Bewitched is haunted by scattered laughs and a lack of direction.
Book Reviews: "Sinatra: The Life" begins with a fascinating tidbit about the teenage Frank Sinatra's earliest recording and the reason it has never been released. The rest of this faulty biography concerns the juicy details of Sinatra's private life, which, sadly and unjustly, overshadow the entertainer's extraordinary career.
The Loser's Bet: Why State Lotteries are a Bad Idea  North Carolina is about to join Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee in the big gambling project known as the state education lottery. For those of you who live outside the South, the impact of the lottery debate cannot be understated. While the national media focuses on Confederate flags and the "morality" issue, the lottery trumps all issues. The lottery is the great unspoken around national circles regarding the South.  The lottery is what kept the Democratic party in business throughout the 1990's and today, toppling popular Republican Governors such as David Beasley of South Carolina and Fob James of Alabama while propelling Democratic underdogs to office such as Ronnie Musgrove of MS, Mike Easley of NC, Don Siegelman of AL, Jim Hodges of SC, Brad Henry of OK, Phil Bredesen of TN, and Zell Miller of GA. These Democrats promised to institute a lottery in order to add to educational funding.  The problem for these Democrats (particular with Jim Hodges and later Roy Barnes of GA) is that once your state has instituted a lottery, the state has no reason to keep you. Thus alot of these Democrats who have gambled on the lottery have lost or had a difficult time putting it in place.  Broadly and substantively, lotteries, where they are in place, are bad deals. First, studies done by Money Magazine and others show that the money from lotteries don't add to educational funding. Instead, states substitute money they were already spending on education funding. The states use the money they would've spent on education anyway to pay for other pet projects. Thus state funding levels for education never significantly change when the lottery is instituted.  Secondly, lotteries create unrealistic expectations for educational improvement. Both South Carolina and Georgia ranked at the bottom (49 and 50 respectively) in SAT's before their lotteries, and a lottery did not improve those numbers. While their scores have improved, they both still ranked dead last and no amount of money is going to have an immediate impact on a system so fundamentally broken. States with poor education must focus on structural changes and changing the cultural of their educational system. Why would North Carolina, which already has the best education in the state want a lottery is beyond me.  Thirdly, and this is what shames me as a Democrat, is that the lottery is nothing more than a tax on the poor to pay for the college education of middle class and wealthy students. According to a Duke University study, high school dropouts who play the lottery spend an average of $700 per year on the lottery, high school graduates spend $409 a year, those with some college spend $210 a year and college graduates spend $178 a year. In Georgia, 5% of the population subsidize 50% of the ticket sales and those 5% are predominantly poor and African-American. Wouldn't be better for states to encourage actual stock investments or investments in bonds? People would get a greater return on that than the big fat zero they get now. We Democrats believe in an ownership society, then why not encourage people to invest that 2 bucks on a ticket into something that will give a greater return?  In Georgia, the Hope Scholarship has indeed increased college attendance, but primarily among white middle class students. The lottery, much like affirmative action (an argument I will save for later), is nothing more than a band-aid and an excuse by states not to implement necessary and needed reforms in K-12 education.  This is one issue I agree with Southern Republicans on. The Democratic Party, which has long regarded itself as the champion of the poor, loses that title every time they push for state lotteries. Even if you feel that people have a "right" to gamble wherever and whenever they want, at the very least, do not make it a state-sponsored venture. Let it be private and tax it, but states should not be embracing new ways of bilking funds from our poorest to subsidize the education of our wealthiest.
The Oct. 1 editorial "Gen. Musharraf's Lies" was unfair.
Our current broken immigration system has fueled, among other things, violence against contributing members of our community. I am referring to the recent murders, beatings and rape of Latino agricultural farm workers in South Georgia. Has our society gotten to the point that labels such as "illegal" connote "otherness" to such a degree that our immigrant brothers and sisters are beaten to death as a matter of course? We must all work together to ensure that these attacks are the last.
DVD Reviews: Disney's "Lilo & Stitch 2" is an unremarkable but inoffensive trifle that likely will play best with undemanding tykes who want to spend more time with engaging animated characters. Conspicuously tamer and schmaltzier than more rambunctious 2002 predecessor, vidpic should nonetheless post brisk sales and rental numbers.
