Good article on Russert:




posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2007 12:35:00 PM

The Weekly Standard's false charge against John Edwards:

In an essay by Wesley J. Smith that revisits the Schiavo case, we read:

... the media have portrayed the effort by Republicans in Congress to pass a law to save her life as an attempt to impose their religious views on a private family.

This myth has become a staple of the Democratic presidential campaign, despite the fact that the denigrated legislation was enacted in almost record time by one of the most bipartisan congressional margins seen during the Bush presidency. Indeed, passage in the Senate required unanimous consent, which means any senator--including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd (but not Barack Obama, who was not yet in the Senate)--could have stopped the bill in its tracks by simply saying no. None did so.

This is a reference to:

On March 21 [2005], Congress passed a bill, S.686, that allowed Schiavo's case to be moved into a federal court. The controversial law is colloquially known as the Palm Sunday Compromise. It passed the Senate on Sunday afternoon unanimously, 3-0, with 97 of 100 Senators not present. Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, deliberation ran from 9pm EST to just past midnight during an unusual Sunday session. The bill was passed 203-58 [...]     President Bush returned from vacation in Crawford, Texas to sign the bill into law at 1:11 that morning.

The legislation was passed in March of 2005. John Edwards last day in the Senate was January 3, 2005.


posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2007 04:34:00 AM

Shorter Tom Friedman:

If only we could get reliable electricity to all of India, then we'd bring 700 million villagers who make just $2 or $3 a day into the labor pool.

I think ... I'm ... going to ... have ... an ... outsourcing orgasm!


posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2007 12:07:00 AM

screenshot:




posted by Quiddity at 10/31/2007 12:02:00 AM

Broder can't say the one without the other:

From his latest "the Social Security Trust Fund surplus is worthless" essay: (excerpts, emp add)

[There] is an effort to revive the idea of a bipartisan effort to head off the bankrupting of America by runaway entitlement programs.

... unless ways are found to reform the financing and benefits of Social Security and Medicare, the demands imposed by the retirement of millions of baby boomers will consume the federal budget and blight the prospects of the next generations.

... the first of the baby boomers filed for Social Security benefits this year -- and millions more will soon follow. By most official estimates, by 2034 Medicare and Social Security will eat up 20 percent of the gross domestic product -- equivalent to the entire federal budget of today.

[Approvingly quotes a Republican who said] "There is no way to support this system as it is constituted."

Broder looks at 2034 and sees a big problem with Social Security, but as Dean Baker remarks, "Remember Social Security is Fully Solvent Until 2046". So why include SS in a 2034 apocalyptic scenario? (answer at the end of this post)

Broder notes that "the government has added $500 billion to the national debt this year" but doesn't say why:

• Because Bush is putting the Iraq War on the nation's credit card.
• Because Bush is treating the current surplus of Social Security funds as free money to pay for tax cuts.
• Because Bush is not responsibly paying down some of the federal debt (which could be raised later to payback SS trust bonds).

None of this is unexpected, since Broder is a Republican political hack.


posted by Quiddity at 10/30/2007 02:48:00 AM

No liberty, no life:

Sullivan:

A woman kills herself to stop the pain of an illness she tried to alleviate with marijuana:

She was a high-profile campaigner for the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, and like others, she was dismayed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that drug agents could still arrest sick people using marijuana, even in states that legalized its use.

The ruling came to haunt Prosser in late March, when DEA agents seized less than a half ounce of marijuana sent to her by her registered caregiver in Flathead County.

At the time, the DEA special agent in charge of the Rocky Mountain Field Division said federal agents were “protecting people from their own state laws” by seizing such shipments.

That DEA statement should go down in history as an emblem of the anti-federalist agenda of today's conservatives. It's up there with protecting people from the alleviation of their own pain. Prosser couldn't get the medicine she needed, except from unreliable and sometimes dangerous sources. Unable to cope with the pain of her illness, she took her own life.

“Give me liberty or give me death,” she wrote in July.

That's the American spirit. The government deprived her of liberty and so she chose death.

