Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by John Cole| 6 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Don’t forget, clocks ‘fall back’ an hour tonight.
I am glad this is the age of the DVD, because the permanent flashing of ’12:00′ on my VCR combined with a series of appliance clocks that were an hour off 6 months of the year was a constant reminder of my personal failings.
by John Cole| 25 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Republican Stupidity, Outrage
I write a post about how much I enjoy organic foods, and then I find out that the party I belong to is trying to destroy that, too. Why? Corporate greed:
Congress voted yesterday to weaken the nation’s organic food standards in response to pressure from large-scale food manufacturers.
The Organic Trade Association (OTA) and food processors have been pressing Congress to change the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) to allow for the use of numerous synthetic substances in products labeled “organic” and to weaken organic dairy standards.
A recent court decision ruled that the OFPA does not allow synthetic (non-natural) ingredients to be used in foods labeled “organic” and that the act must ensure a strong standard under which dairy cows are converted to organic milk production. After rejecting efforts by members of the public interest and environmental community to reach an agreement on these issues, major food processors in the organic food industry, including Smucker’s, Dean Foods, and Kraft, pushed Congress to “quietly” change the law to allow the use of such synthetic ingredients and potentially weaken the organic dairy standards.
“Congress voted last night to weaken the national organic standards that consumers count on to preserve the integrity of the organic label,” said Ronnie Cummins, National Director of the Organic Consumers Association.. “The process was profoundly undemocratic and the end result is a serious setback for the multi billion dollar alternative food and farming system that the organic community has so painstakingly built up over the past 35 years. The rider will take away the traditional role of the organic community and the National Organic Standards Board in monitoring and controling organic standards. Industry’s stealth attack has unnecessarily damaged the standards that helped organic foods become the fastest growing sector in the food industry.”
More here. I guess in the future, the word ‘organic’ is going to be as meaningless as the word ‘home-made’ on a food label. Or as meaningless as the words ‘honor and integrity’ are to this congress and administration.
There is no reason to change the standards other than to mollycoddle big agribusiness firms who want to continue producing food the way they do yet reap the profits of the niche organic market.
*** Update ***
And, btw, it is small businesses, the ones Republicans claim to love, who will be hurt by this. Most of the locally raised fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy around here are grown and raised by organic farmers. Ruining the organic label will destroy these businesses, which just recently have started up and started to become profitable.
Not to mention it will limit my choices as a consumer.
by John Cole| 34 Comments
This post is in: Previous Site Maintenance
I have about 25 posts I want to write, but I have no motivation. Maybe after the Georgia game (Hunker Down, You HAIRY DAWGS!) I will be back with something.
In the meantime, two observations from the grocery store:
1.) I bought some organic grapes, and they were spectacular. I don’t know if it is just me, but organic food seems to just taste better. I don’t know if that is all in my head, but I buy organic products every opportunity I can, now. They also always seem to come from California. Make of that what you will.
2.) I need a new pickle. I went to buy some Claussen’s yesterday, and it occurred to me that I am just sick of them. I hate the crappy vinegary ones made by most companies (Mt. Olive Kosher Dills seem to be about the best of that type), but I need a new pickle. Any suggestions? Every now and then my store carries some real Kosher dills, made by a Jewish producer in Brooklyn, but those are sometimes too garlicy.
And, btw, heh:
Whoopee! Moveon.org, the organization that was started to protect Bill Clinton from the consequences of lying to a Grand Jury, is on the warpath to promote the idea that lying to a Grand Jury really is a big deal after all.
Hehe.
*** Update ***
BTW- I have asked a liberal to begin posting here, and he should have his first post up sometime today or tomorrow, if we can ever figure out how to get him logged in.
by John Cole| 48 Comments
This post is in: Movies
I am only twenty minutes into Batman Begins, and my thoughts so far are that it is so good that all the other Batmans and any trace of their existence should be destroyed.
This is the brooding, dark knight Batman that I know from the comics. More thoughts later when I finish it.
*** Update ***
Hands down, the best Batman and the best comic translation to date. Can not wait for the next one. Chris Nolan is a genius- but you knew that because you saw Memento.
Things I liked:
1.) As far as comic book superheroes go, this was the most believable, if you will.
2.) Dark and brooding, but not overly done.
3.) No uber-cheesy dialogue.
4.) The effects when people were under the effects of the weaponized hallucinogen were excellent.
5.) The story drove the special effects, and not the other way around.
6.) Christian Bale. ‘Nuff said.
7.) Gary Oldman. Makes every movie better.
8.) The music was incredible, and not the kind of overhyped nonsense that tells you how you are supposed to feel. it flowed.
9.) I don’t know if you guys have home theatres, but this was the best sounding movie I have ever watched.
10.) Batman seemed to have a fighting style I had never seen before, with a lot of elbow moves. Very cool.
What I didn’t like:
1.) The car seemed over done, and the rooftop bit was too much.