Those who love Cameron Crowe may turn a blind eye to Elizabethtown's self-indulgence. But for others, they might realize the director is stuck in Elizabethtown. Starring Orlando Bloom Kirsten Dunst
Six percent of British Muslims -- more than 100,000 citizens -- thought the July 7 London terror attacks were justified. A quarter of British Muslims merely sympathize with the bombers. Even more shocking, nearly one-fifth of British Muslims say they feel little or no loyalty to Britain. Yet the most disturbing news from the July 23 London Telegraph poll is that these trends are worse among younger British Muslims.
The move to ban panhandling in much of downtown Atlanta has been swept up in the currents of race &mdash; currents that engulf so many political issues in the metropolitan area. Some critics of the proposal, including perennial candidate Dave Walker, have claimed the ordinance grows out of elitist efforts to sweep poor black people off the streets of downtown. At Tuesday's City Council Public Safety Committee hearing, Walker denounced the proposal as a plot between the council and the "white business structure" to "deny us the right to ask for alms." Walker's rhetoric notwithstanding, the legions of beggars who make downtown streets a gantlet are a nuisance not just for white workers and tourists, but for black visitors and office workers, as well. Speaking as a downtown worker who toils within a few blocks of the dirty, overrun Barbara Asher Square, I've mostly given up lunchtime walks in that direction, due east from the newspaper building.
THE COLLEGE GENDER GAP: Women are now 57 percent of all college students. I want to know why the left isn't demanding affirmative action. I mean this is obvious sexism at work: anti-male sexism throughout the educational establishment. What else could explain, er, differences in test scores?
Despite striking a believable rapport among its principal actors, Four Brothers overwhelms with ultra-violent, vigilante-glorifying action and devolves into too many fractured, insubstantial thematic directions.
This story of a floundering shoe designer who returns home for a family tragedy gets lost in undeveloped plot lines and lackluster performances.
That the FBI is considering relaxing its hiring rules regarding youthful marijuana use appalls and angers me ["FBI Revisits Policy on Drug Use; Hiring Rules May Be Relaxed for Years-Old Experiences," news story, Oct. 11]. One of the biggest cudgels a parent can wield is the consequences argument. I explain to my offspring exactly why their choices now affect their futures.
Reviewed by David Johnson  Quote: "This release marks the third time Heath Ledger's medieval joust adventure has landed in Digital Versatile Disc form. The gimmick this time? It's the extended cut, which in fact is simply the insertion of the deleted scenes from the previous versions into the feature. Everything else is pretty much the same."
Senator Tom Coburn's effort to de-fund the Bridge to Nowhere, along with several other indefensible pork barrel projects, failed today by an 82-15 vote.  Which is discouraging, of course, in that it shows how far both parties are from either fiscal sanity, or an appreciation of the proper role of the federal government.  On the other hand, it was a clarifying moment.  The Associated Press says:  [I]n the tradition-bound Senate, Coburn was taking on an unwritten rule that one senator does not attack the projects sought by another. "  To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I was aware of that rule.  I guess I always assumed that both the Senate and the House made some pretense of trying to spend the taxpayers' money wisely, for the benefit of the nation as a whole.  So at least we now know where we stand.  This comment by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was also illuminating in its absurdity:  I've been here now almost 37 years.  This is the first time I have seen any attempt of any senator to treat my state in a way different from any other state.  I don't kid people.  If the Senate decides ... to take money from our state, I will resign from this body. "  When Stevens talks about treating Alaska differently from any other state, he isn't referring to the astonishing amount of federal money that is spent there.  No, his definition of "treating differently" is subjecting his own pork requests to any rational scrutiny.  And when Stevens talks about "taking money from" Alaska, he means deciding not to spend $220 million to build a bridge for the benefit of 50 people.  This statement, by a Republican Senator, is analogous to claims by liberals that when taxes are cut, the federal government is giving money to the rich.  So now we know:  there are only fifteen members of the Senate who are unwilling to waste the taxpayers' money on even the most frivolous of projects.  Let's see what we can do about the other 85.