More from the article:

“I feel immensely let down,” Prosser would write a few months later, in a guest opinion for the Billings Gazette published July 28. “I have no safety, no protection, no help just to survive in a little less pain. I can't even get a job due to my medical marijuana use - can't pass a drug test.”   [...]

In her guest opinion, Prosser wrote that: “I'm 50 years old, low-income and sick. I spend most days in my apartment in bed, with no air conditioning, unable to go outside because I can't tolerate the sun.”   [...]

Before being disabled by her disease, Prosser was a concert pianist and a systems analyst. After the disease hit her, she became a tireless advocate for legalized use of marijuana in medical situations.

Over at Balloon Juice, John Cole is really mad in reaction to this story (and there is a huge comment thread).

Go fuck yourself. To death.

I am tired of being patient with you nannies and your stupid self-serving rules and your slippery slopes and your bullshit and your need to be tough on crime and your earnest concerns about society. Mind your own business, get your own house in order, stop fucking interns and little boys and cheating on your wives and on your taxes and being found dead wearing two wetsuits with a dildo shoved up your ass. Just mind your own damned business, and let people do what they must to deal with their own screwed up lives, and let people handle their pain the best way they can.

I am sick of the bullshit. Life is hard for most people out there, and damned near impossible for people in chronic pain. Quit making it worse, you allegedly compassionate sons-of-bitches.

posted by Quiddity at 10/29/2007 09:10:00 PM

What the White House cut out:

Here's the blog post & title:

Full Version of White House "Edited" CDC Climate Report - with highlights!

They took out all the negative stuff and left in remarks about data collection, communication, and general procedural matters. You've got to see it to believe it.


posted by Quiddity at 10/29/2007 01:08:00 PM

Romney for Republican presidential candidate!

This blog would like to see Mitt Romney become the Republican candidate for president. Why? Because if Romney gets the nomination, there is no chance in hell that Giuliani would be his running mate. If any of the others (McCain, Thompson, Huckabee) are the nominee, Giuliani looks very attractive as a running mate (regional balance, fools some moderates, New Yorker against likely New Yorker Hillary Clinton). And let's not forget, if McCain gets the nod, he's not exactly in robust health.

Democrats should win in 2008, for the good of the country, but odd things can happen during a campaign and it's possible the Republicans could win. So consideration of who the Republican VP candidate will be is worth pondering.


posted by Quiddity at 10/29/2007 12:38:00 PM

This Halloween - The Thief of Baghdad returns:

BAGHDAD-Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.

His latest job: To press Iraq's central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That's the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success.

That the U.S. and Iraqi officials are again turning to Chalabi, this time to restore life to Baghdad neighborhoods, speaks to his resiliency in this nascent government. It's also, some say, his latest effort to promote himself as a true national advocate for everyday Iraqis.

Chalabi, in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, provided White House and Pentagon officials and journalists with a stream of bogus or exaggerated intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorism.


posted by Quiddity at 10/28/2007 09:40:00 PM

Broder's contradictory statements:

In a glowing profile of Republican Bobby Jindal, he writes: (emp add)

An intellectual match for [Barack] Obama, Jindal is a graduate of Brown University and won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford.

...

Jindal campaigned ... to ... open classrooms to the teaching of creationism as an alternative to evolution.

You see, that's what intellectuals do, disparage evolution.

This blog has said it before, and will say it again, Broder is a promoter of Republicans. He is not a neutral observer.

He also writes:

... Republicans have established a phalanx of successful conservative governors across the Southeast who share a pragmatic streak that voters seem to like.

That's nothing more than Republicans being the party of the Confederacy. The states with Republican governors that Broder is wowed with are:

• Louisana
• Mississippi
• Alabama
• Georgia
• Florida

It's not a sign of successful governing, it's a sign of cultural alignment (and fidelity to "extractive economy" policies).

BONUS: This from the comments section at the WaPo:

The most enjoyable part of a Broder column?

The comments!!!

Indeed.


posted by Quiddity at 10/28/2007 01:31:00 AM

Weren't hippies dirtier than this?

