No link, no explanation, no discussion, no comments, no backstory. Just the cold, hard facts.
I’ve so far avoided twittering, but I now see the value in it.
And Now I Understand the Value of TwitterPost + Comments (70)
by John Cole| 70 Comments
This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
No link, no explanation, no discussion, no comments, no backstory. Just the cold, hard facts.
I’ve so far avoided twittering, but I now see the value in it.
And Now I Understand the Value of TwitterPost + Comments (70)
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads
Short walk tonight, because someone (not me), at about the mile and a half mark, decided to roll in something so foul smelling that I couldn’t stand the smell of her. I’m not sure what it was, but parts of it stuck to her flank until I threw her into the damned river before letting her into the car. The only downfall to going without a leash is that there is no margin for error when there are dead things to be rolled in- you just have to deal with it because you can’t control it. At any rate, some pics from before the incident:
Bonus wildlife:
I’m predicting this will be the first deer shot in the 2009 hunting season. As you can see, the underbrush is not thick at all, but this deer was making so much damned noise it was unbelievable. It sounded like a drunk frat boy who had stumbled off the path to the bathroom late at night and had walked into a briar patch.
Also, Tunch fans, he was busy eating while I posted this, so I will take a pic later.
by John Cole| 60 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Saw this via memeorandum:
Paul’s legislation, popularly known as the “Audit the Fed” bill, has drawn 244 cosponsors, ranging from Ohio’s John A. Boehner , the conservative Republican floor leader, to Michigan’s John Conyers Jr. , the liberal Democratic chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Some Democrats have even picked up on Paul’s rhetoric. “It’s time to yank the shroud off the Fed and shine some light on these events,” New York Democrat Edolphus Towns , chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said at a hearing last week about the shotgun marriage between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch last fall to stave off the latter’s collapse.
Paul’s efforts have only gained in political significance since the Obama administration unveiled its proposal to give the Fed new powers over the financial regulatory system.
Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if Paul’s desire is to go much farther than simply auditing the Fed (translation, I’m too lazy to google whether or not he wants to get rid of the Fed), but can anyone give me a reason why we shouldn’t audit the Fed? And why haven’t we been doing that all along?
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Vagina Outrage
We may never be allowed to call Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, William Kristol, or any of their prosperous fellows to account for their crimes during the ginning up and prosecution of our latest War Against the Iraqis. But, by the Christianists’ God, we can at least ensure that the face of America’s nightmare behavior there will be ostracized from Appalachia’s fast-food emporiums and public housing :
“Former Army reservist Lynndie England hasn’t landed a job in numerous tries: When one restaurant manager considered hiring her, other employees threatened to quit.”
…
She doesn’t like to travel: Strangers point and whisper, “That’s her!”
Her family received hate mail from all over the world because of the publicity surrounding the photographs and trial and, 5 years after the abuses were discovered, letters just keep coming. This, despite the fact that England wasn’t actually accused (or convicted) of physical abuse of prisoners — and despite the fact that the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the direct result of Administration policies that “conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees.”
England, by even the most sympathetic reading, failed to protest when ugly and un-American deeds were committed in her presence. She hasn’t shown much “remorse” for her crimes, if only because she doesn’t have the ability or the training to memorize the mandatory Repentance Script (and maybe leak a few tears on-camera when ‘confronted’ with the ‘evidence’). And it’s not as though she were the only undereducated PTSD-ridden veteran and single mother struggling to get by during this recession.
But should she really be the single individual who suffers most for the crimes at Abu Ghraib, just because she’s become the “face” of America’s sins?
I may have to buy a copy of her biography even though I doubt it will tell me anything I don’t already know, least of all about England herself.