Condoleezza Rice?s short trip to European capitals and Moscow, partly a mission to drum up support for referring Iran?s nuclear dossier to the U.N. Security Council, is in all probability a failure. Not because our European allies aren?t with us on this issue but because the Russians aren?t, a fact that was illustrated by the joint press conference Ms. Rice held in Moscow with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The Russians made it clear that they believe Iran has a right to the nuclear fuel cycle under both the NPT and the Additional Protocols, which effectively means that they would not support referring Iran to the Security Council based on the resumption of uranium enrichment activities in Isfahan. The U.S. grudgingly admits that Iran has the right to enrichment, but insists that the argument isn?t about rights, it?s about obligations. And since Iran hadn?t fulfilled its obligations to the IAEA for some eighteen years, the Secretary argues, then Iran cannot ever be entrusted with the nuclear fuel cycle.  So where does this leave us vis-a-vis U.S. policy toward Iran? What exactly is the end-game, if the U.S. is unable to either refer Iran to the UNSC or if it is referred, the Russians (or the Chinese) use a veto to kill any resolution? It seems to be getting clearer that Iran has allies who will ensure that no sanctions will be imposed even if the dossier makes it to the Security Council, and that Iran will also continue a domestic nuclear fuel cycle. Condoleezza Rice has been at pains to emphasize U.S. support for diplomacy rather than force, but what if diplomacy fails to produce the result that the U.S. wants; i.e. Iran forever forgoing uranium conversion and enrichment?   It doesn?t appear that the State Department knows or perhaps even cares. Karen Hughes, our Public Diplomacy Czarina, when asked at keynote speech she gave on Friday what the U.S. plans were for public diplomacy with Iran, a country we have no diplomatic relations with, her reply was ?Well, thank you very, very much. That's an interesting question and it's one that I really haven't focused on at this point. I've, as you can imagine, my days are quite busy and I have been focused on kind of putting in place our strategic direction worldwide. I have not specifically focused on how to communicate in countries like Iran where we do not have formal diplomatic relations. But that's an interesting and I'll certainly look into it.?   So there is at present no public diplomacy initiative with Iran. Nor do we have any plans to engage Iranians, or to try and explain our positions to the Iranian people, positions that are extremely unpopular even amongst those Iranians most against the regime of the Islamic Republic. And given that Karen hasn?t really thought about it, then we have to assume she hasn?t given much thought on how to defend U.S. policy towards Iran to the rest of the world in case diplomacy fails. Does that mean we have an indefensible policy, or no policy at all?   The U.S has consistently maintained that Iran will not be allowed to become a nuclear power, and has also maintained that the nuclear fuel cycle is the red line that Iran cannot cross. And in case anyone has any illusions, ?all options are on the table?. So, given that the U.N. is hardly likely at this point to prevent Iran from pursuing its rights under the NPT, where exactly is our policy going? Is the war of words between Britain (that accuses Iran of fueling the insurgency in Southern Iraq) and Iran a prelude to something bigger? Is this another Iraq scenario, whereby Iran is accused of supporting terror while we declare the UN to have not been effective in curbing Iran?s nuclear appetite? Or will we somehow get a Security Council resolution and then claim that Iran is ignoring it, thus giving us legal cover to go to war? While we debate on how to get our troops back home from Iraq, perhaps we should also be debating on how to keep them from making a return trip to the region.
HuffingtonPost.com - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist seems to be the latest to succumb to a dread and sometimes fatal condition. No, I&#8217;m not talking about avian bird flu, but rather an ailment that tends to focus on the political classes, worsens in the presence of power and can occasionally be politically fatal.
Provocation is no excuse for derangement. And there has been plenty of provocation: decades of an imperial judiciary unilaterally legislating radical social change on the flimsiest of constitutional pretexts. But while that may explain, it does not justify the flailing, sometimes delirious attacks on the judiciary mounted by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case.
The service at this renowned restaurant just about ruined our evening!  It was not the fault of the server himself, but rather poor management which overwhelmed the kitchen.  We were seated upstairs with other diners who were dining; that was fine.  We were greeted appropriately, and our order was taken promptly.  Our wine arrived within a few moments, but we were there for over an HOUR before we got our first course!!!!  By the time our entree arrived, we had been there almost 2 hours and were about ready to leave.  We weren't the only ones complaining, another table within earshot was telling the server that they had ordered their appetizer 45 minutes earlier, and where was it???  Apparently, the 2 large wedding groups they had booked downstairs "overwhelmed" the kitchen.  Too bad - but the individual diner shouldn't have to suffer.  My dish (a pumpkin seed crusted halibut) was delicious, but my husband had to send his pork dish away because it was so dry.  The manager "comped" our appetizer and provided desserts "on the house" but by then, we really just wanted to get out of there.