A John McCain banner ad (seen on The Washington Monthly website)

So clean. So TV-sitcom-in-the-70's-portrayal-of-a-hippy. So unobjectionable.

Or maybe, given the times we live in, the Peace Symbol is supposed to offend ... Republican voters.


posted by Quiddity at 10/25/2007 02:50:00 PM

This hasn't gotten enough attention:

Froomkin: (emp add)

Fighting Words

In this morning's speech at National Defense University, Bush unfurled a vicious rhetorical campaign against opponents of the harsh CIA interrogation techniques he approved for use on suspected terrorists

"This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us stop a number of attacks -- including a plot to strike the U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, California, or a plot to fly passenger planes into Heathrow Airport and buildings into downtown London," Bush said.

"Despite the record of success, and despite the fact that our professionals use lawful techniques, the CIA program has come under renewed criticism in recent weeks. Those who oppose this vital tool in the war on terror need to answer a simple question: Which of the attacks I have just described would they prefer we had not stopped?"

The last time Bush suddenly disclosed alleged plots that had been allegedly stymied through CIA interrogation, most if not all were called into question.

So my questions for the White House are these: Which of those attacks was more than a fantasy? And which would not have been stopped with more humane and arguably more effective interrogation techniques?

Bush is saying that those who object to torture should answer the following question:

Which attack would they prefer to have happened?

posted by Quiddity at 10/25/2007 10:58:00 AM

Limbaugh lies:

Oct 22 broadcast (R L website, BoomanTribune): (excerpts, emp add)

Guys are trying to keep flames from coming underneath the door in their garages and so forth. And the people that were noticeably absent were the environmentalist wackos. Where were Greenpeace, Sierra Club and where were their bucket brigades, where do these people show up in time of disaster like this?

These fires are an annual thing. This one is considered to be a little worse because of where it's hitting. It's hitting Malibu, which is an upper-crust, elitist enclave.

But, you know, Brentwood, where O.J. Simpson lived, that's not far from Malibu. It's not just a hop, skip, and trip, but it's not far from Malibu. It's close enough that people in Brentwood could have helped out if they wanted to. I'll tell you why I mention this, is that while fires were raging out there in Malibu, Hillary Clinton was celebrating in Brentwood at the home of Meathead, Rob Reiner, on Saturday night, who was singing songs to her. It was a preliminary birthday party.

Limbaugh goes on to disparage Clinton and "the Hollywood elite" for ignoring or not caring about the fires.

Saturday was October 20.

---

UPDATE/CORRECTION: Other press reports have the Clinton/Reiner event taking place on Sunday, October 21. Thus, the critique below is mistaken. Uggabugga regrets the error. Limbaugh did state the event was on Saturday, and that was what this post responded to. Highlighted screenshot:

The second part of the argument (further below) that people were told to stay away from affected areas, remains valid.

---

California wildfires of October 2007 (Wikipedia):

The California wildfires of October 2007 are a series of wildfires that began burning across Southern California on October 20 ...

Various data tables are presented for each affected county.

• First fires in San Diego County: October 21
• First fires in Orange County: October 21
• First fires in San Bernadino County: Oct 22
• First fires in Santa Barbara: Oct 21
• First fires in Riverside County: October 21

All fires in Los Angeles & Ventura Counties:

Buckweed October 21 at 12:55 p.m.
Canyon (Malibu) October 21 at 4:50 a.m.
Magic October 22 at 2:17 p.m.
Meadowridge October 23 at 12:30 p.m.
Ranch (Castaic / Piru) October 20 at 9:42 p.m.
October October 22 at 10:40 p.m.

On Saturday, October 20, the day Limbaugh was saying folks in Brentwood couldn't give a damn about the Malibu fire, there was no fire in Malibu. The only fire that started that day - in all of Southern California - was near Magic Mountain (amusement park) that is north of Los Angeles, along Interstate 5, in the direction of Bakersfield.

