Some pet pics:
Claim your kids.
Does the second picture count as a Godwin violation?
*** Update ***
I may need to rethink my position on taser usage, because I was cheering for them to break out the taser and they never did.
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Dog Blogging, Open Threads
Some pet pics:
Claim your kids.
Does the second picture count as a Godwin violation?
*** Update ***
I may need to rethink my position on taser usage, because I was cheering for them to break out the taser and they never did.
This post is in: Music
Yes he did:
He’s still got a little work to do on the economy, but already President Barack Obama has accomplished at least one task that had appeared all but impossible just a year ago: He’s put The Dead back on the road.
As the core surviving members of the Grateful Dead, once the world’s biggest concert draw, barrel across the country for the first time in five years, bass player Phil Lesh says they have Obama, and also Lesh’s youngest son, Brian, to thank.
After Lesh, who had never publicly supported a presidential candidate, threw his lot in with Obama, he was anxious to do a benefit concert for him. But he was all but done with The Dead, so it was going to feature his other band, Phil and Friends.
“My son Brian said, ‘No Daddy, you’ve got to get The Dead together because it will be so much more meaningful and important,'” the musician chuckled during a recent phone interview.
One benefit performance led to another and then an inaugural ball concert. Next thing they knew, Lesh, guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann were back together.
Who says he isn’t the Messiah! As a side note, I honestly don’t understand people who don’t like the Dead.
by John Cole| 48 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Fran Townsend is on CNN trotting out a new line of bullshit, and that is releasing the memos was bad because now the CIA will no longer be trusted by our allies because we can’t keep a secret. These people have no shame.
Also, I will note that for whatever reason, the libertarians over at Reason have multiple hissy fits up about the DHS report from the other day, several stories up about pirates, a couple about pot, and the only mention of the real issue of the day (one would think) for libertarians, the OLC memos detailing how we tortured people, is in a link round-up.
Because you have to have priorities, you know. They do manage to execute a near flawless Cavuto Mark in their current top story, though: “Obama on Warrantless Surveillance: As Bad As Bush? Worse?”
Remember- they aren’t saying he is as bad as Bush or worse, they are just asking! I can’t believe I read Reason for all those years. What a joke.
I will defend them on one account- if you consider the number of people tortured because of those memos and the number of people impinged upon by our immoral and insane drug laws, there is a much larger net loss of liberty (if you could neatly quantify liberty) by our marijuana laws. It isn’t even close. So I do give those guys credit for never wavering on that front. But jeeebus. Torture. No thoughts in the past 48 hours on the memos?
*** Update ***
Can someone come up with an angle on how the OLC memos prove Obama is worse than Bush? Then maybe we can get the folks at Reason to notice the memos.
by DougJ| 184 Comments
This post is in: Politics
Walking through campus yesterday, I saw what looked to be a very annoying sorority girl — the sort I would normally assume to be right-leaning politically — explaining to two boys why they should help out with her sorority’s fundraising efforts. It turned out that the sorority was trying to raise five thousand dollars to give to a stem cell research fund.
Later that day, I brought up the high speed rail plan (which would go through Rochester) with two Republican graduate students here. They were very excited about it, much more than I am. One mentioned that he thought it was crazy that Americans have to spend so long in their cars and wondered why our transportation system can’t be more like Europe’s. I didn’t have the heart to tell them they’re supposed to hate Europe as conservatives.
I know that the plural of anecdote is not data, but seeing things like this makes me believe that cultural politics is very different among young people than among older people. I doubt that the sorority girl knew much about stem cell research or that the students I talked to knew much about rail travel. Culturally, though, they identified with things like scientific research and public transportation.
I have a feeling this kind of thing runs pretty deep. And that it’s going to be pretty damn hard for a party consisting primarily of older southern people to get on the right side of this cultural divide. This from McCain’s campaign manager, Steve Schmidt (via TPM), may be a harbinger of things to come, though:
Former top McCain adviser Steve Schmidt is planning to use a Friday speech to the Log Cabin Republicans to urge the GOP to drop its opposition to same-sex marriage.
“I’m confident American public opinion will continue to move on the question toward majority support, and sooner or later the Republican Party will catch up to it,” Schmidt plans to say according to excerpts provided to ABC News.
Schmidt’s push for Republicans to endorse same-sex marriage comes as his party is grappling with a string of gay rights victories in Iowa, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.
I’m not a fan of the politics of cultural identification. I think it tends to blur the detail out of policy and often involves issues that aren’t even the government’s domain in the first place (I agree with John that the government should only issue civil unions, not marriages, for all people). But it does seem like the era of God, gays, and guns may be drawing to a close, at least outside of Appalachia and the Deep South.
by John Cole| 97 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Now playing in Itunes, Tabula Rasa– Bela Fleck, V.M. Bhatt, and Jie-Bing Chen.
And don’t mock it until you have listened to it.
*** Update ***
by DougJ| 44 Comments
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about Time-Warner’s plan to begin “internet consumption billing” in my area. The billing plan was, quite simply, a way to screw consumers, as Fighting29th ably explains here, here, and here.
I live just about on the border of New York’s 28th and 29th Congressional districts. The 28th is represented by Louise Slaughter, the powerful chair of the Rules Committee, the 29th by freshman Congressman Eric Massa. I emailed both Massa and Slaughter about the cap. I heard nothing back from Slaughter. Massa’s office told me that they thought it was a serious issue, that they were getting complaints from a lot of constituents…and then sprung into action. The opening line of the video below (via) is “I plan on putting the entire full force of my incumbency and all the risk associated with that behind stopping this very, very ill-thought out decision by Time-Warner.”
Shortly after this, Time-Warner shelved their cap plan. Apparently, it was all a “big misunderstanding.”
In the ultimate sign that making TWC back down is a good move politically, Chuck Schumer is now trying to take credit for the whole thing.
Here’s Massa’s campaign web page if anyone wants to show support on this. He’s in a brutal district for Democrats (a +5 PVI for Republicans).
by John Cole| 80 Comments
This post is in: Politics
I am so sick of discussing abortion, but this seems worth mentioning:
In her first out-of-state political appearance since last fall’s presidential election, former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin confided to 3,000 at a right-to-life event here that she had “just for a fleeting moment” contemplated seeking an abortion after learning she was pregnant with her son Trig, who will turn 1 on Saturday.
There is a name for when women who are pregnant are allowed to determine whether or not they keep their baby or have an abortion. It is called pro-choice.