"In Flight" was originally released in 1996, but it doesn't feel dated. No, it feels like a hangover. This first solo outing by former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry, now the go-to producer for the likes of Kelly Osbourne and Christina Aguilera, is thick and morose. Thanks to Perry's behind-the-scenes status, "In Flight" is taking another journey to music stores. Although Perry crafted "Get the Party Started" for punky pop tart Pink, there's no bling or bebopping good times here.
This disc is a desperate plea for cash from Disney in the worst way. Unfortunately they arent giving consumers anything worth buying with this release. With so many excellent DVDs being put out by Disney studios these days, something of this poor quality is just unacceptable, especially for a release thats breaking the studios self-declared moratorium. Although the fans who missed the opportunity to purchase ITarzanI five years ago will be thankful to see this, I think its disgusting to see Disney rip off fans like this. This, despite the high quality of the transfer, the beautiful picture and awesome sound, this disc gets the lowest rating I can possibly give a DVD release.
If I were a terrorist, I'd appreciate the fact that the TSA treats every passenger as having an equal likelihood of being a security threat. Fewer resources would be available to screen me.
Civil rights organizations' expenditure of resources and continued focus on racial discrimination is just as intelligent as it would be for the March of Dimes to continue to expend resources fighting polio in the U.S.
With a brilliantly talented cast, how could the movie go so wrong? The fault lies with writerdirector Craig Lucas, who never decides if hes making a classic tragedy or a modern day satire. I never figured out exactly what this movie is about, or what kind of statement its trying to make. Watching three people who behave like sociopaths take turns seeing who can be the most immoral is an unlikely way to win over your audience.
The belabored noir plotting feels unbelievable, thus removing any sense of suspense.
"Democrat senators and a few Republican senators, such as Arlen Specter [would] prefer justices who share former Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes' vision that, 'We live under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.' Translated, that means we don't live under the Constitution; we live under tyrannical judges."
Ann Hornaday's Sept. 26 Style review of "No Direction Home" mischaracterized Martin Scorsese's work on the film. Mr. Scorsese was brought in to shape existing film footage. He didn't conduct any interviews or shoot any film, nor did he "wisely" decide to limit the film's scope to 1961-66; that was part of his assignment.
Target sucks.  From Planned Parenthood: A 26-year-old Missouri woman was refused EC when she handed her prescription to a pharmacist at a Target store in Fenton, MO, on September 30. The woman was told by the pharmacist, ?I won?t fill it. It?s my right not to fill it.? She was told that she could go to a local Walgreens instead. The woman said, ?When the pharmacist told me she wouldn't [fill the prescription], I went from disbelief to shock to anger. I guess I'm still pretty angry. It seems unbelievable to me that a medical professional could/would deny access to a federally approved drug and impose their personal beliefs in a professional setting. I am also grateful that I did not need it filled at that time. I don't know how it would be if I had just been raped or if the condom broke and I was a feeling confusion and panic anyway -- and then was denied access and told to go across the street.?  The national headquarters of Target has not responded to three PPFA attempts to clarify its policy on pharmacist refusals. "Who's next? - Target pharmacists who don't want to fill prescriptions for customers who killed Christ? - Target pharmacists who only dispense HIV medicine to "innocent victims" of AIDS? - Target pharmacists who want proof that women were really raped, and that they didn't "deserve it," before they sell them emergency contraception? - Or how about Target pharmacists (or cashiers) who are simply Jehovah's Witnesses? Can they refuse to sell any medicine to anyone, even aspirin? " Read more about this growing outrage, read some more cases of prescription discrimination here, and get even more facts here.  Then do something about it.