Also, regarding Limbaugh's complaint that nobody came out to help

"... one thing stood out to me, especially in Malibu, when you watch the wall-to-wall coverage, you see firemen, you see homeowners, you see landlords, you see business owners all struggling to save their homes and their businesses, and when the fire department wasn't able to help, they used garden hoses to fight the flames."

is that people were told to stay away from the area. Anybody coming in, to look or to help, would have made it much harder for the fire departments to do their job. If anything, the emphasis was to have residents get the hell out. (A garden hose may show fighting spirit, but it's practically worthless under the circumstances this week and puts the person using it at risk - which might result in using rescue resources better applied elsewhere.)

It's not breaking news that Limbaugh spouts total nonsense, but someone has to document it, thus this post. People outside of the area could well be unfamiliar with the timeline and buy Limbaugh's barely-credible scenario, but those of us who live in Los Angeles are very aware of how the events unfolded and what people were told to do (or not do). We're not fooled.


posted by Quiddity at 10/24/2007 08:44:00 PM

Malkin Madness:

Guess who is to blame for the Southern California wildfires? Malkin knows:

Environmentalists blame global warming for the problem, but guess who’s standing in the way of a solution?

Litigious environmentalists ...

Lawsuits have tied up the president’s Healthy Forests Initiative passed in 2003.

As a commentator at Baloon Juice put it:

[Malkin] has absolutely no fucking clue what she is talking about, not unusual but in this case she is just plain retarded. With the exception of the forests up in the lake Arrowhead area the rest of the fires are burning through scrub brush and grass. The “trees” aren’t even fucking trees.

Related. Over at Carpetbagger, there is this observation (in reaction to Glenn Beck):

I’m ... confused about what kind of psychosis leads a person to look at the California wildfires and think about the political ideologies of those who are suffering. I mean, I’m a political guy, and have been for as long as I can remember. But when I see a family fleeing their home, en route to a shelter, because wildfires threaten their community, it just doesn’t occur to me to ask, “I wonder if those people hate America?”

Malkin (and Beck) would blame liberals and Democrats if there was an eclipse of the moon. They have no integrity. And they deserve to be ignored. The problem is that both of them are given a megaphone (Fox News Channel, CNN) by an equally dishonest media that is not interested in reporting the news, but aggrandizing their power.


posted by Quiddity at 10/24/2007 06:09:00 AM

Weather forecast for Los Angeles:



Not "patchy clouds", but "patchy smoke". When the city is surrounded by mountain fires, that's the kind of weather to expect.


posted by Quiddity at 10/22/2007 09:39:00 AM

When did my browser turn into a television set?

It seems that up to one third of content is now YouTube or similar video components. Just today over at Slate there was a link to something about Romney's Fatal Flaw. Click and there is no text. Instead, a video loads, beginning with an ad for an Infiniti sedan. Which can be a surprise if you've opened the link in a tab.   ...   Where is that sound coming from?

And who wants to listen to John Dickerson anyway? Reading should be sufficient.

TPM has gone the video route as well. It's okay to use when showing some meaningful body language (!) that Bush might employ. But if it's just the White House Press Secretary or announcement du jour from the State Department, having video isn't necessary. In fact, it's a problem.

It takes too long. It eats bandwidth. It doesn't do what a reporter does: boil down a story so that the essentials are conveyed to the reader.

And some of these videos are awful. There was a twenty-one minute discussion between Peter Beinart and Jonah Goldberg about Pamela Anderson and Hollywood immorality. You have to see it to believe it.

Is this what high-speed Internet is turning to? In addition to videos substituting for writing, we are also seeing mini-commercials between web pages.

One thing for sure, this development will result in people spending much less time in front of the computer.


posted by Quiddity at 10/20/2007 09:09:00 AM

Shorter Davig Ignatius:

We should seriously consider the prospect of Al Qaeda having a nuclear bomb.

Hey, anything is possible. And nothing is certain. Ignatius:

Many intelligence analysts have concluded that al-Qaeda doesn't have nuclear capability today. [the Energy Department's director of intelligence] argues that a more honest answer is: We don't know.