(Props to the Jezebel commenter who pointed out, tongue severely in cheek, that by the rules of corporate America, McDonald’s might be overlooking a potential star: “If anything, she was the ideal employee — following orders to the end and working well with her team.”)
by John Cole| 71 Comments
This post is in: Dog Blogging, Open Threads
I’ve been informed I need to do a Tunch and Lily update, and I might later on, but right now you will have to be satisfied with this video of Ginny and Guesly playing with a Great Pyreneese who stayed with them while they were at the beach with my parents:
The JRT’s taught the Pyreneese all sorts of bad tricks, like jumping on the bed and what not, and the owner said as she was leaving that “I came with a Great Pyreneese and am leaving with a 100+ lb Jack Russell Terrier.”
I’ll be back later. Behave.
by John Cole| 54 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
To answer DougJ’s question, Rush got his talking point about 9-0 in a 5-4 ruling from the bullshit factory known as the National Review Online. Ed Whelan took his first stab at 10:52 with a post titled “Supreme Court vs. Sotomayor,” Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network and the NRO advances the ball with a post titled “Not a Single Justice Agreed with Sotomayor,” language that can be understood even through an oxycontin haze. The Judicial Confirmation Network statement is a gem:
“Frank Ricci finally got his day in court, despite the judging of Sonia Sotomayor, which all nine Justices of U.S. Supreme Court have now confirmed was in error.
“Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.
“What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.
“The firefighters in New Haven who protect the public safety and worked hard for their promotions did not deserve to become victims of racial quotas, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that they did not deserve to have their claims buried and thrown out by Judge Sotomayor.”
Then to drive the point home for the dimmer bulbs in the blogosphere, now that Dan Bartlett isn’t around to circulate the official notes for bloggers to “regurgitate,” at 1:52 pm Whelan belched up a post titled “Re: 9-0 Against Sotomayor.”
And there you have it. A 5-4 split decision along liberal/conservative lines has been transmogrified, with the mystical powers of right-wing bullshit, into a 9-0 decision against Sotomayor. The Wurlitzer lives. I challenge you to count the number of times this is repeated on Hardball or Fox news tonight, since I am going to be out hiking with the dog.
And has Jeffrey Rosen ever told us if Wendy Long, who was a clerk on the 2nd Circuit, was one of his “sources” for his hit piece on Sotomayor? I’d really like to know.
*** Update ***
From the Bullshit Factory That is the NRO, That is Where…Post + Comments (54)
by John Cole| 87 Comments
This post is in: Clown Shoes, The Wingularity, Wingnut Event Horizon
I just got this email from PJ Media:
July 4th weekend is quickly approaching. What does that mean for you?
Citizen Reporters:
For April 15, over 700 reporters signed up and ultimately uploaded 7,000 photos and over 100 videos! We want your help for July 4th weekend Tea Party coverage. Currently our Citizen Reporter count is approaching 800 – but we need more.
Sign up here.Tea Party Organizers:
We want to help you make a difference by covering your event. Register it here.This initial list of Tea Party events will be rapidly expanding during this week!
You gotta love that thinking- the Tax Day tea parties were a huge flop even with weeks of promotion at Fox News, so schedule a new set of patriotic tea parties on… July 4th, when everyone is celebrating Independence Day, and just count all them as part of the tea party numbers. Why, I bet there will be a hundred thousand or more tea party attendants in DC alone at the Lincoln Memorial! I bet they even stay for the fireworks they are so committed to the tea party cause!
So here is my plan for a tea party of our own. This year, from after Thanksgiving until 2 January, I want everyone who wants to signify that they support any liberal or dirty hippy position to do the following things to show your support for the cause:
1.) Put up a large evergreen in your living room and dress it up with lots of ornaments.
2.) Drink egg nog.
3.) Place candles in your window.
4.) Take the day off on the 24th or 25th of December, and spend it with your family.
5.) Sing little ditties and songs (we can even call them “carols”).
6.) Buy gifts for your friends and loved ones.
I have a lot more ideas about how we can really show our solidarity. I’m tentatively thinking about adopting the reindeer as our mascot, and maybe making mistletoe our official plant life, but I’m open to ideas.
What do you think?
*** Update ***
It has been suggested that not only should we choose mistletoe, but we should make up some silly rule about hanging it and then kissing people underneath it. This sounds promising.
My Idea For a Liberal Version of the Tea PartyPost + Comments (87)