The Truth About Kelo and the Bulldozers Edge   When the Supreme Court announced its 5-4 decision on Kelo v. New London, conservatives and liberals alike rose up in anger. Senators, Congressmen, and leaders across the political aisle stood together to condemn the decision granting the government the right to bulldoze good homes to put up even better developments to "increase the tax base." Before Kelo, the government basically needed a "good" reason to seize property such as if the homes were "blighted" and in bad areas. Under the Kelo regime, just about any reason is good enough.  Delaware, Alabama, and 10 other states responded by passing statutes (or are in the process of passing these statutes) which would stop their respective governments from using their eminent domain powers. George Will and the ultraliberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters rarely agree on anything, but this one issue seems to unite them. All this unity is leading Rich Lowry to call for a Left-Right coalition on property rights. The conservative intellgensia has gone as far as to seek eminent domain powers against the homes of Justices Souter and Breyer.  The crux of the argument from liberals and conservatives alike is that the Kelo decision allows the government to take property from one "private" entity and give it to another "private" entity. This is one situation in which I am "outraged by the outrage" in the words of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Fascist land). The truth of the matter is eminent domain is as old as the Republic and has been used for just as long. Since this nation's founding, we have allowed our government to seize property for often unjust reasons from our poorest citizens to build national highways, bridges, downtowns, and parks. Yes, the "reasons" mentioned above were all geninuely for the "public use", but which "public?"  We've also had multiple examples in history where the government took from private, poorer individuals to give to other wealthier individuals.  Where do you think Time Square came from? Eminent domain. Railroads? eminent domain. All those apartment complexes we college folks love living in? Eminent domain. Yuppish downtown Atlanta? Eminent domain. That road that leads you to work? Eminent domain. That campus class you are sitting in? eminent domain. That office building you are calling from? eminent domain.That airport you are driving to on that highway? eminent domain.  Eminent domain has been used for centuries to primarily displace the poor and the minority without any one raising a peep. Why is it a "good" reason to seize the property of the poor, but not everyone else? If anything their property rights are MORE important because they own even less. Yet, we've always viewed a taking for "public use" from the poor as a legitimate exercise of our governments power.  What amazes me most about the Kelo decision is that this is nothing new!  The only difference is that now, it is your home that is being threatened.  It is the home of the middle class and well-to-do whites which are now under the bulldozers edge thanks to Kelo. It is your property that must be seized for the greater "economic good." It is your yard and your playground that must be moved to make way for restaurants, parking lots, and all those other suburbanite symptoms of the "greater good" for the "people."  Kelo means that now not only are "blighted" communities of the poor under threat, but even good neighborhoods with supposedly stable homes are under the chopping block. The very states and politicians that are so adamantly opposed to eminent domain now were the ones who vehmently supported using it against "blighted" communities and those blighted black people of the urban ghettos. Sure, the citizens of these "blighted" communities never saw the fruits of gentrification and eminent domain supposedly used for their "benefit", but we as America accepted their displacement as a natural part of the economic cycle. The outrage is not in the way Kelowas decided, but that this decision of taking from the rich and giving to the richer hadn't happened sooner. The threat and loss of property rights should have always been shared by all Americans, not just one segment. But if the threat must be removed by legislation from the states, it must be removed for all Americans as well.
Given President Bush's not-so-conservative track record of increased government spending, lax border enforcment, and now his SCOTUS nomination of Harriet Miers, his conservative base, according to a Human Events columnist, is now starting to feel like black Democrat voters: loved only during election time, and ignored soon after.
