We draw you attention to two posts over at NathanNewman.org. The one is about Bush's "stimulus" plan - which isn't. And the other is about the reality of unemployment numbers.
The Dixie Chicks' stand on the war with Iraq may make them doves, but to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, they're three "French hens."
"I know they are just young girls and I know they weren't thinking that clearly, but they said unacceptable things about their president," Mr. Falwell said Monday during an appearance in Jonesboro, Ark.
At a March 10 concert in London, Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines told the audience in reference to President Bush's push for military action against Iraq: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." She later apologized for being disrespectful.
Mr. Falwell said the singer was wrong to speak critically of her country while overseas, the Associated Press reports.
"Politics should end at the shore when you leave the country," he said. "You don't talk about your own country, especially during war."
Michael Savage was given a television show on MSNBC not too long ago, and it was immediately denounced by critics as a step down in quality and taste. Savage was also recently in the news because of MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield's response to comments he made about her ("a slut", likened her to a porno star). What kind of commentator is this guy? If you haven't had the opportunity to listen to his radio program or watch him on television, here is a typical segment (from his radio show of 29 April 2003):
Background:
On Friday, 25 April 2003, The New York Times printed a story about opponents of Saddam Hussein who were executed, which included a picture of a skull.
SAVAGE:
I have a new thing I want to do. The New York Times picture of the skull. I want to reproduce it, and the next time I see "No war in Iraq" car parked somewhere while I'm bicycling by, I want to slip it in their car if they're not in it. You see, inside me there's a soul dying to get out who's very, very violent. And fortunately to this day I've kept it under control. I know you think that I'm making this up, but we all have that. See, there's a rational and irrational man in all of us. And let me start with the benign side of this, you all know you have violent urges every day, you all know you have things you want to do every day, whether it's cut someone off, give them the finger, say things you shouldn't say. And in a civilized society we don't cut people off, we don't give them the finger, we don't say things we shouldn't say. And so we don't. But never the less, we think them. And we repress them for good reason. But the fact is inside me is a man who has a glue pot, a brush, and he wants to ride around and stick this picture to the windshields of the self-righteous liberal phonies who say no war in Iraq to this day. They should have had the decency to take it off their bumper sticker. They're hateful souls most of them. Bigoted, self-righteous, thinking they're better than everybody. Thinking that they're above everybody. You know, sanctimonious phonies. It'd like to stick it to their windshields. Now it's illegal and I wouldn't do it. But I think I could slip it in their door, couldn't I? Or put it under their windshield like a flier. Not that it would matter. You know the truth doesn't matter to these left-wingers. You understand how the Politburo worked. You understand how commissars operate. You understand what communism and socialism is. And so, without further ado, all I've got do is play the tape of this thing called Katrina Heuvel, editor of the radical communist The Nation, criticizing President Bush. Listen to this human being on clip 1 on the Savage Nation.
KATRINA VAN DEN HEUVEL:
Look at what's going on in Iraq. The occupation - America - Pentagon is trying to install its people, the administration is farming out contracts to corporations close to it, talking about setting up bases. There you have President Bush in Michigan, basically like it's Operation Elect Bush, talking about freedom and democracy at the same time his Secretary of Defense said yesterday that we will not allow the Iraqis to elect a religious government. Now, is that democracy as it is understood? And the arrogance of that I think is going to backfire. Finally, I might say ...
SAVAGE:
Turn off, turn off, turn the witch off. That's all. Yea, it's democracy. Yea, we don't want a fanatic religious government. First of all, you lying S.O.B., you oppose religion in this country, you from The Nation. All you left-wing slime bags. You try to break the crosses off war memorials. You try to break down the Ten Commandments. Now suddenly you're supporting religion in Iraq? "Who the hell do you think you're fooling?", is what I would have said to her. I don't know why they let this witch get away with it. Second, you want to talk about contracts Katrina? Talk about the contract for 600 million dollars just given to Diane Feinstein's husband to rebuild over there. He's a, she's a Democrat case you don't know it, Heuvel! I'll be right back.
In the wake of yesterday's announcement that several Wall Street firms were fined a total of $1.4 billion for misleading investors (and worse), new visitors to this weblog may not be aware that we created a diagram of the various relationships involved. It was posted on 20 December 2002. The link is here.
Essentially, the stock market was rigged, millions of investors lost hundreds of billions of dollars, those responsible will pay fines that will still leave them rich, and there won't be proper restitution. This is your lightly regulated free market at work.