So what to do about this spectral danger? The first requirement, says [ the Energy Department's director of intelligence], is to try to visualize it. What would it take for al-Qaeda to build a bomb? How would it assemble the pieces? How would the United States and its allies deploy their intelligence assets so that they could detect a plot before it was carried out? How would we reinvent intelligence itself to avert this ultimate catastrophe?

Ignatius has no qualms when the Energy Department's director of intelligence says we "don't know" if Al Qaeda has nuclear capability today.

Remember, in Ignatius' world, anything is possible. Anything. President Bush could be a robot controlled by Martians. Elvis is alive and well and guiding Chinese economic policy. A monkey could walk into MIT and write on a chalkboard the answer to the Reimann Hypothesis.


posted by Quiddity at 10/17/2007 11:45:00 PM

The Broder Bounce:

Bush’s job approval 24%

And we're not even in a recession.


posted by Quiddity at 10/17/2007 12:54:00 PM

Mickey Kaus contemplating a romantic evening:

Source: Atrios.


posted by Quiddity at 10/14/2007 04:07:00 PM

Where are you on this pie chart?

Story:

The richest Americans' share of national income has hit a postwar record, surpassing the highs reached in the 1990s bull market, and underlining the divergence of economic fortunes blamed for fueling anxiety among American workers.

The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks.

The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.

The IRS data, based on a large sample of tax returns, are for "adjusted gross income," which is income after some deductions, such as for alimony and contributions to individual retirement accounts. While dated, many scholars prefer it to timelier data from other agencies because it provides details of the very richest -- for example, the top 0.1% and the top 1%, not just the top 10% -- and includes capital gains, an important, though volatile, source of income for the affluent.

The IRS data show that the median tax filer's income -- half earn less than the median, half earn more -- fell 2% between 2000 and 2005 when adjusted for inflation, to $30,881. At the same time, the income level for the tax filer just inside the top 1% grew 3%, to $364,657.

posted by Quiddity at 10/12/2007 10:12:00 AM

You wouldn't be surprised if this was true:

From a conservative humor blog: (edited down a bit)

Gore Wins Nobel Prize, High Court Gives It to Bush

(2007-10-12) — Although former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize this week for his work as a global-warming performance artist, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled early today that President George Bush would receive the gold medal, the diploma and the $750,000.

Mr. Bush, who was narrowly defeated by Mr. Gore in the 2000 presidential election, thanked Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito "for swinging the vote my way, and helping me to join the pantheon of great Nobel laureates."

And then there is this by Mike Keefe, of the The Denver Post:

posted by Quiddity at 10/12/2007 07:57:00 AM

Michele Malkin writes in the New York Post:

That's right, after all the nonsense, she gets to appear in a major news outlet. Just as she has, in the past, been a regular guest on Fox News Channel. And Malkin goes further than Riehl World View. He only mentioned one grandparent, presumably rich and therefore obligated to help. Malkin bagged both forks of the family tree:

Moreover, Frost's family comes from considerable means. The children's maternal grandfather was an engineering executive. Their paternal grandparents hail from affluent Bronxville, N.Y., where the grandfather is a prominent consultant.

Note how empty Malkin's claim is. Even if you take the point of view that grandparents should pay for stuff if they have money, Malkin hasn't made the case. She hasn't proven that the grandparents have money. Somebody was an engineering executive. So? Does that mean he has lots of cash today? Somebody "hails" (whatever that's supposed to mean) from a nice neighborhood. But that's superficial analysis - asserting individual status from a tendency of a community. Is everybody from England up on Shakespeare?

Malkin advances the argument that the Frosts should sell their house (or take out a second mortgage) in order to pay medical bills, but also that other relatives should extract money from their homes. What a country! Is America great or what?

Oddly enough, Malkin makes the case for SCHIP. Here's why. She looks beyond the family unit for financial help for the Frosts. She looks to the grandparents. But why stop there? Why not additional relatives? Why not distant relatives? Why not very distant relatives? And let's tease out the genealogical records all the way. Guess what? Malkin herself is related to the Frosts (as are all right wingers). Surely, the logic still applies. Help your relatives. And we have a way of doing it in an equitable manner. Use the government to fairly assess obligations (i.e. taxes) so that rich relative X pays an amount commensurate with his wealth, and poor relative Y pays less (or nothing). Genius.