The tragedy in Atlanta: From what I've seen, I'm not suprised  The shooting spree at the Fulton county courthouse should shock the senses of every American. However, its more than an isolated incident, but instead blows open for the whole world to see the effects of the decline of Urban American politics. The Fulton County jail in Atlanta was built for 1000 men, but now houses 2500 men and growing. While more money and manpower is needed, the county's taxed enough as is, and the state govt already feels they give enough money. Yet there is something dangerously wrong with a 51 year old grandmother is asked to be the keeper of a 33 year old former college football player.  Places like Atlanta's Fulton county and other urban areas are poorly run, poorly managed, and, have tons of corruption. Yet Democrats and progressives refuse to face these facts for fear of alienating the black voting base. It is true that state govts and suburbs are largely to blame because of their tightfisted policies toward urban America (after all, the reason those white folks moved to the suburbs was to get away from their black problems), but given that, city governments have a responsibility to be at least honest.  I use to go over to the courthouse all the time, and this tragic shooting just did not surprise me. Everytime I went there, I set off the metal detectors and not once was I pulled aside. All the "deputies" I saw there were overweight, out of shape, and goofing off instead of looking at the damn security monitors. Sometimes, a single deputy (old women) could be watching over 3 inmates. These people weren't hired to do a job, they were hired to just be hired. They were hired to give people jobs to do, but not actually to do their job.  Sadly, I saw this sort of behavior all across Fulton county from social services on down. You can't say they were overworked, because I saw plenty of "deputies" sitting around not doing anything all the time. And frankly, its scary as hell to know that Nichols not only beat up the grandmother deputy, but stole her gun, ran UPstairs, killed the judge, tied up another deputy, ran down 8 flight of stairs, killed another deputy, went outside beat up some people, THEN took public transportation to upscale Buckhead and killed someone else.  Not one public transportation official noticed a guy not wearing a shirt with guns and blood all over himself? Not one cop or sheriff could've been on the lookout at the station (considering the station was very close to where the shooting happened). All the while, the police were reporting that he had driven away in a Honda Accord (the Accord was actually STILL in the parking garage).  This was the ultimate breakdown in security and people have to be held accountable for this mismanagement. The new Sheriff has only been on the job a few months and he has pretty big shoes to fill because the previous sheriff was the definition of corruption. If the conservative state govt is "shocked" by this, then they need to be willing to give more money, but we Democrats and progressives have got to do a better job of condemning urban corruption.  Cory Booker of Newark was a fantastic start against the terrible Sharpe James. Yet, the entire New Jersey Democratic establishment (McGreevey included) endorsed Sharpe James, knowing what a criminal he was for fear of alienating the black vote. There is no excuse for the Sharpe James and yes Marion Barry's of the world to be in any other place but jail.  Lastly, Brian Nichols was no "thug." He grew up in a middle class background, went to college, and had a better life than many black Americans. He is not a product of "urban poverty" in the slighest, yet I know this albatross will be hung around the necks of every black person. Sadly, I remember after every major robbing or shooting, I get a sense of greater anxiety among whites whenever I pass them on the street. I know I'll have to look forward to few months of clutched purses and stares because of this madman.
The idea that minimum wage legislation is an anti-poverty tool is simply sheer nonsense...
P-I Editorial: It was bad business as usual when the administration carefully staged, rehearsed and even gave breathing instructions for what was supposedly "just a conversation" between President Bush and troops in a live video conference.
After three decades, the Endangered Species Act has given us very little to cheer about. Since its inception, nearly 1,300 species have been listed as threatened or endangered. Yet, not one species has recovered as a result of the act alone. In fact, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, approximately 77 percent of listed species have only achieved less than 25 percent of their recovery objectives. More than half are classified as either "declining" or in "unknown" status.
Although wryly directed by George Clooney and supported by compelling performances, especially from David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck is still the cinematic equivalent of unbuttered toast: dry, dry, dry.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has a soft spot in her heart for traitors.  The NYT reveals that the White House, in collusion with top Republican leaders, are planning to smear the very-Republican special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, if he brings charges against any White House officials.  The Times reports that the White House and the GOP are planning to brand Fitzgerald as an "overzealous" prosecutor who is simply interested in covering his ass by charging someone with something.  Funny, but it was just a few months ago that Karl Rove himself talked about how Democrats wanted to see our troops in Iraq killed.  How it was Republicans who were the REAL party that cared about defending America.  How it was Republicans who really wanted to win the war on terror.  And now we see the Republican party leadership for what they really are.  The party of treason.  This week, ever single Republican who dares to minize treason will be exposed as being soft on terrorism, offering sympathy to our nation's enemies, as traitors themselves.  They don't care if traitors put the lives of our soldiers and our spies in danger while our nation is at war.  And we're going to call them on it.  Every single one.  The first defender of treason is Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. On Sunday, Republicans appeared to be preparing to blunt the impact of any charges. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, speaking on the NBC news program "Meet the Press," compared the leak investigation with the case of Martha Stewart and her stock sale, "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."  Ms. Hutchison said she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." "Feel free to call Ms. Hutchison's office and ask why Senator Hutchison approves of treason:  (202) 224-5922  PS Feel free to let Senator Hutchison know there's a new t-shirt coming out with her name on it, and the name of every Republican Senator who support treason.
A mindless adventure flick with a preposterous plot.
