You know the drill.
Looks like more rain here again today. I suppose we need it, but it is making it hard to get anything done in the garden.
by John Cole| 43 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
You know the drill.
Looks like more rain here again today. I suppose we need it, but it is making it hard to get anything done in the garden.
by DougJ| 66 Comments
This post is in: Media
I know it’s all in the game and that the Obama people are smart to do this, but it makes me a little sick anyway:
But Friday, the West Wing door was held open by a matching door stop and camera crews, and television reporters came and went as they pleased.
In fact, the White House had a reality-show-like feel Friday as NBC and the network’s anchor Brian Williams taped “Inside the Obama White House,” an exclusive, behind the scenes look at what goes on inside the White House and the West Wing each day.
And maybe this means I’m one step from going full-on Dijongate but having burgers with Brian Williams at Five Guys so that he can yak about what a “regular guy” you are rubs me the wrong way too:
Obama, sans jacket, walked up the counter, scanned the menu posted above, and began ordering. Aides Reggie Love and Marvin Nicholson slipped him various requests from the crew. At one point, he brought up NBC’s Brian Williams, who ordered a cheeseburger with ketchup and fries.
Again, I’m sure this is good politics. But it’s certainly not good journalism, even if it’s not as bad as that crap Elisabeth Bumiller wrote about Bush (this ought to give you the flavor of those).
Maybe I’m wrong, but I fear both men will reminisce about their childhoods and we’ll have to hear about Williams’ days as a volunteer fireman.
by DougJ| 23 Comments
This post is in: Media
Larison solves the problem of why Maria Sotomayor’s ruling in the Ricci case was not the Worst Decision Evah (his entire post on Sotomayor is excellent):
What this means is that the appeals court ruled against Ricci because it recognized that New Haven had tried to avoid a lawsuit that would have been possible and likely successful because of current law. In other words, the city tried to avoid falling afoul of the law, and the court did not penalize it for doing so. What is to blame in all of this is the law, rather than the judges who seem to have done what they were supposed to do. Indeed, what some people seem to have wanted to see Sotomayor do is to punish New Haven for trying to stay within the limits of the law, and for failing to do so she is declared to be an enemy of the rule of law. I submit that this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Perhaps I have missed something, but the injustice done to Ricci seems in no small part to be a product of the law as it exists. However, under current law, even granting that the city of New Haven seems to have bungled the handling of the promotion test for its firefighters, it does not necessarily follow that throwing out the test results from the apparently flawed test was a violation of anyone’s legal rights. Presumably had Sotomayor found for the plaintiff, we would now be hearing about how all that infamous “empathy” caused her to side with the dyslexic man against a municipality–oh, the judicial activism!–and to open the latter up to long and costly litigation (which would, of course, demonstrate her abiding love of greedy trial lawyers, her desire to enrich fellow minorities and her hatred of patriotic firefighters, as so many people would be only too happy to tell us).
It’s nice to see an actual analysis of the decision, instead of the Villagers clucking “affirmative action bad, extreme decision, Ricci reminds me of my cranky uncle”, etc.
I think Larison would have been a good pick for the NYT opinion gig that Douthat got. In a few days, we’ll see what Douthat comes up with on this topic.
Update. I see John already wrote about this a few days ago, which I thought I dimly remembered, but couldn’t find “Larison” in a search (I should have tried “Eunomia” as well).
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
Thanks for helping my sister out, she met her goal. Dinner was great, and this about sums up the general mood at Casa de Tunch:
This is a much better version, but you can’t embed it. Dunno if I have ever mentioned how much I like Waylon and actual real country music, but now I have. One of these days we will have to talk about the relationship between outlaw country and their defense of rap musicians, but we can leave that for some other time.
They don’t make ’em like Waylon anymore.
Also:
And in a completely different vein, if I were to ever propose, I would do it with this in the background:
I just love that song.
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Open Threads
I’m off to dinner with some friends, but I wanted to leave you with a shiny new open thread. Also, my insane sister, who never met a plane she did not want to jump out of or a cliff she did not want to climb, a trait that I simply do not share, is apparently riding 150 miles to fight Multiple Sclerosis:
I’ve registered for the Bike MS: Escape to the Lake (Erie) event because I want to do something for the people who have been diagnosed – and because I want to do everything to prevent more people from learning what it means to live with this disease.
The MS 150 is a 150 mile bike ride from Pittsburgh to Erie,PA and back, all in an effort to raise awareness and funding for MS research and programming.
Today, there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, and with diagnosis occurring most frequently between the ages of 20 and 50, many individuals face a lifetime filled with unpredictability.
If you would like to sponsor her, here is the link. I promised her I would put a post up about this, partially because I know that my life is easiest when I just do what the women around me tell me to do, but also because I think it is a good cause. I’m in for $25.00.
Also, this cat wants you to donate to the fight against MS:
And how could you say no to that face? I’ll be back later. Try to behave.
by John Cole| 59 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, Assholes, Clown Shoes
Not only is Sotomayor not qualified for the Supreme Court, she is not qualified for… jury duty:
Would Judge Sotomayor be qualified to serve as a juror? Let’s say she forthrightly explained to the court during the voir dire (the jury-selection phase of a case) that she believed a wise Latina makes better judgments than a white male; that she doubts it is actually possible to “transcend [one’s] personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law”; and that there are “basic differences” in the way people “of color” exercise “logic and reasoning.” If, upon hearing that, would it not be reasonable for a lawyer for one (or both) of the parties to ask the court to excuse her for cause? Would it not be incumbent on the court to grant that request?
Should we have on the Supreme Court, where jury verdicts are reviewed, a justice who would have difficulty qualifying for jury service?
Obama is seriously the luckiest man on the planet to have these guys as the opposition. I wonder when McCarthy will get around to asking her about her birth certificate.
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: Assholes, Clown Shoes
I’ll note with glee that Bill Kristol’s jockstrap, Michael Goldfarb, appears to be just as fast and loose with the facts as his boss:
So Goldfarb’s snide comments about Sotomayor teaching her own class and grading her own work seem to be completely baseless: she didn’t teach the class.
It is, however, increasingly clear why Goldfarb’s Princeton career didn’t go the way Sonia Sotomayor’s did, and it has less to do with Sotomayor receiving “preferential treatment” than with Goldfarb’s limited reading comprehension abilities.
With Goldgarb’s history of accuracy, I simply have no idea why Fred Hiatt is not paying him for an occasional column.