It's not that Malkin is a deranged blogger. There are many of those out there. It's that her particular version of right-wing-anger is given wider exposure by the established media. That's where the real damage is done.


posted by Quiddity at 10/11/2007 07:30:00 AM

N degrees of separation:

You know about Graeme Frost, the boy who benefited from SCHIP. And there has been the Malkin investigation into the parents, Bonnie and F. Halsey Frost. But there's more.

Over at Riehl World View, they've decided to take the next step. Investigate the grandparents.

How about getting [Granddad] to cash in on the vintage 1956 T-Bird, 56 being the year he graduated from Princeton, F H? Doesn't he care enough about his Grand kids? I mean, that question's fair game, right? After all, you weren't too ashamed to put it to us by allowing your child to be used by a liberal political machine, right?

That's the car that recently won him third place in an antique car show.

You see, if you track along your family tree or network of friends (and their friends, etc) you will eventually end up at Bill Gates, or someone with a vintage car that can be turned into cash. And those folks should be paying for whatever it is the distressed family needs, not the government. Simple as that.

BONUS: Riehl World View also speculates about the Frosts (mom and dad):

This story is about the parents, Bonnie and F. Halsey Frost who [hold] what I might assume is a liberal view on abortion, not only most likely support that free choice; if someone wants to have kids, they apparently believe it's cool [to have modest] jobs without having to worry about providing for whatever number of moppets one might feel like dropping into the world.

In other words, the Frosts are just like any other liberal who doesn't give a damn about personal responsibility. So they shouldn't have had children. Or something like that.

As Ezra put it, "This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate."


posted by Quiddity at 10/09/2007 09:08:00 PM

Is this the next big story?

DID THE ADMINISTRATION LEAK THE AL QAEDA VIDEO?

MORE ON THE LEAK


posted by Quiddity at 10/09/2007 06:13:00 PM

First it was American flag lapel pins. Now it's this:

Google criticised over Sputnik celebration

The world’s most popular search engine often tweaks it colourful signature page to mark a significant date, covering its rainbow-hued letters with clover for St Patrick’s Day, for example, or stars and stripes on July 4.

But some critics have taken umbrage at the technology giant’s recent decision to honour the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik launch with a special homepage embellishment, while ignoring such American anniversaries as Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Last week, the second "g" in Google was replaced with an image of the Soviet satellite blasting into space, angering some conservatives who accused the company of favouring the achievements of a Cold War enemy over commemorations for members of the US military.

“It’s a kick to your belly,” Giovanni Gallucci, 39, a conservative blogger and social media consultant from Dallas, told the Los Angeles Times.

posted by Quiddity at 10/09/2007 05:51:00 PM

Then it was Private Beauchamp, and now it's the Frost family:

Ezra has a good post about the recent Malkin-lead inquiry into the personal lives of the family that were part of the pro-SCHIP campaign. Ezra makes a passing reference to Scott Beauchamp, the guy who was a big part of a story in TNR that was unenthusiastic about the Iraq War. When the right went after Beauchamp (who was initially using an alias, Scott Thomas, because he was still serving in the military) they started looking around on the internet for dirt, and in one case Malkin highlighted a "find", his MySpace page. That seemed creepy a the time (not the MySpace page, but what appeared to be a pure fishing expedition into a person's private life). His personal life had become a focus of inquiry.

With that established as an accepted procedure, it's no surprise that the same "probe into the personal" would be used against the Frost family.


posted by Quiddity at 10/09/2007 03:39:00 PM

John Cole has finally had it:

Because of the Frost saga. (You must read down to the last line.)