Book Reviews: Anyone who reads Rachel Pine's roman a clef "The Twins of TriBeCa" hoping for a juicy behind-the-scenes peek at Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Miramax Films will be sorely disappointed. Written by a former low-level PR staffer, tome won't even satisfy the lesser demands of the "Sex and the City" crowd or beach readers.
With a brilliantly talented cast, how could the movie go so wrong? The fault lies with writerdirector Craig Lucas, who never decides if hes making a classic tragedy or a modern day satire. I never figured out exactly what this movie is about, or what kind of statement its trying to make. Watching three people who behave like sociopaths take turns seeing who can be the most immoral is an unlikely way to win over your audience.
It sure looks like it.  This is a classic example of the failures of self-regulation, a theme which the GOP always loves. In this case, it was Newt and his lot who couldn't take enough money from the cattle industry which broke with science and common sense and allowed the industry to police itself. The result has been outbreaks of e.coli and mad cow. The e.coli outbreaks have less to do with undercooking the meat and more to do with feces being spread in the meat due to the slaughterhouse conditions of self-regulation.  The mad cow problem is also connected to this new era of self-regulation, thanks to laws that allow the cattle industry to feed cattle, vegetarian animals by nature, leftover scraps of meat and ground bone (bone!) from animals including other cattle. One theory these days is that the sickness could have come from south Asia. How? Well, this modern technique of feeding cattle includes buying slop from anywhere in the world (it's cheaper than grain, easier than cattle roaming field eating natural grass) which includes dumps which are know to include dead human remains washed ashore after burials. The press has all too often talked about the problem in the UK and Europe, overlooking the reality that the same unhealthy and un-natural conditions that started this problem there are present and continue in the US.  Who would guess that the GOP turned the clock back 100 years on food safety for Americans? Self-regulation means no regulation.  Why does the GOP hate Americans?
In the 1950s the right wing attacked liberals as being communists. In 2005 Karl Rove has attacked liberals as being therapists. Thus is born a kinder and gentler form of McCarthyism.
Unbelievable. First Bush decides to "help" the recovery in Louisiana by making it legal for companies to pay substandard wages, even though the massive rebuilding effort needed after Hurricane Katrina should mean builders and laborers would be in high demand. Then we find out that most of the contracts are going to out-of-state companies.   Finally, and you can't make this up, USA Today reports that Halliburton subcontracted out work to companies that fired some 75 union electricians and then hired at least 10 illegal immigrants in their place. And where were they working? A naval base near New Orleans.  Five years into their regime, and Cheney and his pals can still surprise you with their nastiness and craven greed.
"'Obviously the smart thing to do would be to withdraw the nomination and have a do-over as soon as possible....: "'Obviously the smart thing to do would be to withdraw the nomination and have a do-over as soon as possible. But the White House is so irrational that who knows?" So says one member of the disheartened and dwindling pro-Miers group described in Byron York's stunning post yesterday. One of...
This is today's photo of the President's video teleconference with U.S. troops in Iraq that BushCo. intended us to see:  And this is what happened just prior that we weren't supposed to see (Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged -   Here's the Pentagon officer reviewing the script of the "supposedly spontaneous" questions and answers with the troops.  Here is a P.R. type walking through the set as the cameras roll.  Here is another P.R. type going by with a cell phone attached to his ear.  Finally, here's Bush (after the supposedly secret rehearsal) following the script with the troops.  And, oh yes, here's the press conference where Scott McClellan .  Video at Crooks and Liars .  For more of the visual, visit   (image 1: J. Scott Applewhite/A.P. Washington/Tikrit. October 13, 2005. Via YahooNews.  remaining images: CNN video. October 13, 2005. Via Crooks and Liars.)
"Liberal cocksuckers in the media"   I suppose a good reason to work for the MSM is that it opens you up to all sorts of opportunities to receive hate mail. We just don't receive any at The Bond Buyer, the small business paper where I work.  But we do get to experience vicariously the exhilaration that comes from receiving hate mail.  An AP economics reporter received a gem of an email this week from a reader/intellectual luminary. The reader sent his missive in response to a story that highlighted the disastrous economic effects of Hurricane Katrina: up to 400,000 lost jobs, possibly 1% off of GDP, etc.  The reader responded tersely, but not at the cost of lucidity: You liberal cocksuckers in the media hate Bush so much that you want the economy to tank on his watch. Why don't you just shut the fuck up already. -Jim Another satisfied customer.