2.) The car, at peak speeds, seemed to make the same exact sound as the racers in the jungle in Return of the Jedi, which bothered me for obvious reasons. Or maybe it was the racer young Anakin used. Same sound effect, regardless.
And that is it. The movie was awesome.
[/dork lovefest]by John Cole| 24 Comments
This post is in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs
Via Hit and Run, the Drug War Chronicle has the gory details:
More than half a million people were behind bars for drug offenses in the United States at the end of last year, according to numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In a report released Sunday, Prisoners in 2004, the Justice Department number-crunchers found that people sentenced for drug crimes accounted for 21% of state prisoners and 55% of all federal prisoners.
This report did not quantify the number of jail inmates doing time on drug charges in 2004, but an earlier BJS report put the percentage of jail inmates doing time for drug crime at 24.7% in 2002. Given the slow upward trend in drug prisoners as a percentage of all jail prisoners, DRCNet estimates that given a mid-year 2004 jail population of 714,000, approximately one-quarter, or 178,000 people were sitting in jail on drug charges at that time. With 178,000 drug prisoners in jail, more than 87,000 federal drug prisoners, and more than 266,000 state drug prisoners, the total number of people doing time for drugs in the United States last year exceeded 530,000.
Drug war prisoners make up only about one-fourth of an all-time high 2,268,000 people behind bars in the US, up 1.9% from 2003. But while the imprisonment juggernaut continues to roll along, there are faint signs that its growth is slowing. Last year’s 1.9% increase in prison and jail population was lower than the year before (2.0%) and lower than the 3.2% average annual growth rate for the past decade.
What are we doing???? Also via Hit and Run, this Radley Balko piece on one of those criminals:
Publicly, Paey’s prosecutors have conceded that the 25-year sentence was excessive, yet they insist that Paey himself is to blame, citing his refusal to accept a plea agreement. The chilling implication: Paey is serving prison time for drug distribution not because he’s guilty of actually distributing drugs — the state admits as much — but because he insisted on exercising his constitutionally-protected right to a jury trial.
Earlier this year, New York Times columnist John Tierney flew to Florida to interview Paey for a story that ran on July 19. Tierney’s column was sympathetic to Paey’s plight, and sharply critical of the state of Florida.
There is now strong evidence that the state of Florida and prison officials retaliated against Paey for speaking with Tierney. Two weeks after the interview, Paey was moved to a prison facility more than two hours from his wife and family. He was then moved even farther away, some 170 miles, to the Tomoka Correctional Institution near Daytona Beach. Sympathetic prison officials, other inmates, and medical staff have since told Paey he was moved away from his family because the guard who sat in on his interview with Tierney had complained to prison authorities about what Paey had revealed to the journalist.
At about the same time, prison medical staff told Paey that the state of Florida had refused to give permission for them to refill his morphine pump. For Paey, this information was the equivalent of a death sentence. The state of Florida left him to agonize for weeks before finally authorizing the refill, the day before his pump was scheduled to run dry. Here again, Paey has since been given strong reason to believe that the threat to withhold his medication was in retaliation for relaying his story to the New York Times.
Sick.
by John Cole| 55 Comments
This post is in: Politics
I had to step out for a while after the indictments were handed down, so I am going to read the transcript of the press conference, the indictment (again), and the nine page statement in a litle bit, and then I will get around to deciding what I think of the whole affair. I tried to read the comments in the last thread, but it got unreadable with all the denial on one side and overstated triumphalism from the other side. One quick thing- the indictment proves one thing and one thing only- that Libby has been indicted. So both sides, please knock it off.
Today’s events don’t prove that Valerie Plame was a NOC and was outed and national security was irreparably harmed. Today’s events don’t prove that Plame wasn’t a NOC and that nothing bad happened. It doesn’t prove that every Kossack conspiracy theory and wet dream about the administration is true. It proves that Fitzgerald presented enough evidence to the Grand Jury to get them to indict Libby on the five charges that have been presented to us.
For now, Tom Maguire has some questions that remain unanswered:
Some obvious puzzles remain:
Who was Novak’s source?
Was national security harmed by the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity?
Will there be other charges against other officials?
Jeralynn also has some questions:
Among the unanswered questions:
Has anyone agreed to plead guilty in the investigation
Who was Novak’s source
Who was Pincus’s source
Is Fitz contemplating a charge that officials violated Valerie Plame’s civil rights under 1983?
Meanwhile, for the most comprehensive round-up of center right responses, check out Jeff Goldstein, who liveblogged events as they unfolded and has a link rich round-up.
I am off to cook dinner, read what we have right now, and watch the new Batman that just came out on DVD.
*** Update ***
Mark Kleiman and the first commenter here claim the indictment does prove she was a NOC. I will reserve judgement, because ‘classified’ can mean a number of different things.
by John Cole| 8 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links
Cathy Young has a long, interesting read on her views of same-sex marriage.