to create resistance in the virus:

“These drugs are not being used according to the correct regimens. For instance, monotherapy – just giving one anti-retroviral drug – is definitely bad practice. And we see evidence of that both from Zimbabwe and Uganda, and I’m sure it’s happening in other countries too.”

Dr Brugha also found that in some places patients are changing medication frequently, taking the wrong dose, or stopping treatment in periods when they cannot afford it.

This is exactly the set of conditions in which a virus quickly becomes drug-resistant.

Every time I read about Africa, I just get depressed.

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Alzheimer’s Update

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One of the most interesting studies I have ever read was the 1996 “Nun” study examining the association between low idea density in writing and later development of Alzheimers. This is an equally interesting study:

Playing chess, bridge or a musical instrument significantly lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, according to the most comprehensive study to examine the benefits of challenging intellectual activity among the elderly.

Seniors who regularly engaged in pastimes that stretched their minds — sorry, watching TV doesn’t count — lowered their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias by as much as 75 percent, compared with those who didn’t exercise their minds, researchers said yesterday.

The report bolsters a growing body of evidence that exercising the mind through board games, social activities and education offers powerful protection against mental deterioration and disease.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “Use it or lose it.”

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A Government Program I like

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I like this. Lots:

The Federal Trade Commission by the end of this month will begin taking requests from consumers who want their phone numbers made off-limits to telemarketers.

The federal plan is similar to programs in more than two dozen states where consumers can place their phone numbers on so-called do-not-call registries. Those programs appear to have effectively curbed some unwanted telephone solicitations.

Under the new federal rules, telemarketers who call phone numbers that have been listed on a nationwide do-not-call registry database will be subject, beginning on Oct. 1, to fines of up to $11,000 for each violation.

This concept has become more popular as technology has allowed companies to pitch their wares to millions of consumers over telephone, e-mail, and now even mobile phones.

I absolutely hate it when I get calls from telemarketers on my cell phone during peak hours. Just infuriates me.

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If Al Gore Tells A Joke in the Woods, Will Anyone Laugh?

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Go for it, big guy:

Former Vice President Al Gore, once a newspaper reporter, may be getting back into the media business.

Gore has been meeting with potential investors interested in creating a cable television network, Time magazine’s online edition reported Wednesday.

There’s been a lot of talk in Democratic circles about launching a media enterprise to counter dominant GOP voices. Political talk radio is dominated by conservative voices and Fox News Channel, the top-rated cable news outlet, is also very popular among conservatives.

When it fails, who will they blame?

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You Never Listen

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Like I have said, over and over again, Howard Dean is going to be the Democrat candidate in 2004. Now House and Senate Dems are getting worried:

“Democratic strategists have begun to express concern about what they say is the potentially negative effect the former Vermont governor could have on Senate and House races if he becomes the party’s nominee,” ROLL CALL is reporting in Thursday’s edition.

“This line of criticism underscores an approach to the campaign Dean has employed to great effect thus far, pitching himself as a straight-talking outsider who will challenge the political orthodoxy of the inside-the-Beltway Democratic establishment.”

Of most concern: “Dean’s outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his call for a complete rollback of President Bush’s tax cuts, positions that some strategists argue makes him unattractive – even potentially alienating – to swing voters needed to win competitive House and Senate seats.”

“If Dean is the nominee it will make 1972 look competitive,” a Democratic strategist not “aligned with any of the presidential campaigns” told the newspaper. “Members and candidates in marginal seats will be running for the hills.”

Looks like the campaign to sabotage Dean will begin in earnest. If this happens, expect a green/moderate Democrat split that will create a seismic shift in the political landscape. The hard left will have a stroke if the DLC types are seen to destroy Dean (even though Dean is pretty much a moderate himself). This is good for the Republican party.

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Irony Alert

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Mary Robinson has a long opinion piece in the International Herald Tribune in which she states that Europe must do more to fight anti-semitism:

Last month in Berlin a man wearing a pendant with the Star of David was attacked on a bus by a group of teenagers who spat on him, kicked him in the face and shouted anti-Semitic insults. A day earlier in Vienna a rabbi was physically assaulted by two young people as he was walking home from prayer. In Minsk, Belarus, vandals desecrated a memorial at Yama, which marks the site where 100,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II, spraying Nazi slogans, swastikas and threats. And in London, vandals desecrated 386 Jewish graves at the Plashnet Cemetery in East Ham.

Each of these attacks and desecrations of Jewish sites took place in the last month. None have received much public attention. But they are illustrative of a growing pattern of anti-Semitic attacks that has escalated dramatically since 2001.

In a report published last year the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights found “an alarming rise in anti-Semitic attacks in Europe.” The committee noted that with the exception of Jewish organizations and some human rights and anti-racism groups, “the world community – governments, intergovernmental organizations and nongovernment organizations alike – has not responded adequately to this growing problem. Anti-Semitism is racism. Anti-Semitic acts need to be confronted more forcefully and treated as serious violations of international human rights.”

We agree, Europe should do more. But who the hell does Mary Robinson think she is to lecture anyone on anti-semitism? You remember, of course, that Mary Robinson was the chief architect of the virulently anti-American and anti-semitic “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” You remember that, don’t you:

At the conference, Robinson presided over little more than an intellectual pogrom against Jews and Israel. She remained largely silent as the preliminary Asian Regional Conference in Tehran (to which Israel was excluded) inserted blatantly racist statements into the conference agenda. She failed to speak out when, on the grounds of the U.N. conference itself, the Arab Lawyers Union distributed pamphlets depicting hook-nosed Jews as Nazis spearing Palestinian children. In the same tent where nongovernmental organizations depicted Israel as a “racist, apartheid state,” were distributed fliers entitled, “What if Hitler had won?” The answer: “There would be no Israel, and no Palestinian bloodshed.”

These idiots really don’t think we are paying attention.

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Another One Bites the Dust

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Another one down:

Federal authorities said today that they had uncovered a plot by Al Qaeda, working with a truck driver in Ohio, to bomb a bridge in New York City, trains in Washington and other targets.

The truck driver, Iyman Faris, a 34-year-old American citizen from Kashmir, was secretly taken into custody about three months ago by federal agents. Under a secret plea agreement unsealed today, Mr. Faris agreed in April to charges of providing material support to terrorists, and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Rot in hell, traitor.

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