According to a new FCC estimate obtained by Mediaweek, nearly all indecency complaints in 2003
Republican Stupidity
It Hurts Because He Is Right
Tom Friedman is angry this Thanksgiving, and if you ask me, he has every damned right to be. You should be pissed, too, especially if you are a Republican:
In my next life, I want to be Tom DeLay, the House majority leader.
Yes, I want to get almost the entire Republican side of the House of Representatives to bend its ethics rules just for me. I want to be able to twist the arms of House Republicans to repeal a rule that automatically requires party leaders to step down if they are indicted on a felony charge – something a Texas prosecutor is considering doing to DeLay because of corruption allegations.
But most of all, I want to have the gall to sully American democracy at a time when young American soldiers are fighting in Iraq so we can enjoy a law-based society here and, maybe, extend it to others. Yes, I want to be Tom DeLay. I want to wear a little American flag on my lapel in solidarity with the troops, while I besmirch every value they are dying for.
If I can’t be Tom DeLay, then I want to be one of the gutless Republican House members who voted to twist the rules for DeLay out of fear that “the Hammer,” as they call him, might retaliate by taking away a coveted committee position or maybe a parking place.
Yes, I want to be a Republican House member. At a time when 180 of the 211 members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Iraq who have been wounded in combat have insisted on returning to duty, I want to look my constituents and my kids in the eye and tell them that I voted to empty the House ethics rules because I was afraid of Tom DeLay.
Simply inexcusable. I understand that Ronnie Earle is a partisan hack who has a history of political prosecution, but after all of DeLay’s shenanigans with redistricting and who knows what else, it was kinda hard not to see this coming. Now, for no reason whatsoever other than arrogance, DeLay and is minions (morons??) have given the Democrats the ability to tar all Republicans as hypocrites. And you know what? They may be on to something, even though the Democrats have no such rule themselves.
Welcome to 1958
It looks like the Republicans are not going to wait to make me regret voting almost straight ticket two weeks ago:
Comparing pornography to heroin, researchers on Thursday called on Congress to finance studies on “porn addiction” and launch a public health campaign about the dangers.
“We’re so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material,” said James B. Weaver, a Virginia Tech professor who studies the impact of pornography.
Internet pornography is corrupting children and hooking adults into an addiction that threatens their jobs and families, a panel of anti-porn advocates told the hearing organized by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., chairman of the Commerce subcommittee on science.
Brownback, a father of five, said when he was a boy, the typical kid’s exposure was limited to occasional peeks at dirty magazines illicitly obtained by a buddy.
Now, he said, pornography seems pervasive. Children run across it while researching homework on the Internet. Vulgar ads arrive unexpectedly by e-mail. Some of his middle-age male friends limit their time alone in hotel rooms to avoid the temptation of graphic pay-per-view movies, Brownback said.
Mary Anne Layden, co-director of a sexual trauma program at the University of Pennsylvania, said pornography’s effect on the brain mirrors addiction to heroin or crack cocaine. She told of one patient, a business executive, who arrived at his office at 9 a.m. each day, logged onto Internet porn sites, and didn’t log off until 5 p.m.
Looks like instead of the war on terrorism, we are going to spend the next four years fighting the war on dirty pictures.
Sheer Idiocy
Having made a long defense of red-staters and their religious beliefs, let me remark on another issue, if you will:
School officials have revised the science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.
Members of Grantsburg’s school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum “should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory,” said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.
Last month, when the board examined its science curriculum, language was added calling for “various models/theories” of origin to be incorporated.
Teaching creationism in science class and pretending it is a viable ‘model/theory’ is akin to teaching magic in calculus just because some people are too unwilling or too stupid to understand the fundamentals of mathematics.
I would call this sort of nonsense junk science, but out of respect to legitimate junk scientists everywhere, I will keep my mouth shut.
Idiot flat-earthers.
No Excuse
I spent three hours last night trying to think of an acceptable excuse from the Bush administration about this, and I came up with nothing. Try to come up with an excuse for this and tell me how you do:
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives – used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons – are missing from one of Iraq’s most sensitive former military installations.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man’s land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.
You didn’t misread that. That is 380 tons. Let’s put this in persepctive. THis wasn’t just a big mound of c-4 sitting in the middle of the desert. For each pound of explosive, you can probably at least double the weight when you factor in crating. The logistics alone of carting off this amount of explosives is so daunting as to make it inexcusable.
Put it this way. This is akin to over the past two years, someone systematically dismantled every house on your block and carried it away, and when the NY Times asked you what happened, your response is: “Gee, I am not sure what happened.”
PS- I don’t care if we are looking into this and the explosives may be with appropriate authorities. Every niht that I was in the field as a soldier, my platoon sergeant and butterbar conducted a sensitive items check, and each person made sure that he has his weapon, protective mask, an/pvs-7’s, and other items. Every night. Business stopped if one boresight device or one set of night vision goggles was missing. In peacetime, if someone lost a weapon, the base closed.
We can’t check nightly on 380 frigging tons of explosives? Jeebus.
*** Update ***
I got the vapors because I actually believed the assholes at the NY Times. I don’t believe the Times story anymore, so read the rest of this post with that in mind.
*** Update #2 ***
Commenters have left some links that lead me to believe my initial reaction was correct.
I will have to check on this later, but my reaction now is that I was right the first go around. Regardless of what happened, not being able to provide a coherent response RIGHT NOW to the question “Where are the 380 tons of explosives?” seems to me to be inexcusable.
Free Speech
What the hell is wrong with people:
A hot-button film believed by some to be anti-Bush is getting multiple viewings at a local polling place the week before the election, NewsChannel5 reported.
The library is a polling place on Nov. 2 and the controversial movie critical of President George W. Bush is set to air three times the weekend before the election.
“They just got a one-mill levy passed. Taxpayers, like it or not, are paying for Michael Moore to spread his rhetoric at an official polling site two days before an election — in a key state,” Pengov said.
Librarian Debby Kressa said she is surprised by the complaints.
Kressa said the move came in and she just wanted to accommodate all the people on a waiting list to sign the movie out, so she thought it would be a good idea to show the film in the library’s movie room.
The library posted an announcement that “Farenhype 9/11” will be aired as well. Officials are hoping that this will provide political balance for airing “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
Pengov said because the library is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization he will go to court next week to try to stop the library from showing the movie at a polling site.
I am beginning to get really disturbed by the efforts of those on the left and the right who are attempting tostifle speech they do not like. This is a public library that also happens to be a polling place. If the public library has a controversial film it wants to show, fine. Cripes- they are even acknowledging the film is controversial and trying to show some balance by showing the rebuttal- Fahrenhype.
If our public libraries are not free to show controversial material, whether it be conservative, liberal, marxist, communist, socialist, nazi, or whatever, where can we expect or receive an airing of ideas? College campuses are already verboten thanks to the PC police. This is really disturbing- especially in the same week that the other side of the political spectrum is trying to use the power of government to shut down what private corporations air (Sinclair).
Thank goodness for the internet, at least.