Of interest are two points he brings up:

• The right-wing "exposure" of the Frosts actually makes the case for SCHIP.
• Yeah, what about those wonderful charities that are supposed to be better than government assistance?

posted by Quiddity at 10/09/2007 01:11:00 PM

Don't have sex until marriage:

That's the message from government-run website 4parents.gov. And various bloggers have weighed in on the issue.

I would be interesting to ask Ari Fleischer, born in 1960, first married in 2002 at age 42, if he followed that advice.
posted by Quiddity at 10/08/2007 03:49:00 PM

Presidential pie chart:

Not endorsing this anti-Hillary Clinton op-ed, but it is interesting how much a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton presidential series would be as a fraction of all the years the U.S. has had a president. To see it graphically, a pie chart can be used:

"All other presidents" are blue. For reference, Franklin Roosevelt's four terms are shown as a division within the blue, and for a full 16 years (to show what the public voted for).

In any event, the Bush-Clinton series does take up a good chunk. Two hundred years from Washington to Reagan. Up to twenty-eight if B1, C1, B2, C2 becomes a reality.


posted by Quiddity at 10/08/2007 05:40:00 AM

Another futile post in opposition to Clinton (in this case Bill):

In the New York Times there is an editorial Democrats Talk Sense to Democrats. We read:

... a letter from a group of former Democratic leading lights from the Clinton White House and Congress [was] telling their Democratic brethren on Capitol Hill to get their act together and pass the pending free trade agreements with Peru, Panama and Colombia. At home, the trade pacts would provide opportunities for American exporters and help create jobs.

Got that? Another free trade agreement which must be good since it would "help create jobs". And it will create jobs, but there will also be jobs lost, so the question is: On net, will it create more and better jobs.

This blogger doesn't think so. Free trade puts more workers in competition with each other, leading to less economic barganing power. And, yes, free trade is something that Bill Clinton is famous for, and something that Hillary Clinton also looks favorably on. She's in the lead and as president would likely push for more NAFTA-type policies. Is that good for the American worker? Does anybody care?


posted by Quiddity at 10/08/2007 04:46:00 AM

Why Is This GOP Strategist Smiling?

Because David Broder uncritically repeated every talking point by Tom Cole, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.


posted by Quiddity at 10/07/2007 07:32:00 AM

Question for the day:

If you waterboard someone while wearing an American flag lapel pin, is it therefore legal and moral?


posted by Quiddity at 10/05/2007 06:26:00 AM

Meet a typical Hillary Clinton supporter:

Froma a pro-Hillary blogger:

Hillary Does Good on Iran

I was annoyed by her refusing to answer questions about Social Security and voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, but there’s news that she is sponsoring a bill with Jim Webb that “prohibits the use of funds for military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization (S. 759).” This is some good stuff, I wonder how Elizabeth Edwards will try to tear it down. Is Clinton not “showing leadership” by co-sponsoring the bill? I wouldn’t put it past Edwards to say some wacky stuff like that.

This comes less than a week after Clinton voted for Kyl-Lieberman.

Speaking of Clinton's bold stance on the issues, remember this? (in December 2005)

Clinton is co-sponsoring a bill that would make it a crime to destroy a flag on federal property, intimidate anyone by burning a flag or burning someone else’s flag.

It's not an amendment to the constitution, so it's okay, supposedly.

Had enough of this triangulation?

CODA: If you read posts and comments defending Hillary, you get the impression that people have bonded emotionally to her, since the arguments they use don't make any sense. Take this commentator, reacting to critics of her vote for Kyl-Lieberman:

Well, Hillary Bashing Right Off The Bat.

Get her early and often. Disregard the psychos who are going to do this regardless of motions and amendments and whatnot. I know she was the only person on earth who voted that way, right?

Apparently, it's unfair to criticize Hillary unless she cast the only vote for Kyl-Lieberman. Or something like that. This kind of "reasoning" reminds me of similar defenses of Bush and Republicans. It's dismissive of facts and logic.

I think some of the Hillary adoration is a transfer of Bill-love, since he was a political magician who hypnotized some Democrats and the spell hasn't broken.


posted by Quiddity at 10/02/2007 02:09:00 AM