I really would ask my friends to keep their mouths closed. Every time they speak up, they only remind the...: I really would ask my friends to keep their mouths closed. Every time they speak up, they only remind the country of what is wrong with this unwise nomination. My friend Matthew Scully's oped in the New York Times today perfectly exemplifies the problem. Throughout this debate, critics of the...
Ann Coulter - I have finally hit upon a misdeed by the Bush administration so outrageous, so appalling, so egregious, I am calling for a bipartisan commission with subpoena power to investigate: Who told the president to nominate Harriet Miers? The commission should also be charged with getting an answer to this question: Who was his  second  choice?
IN REFERENCE to the letter by Kelly Zack (''The Catholic Church must change," Oct. 7) I agree with her basic premise, but the statement that the teachings of Jesus are no longer relevant is wrong. The writer confuses the teachings of the Catholic hierarchy with the teachings of Jesus.
Due to the mechanical, electrical, safety and reliability issues, I would stay away from this car
EMAIL OF THE DAY: "She's a good person? Well I'm relieved, because after all, that's half the battle. What I really want to know is whether she is a dog person or a cat person, and what is her favorite Britney Spears album. Come on! Other than the scary butt-kissing correspondence to the most brilliant person ever, I don't think anyone has really been attacking the woman personally. Whether or not she is a nice person or functional party guest probably won't make a bit of difference as to her abilities as a supreme court justice. The elephant is still sitting in the middle of the room - she may be an excellent corporate lawyer and personal attorney, but there is no way this person would have been nominated if she hadn't been Bush's friend."
NRO VERSUS MIERS: The pressure being piled onto Harriet Miers right now strikes me as inappropriate, and bordering on public bullying:  Some conservatives have called on the president to withdraw her nomination, and a few have urged senators to vote against her. If the president withdrew the nomination, we believe that he would seek a replacement who could unite conservatives ? as he no doubt expected Miers to unite them. But that nominee would be tarnished, perhaps fatally, by the suspicion that the president was forced to pander to the Right. The president, moreover, surely does not want to risk looking less than strong and steadfast. The prudent course is for Miers to withdraw her own nomination in the interests of the president she loyally serves. "Miers has been nominated. The president made the decision. If her nomination is to die, then the president should make that call; and take responsibility for it. Trying to force Miers to fall on her own sword for the sake of the "conservative movement," whatever that means any more, seems deeply unfair to me. Besides, I thought the Republican mantra has been clear in the past for judicial nominations: they should all be allowed an up-or-down vote in the Senate. Miers should be given a chance to testify; or the president should withdraw his nomination. Those are the honorable courses. The bullies at NRO can go pull a Cheney.
Jack Kemp says ex-felons should have their voting rights restored after they've completed their sentences... What's next? Illegal immigrants having the right to vote?...
Typo  The easiest first. There was a typo. I should have written $200,000,000,000. Fortunately I wrote the words two hundred billion dollars. So everyone understood.  The Challenge Stands  You supply the billions, we here at Fog Facts will find Osama bin Laden. Plus any ten other terrorists to be named later.   It is astonishing that although the administration has spent $200,000,000,000, as a supplementary amount, on top of all other military and intelligence expenditures, they have not arrested ? or captured or killed - the gang that attacked us.  I don?t understand how that?s possible and I would like the opportunity to prove than any ordinary civilian ought to be able to do the job with that much money. Of course, I insist on US rules. I can kill, torture, bribe, whatever I want and I will never be liable.   The Terrorists Who Phoned In  Seven of the nineteen 9/11 terrorists declared themselves alive after 9/11. If that's true, then yes, they were not on the planes. And we don't know who was.  These are collated individual reports in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Time, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Independent and on the BBC.  Six purported to come from the individuals concerned and one from the Saudi government.    The list of names and what they were doing ? pilot,  administrative supervisor, working at a petrochemical plant and so on ? is in my book, Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. I, in turn, got it from The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 ? and America?s Response, by Paul Thompson, (Regan Books, 2004). You can also find the material at their website . I crossed checked as many of the original articles as I could. They existed and Cooperative Research reported them correctly.  Frankly, I don?t know if the reports were true. I only know they were reported in the most credible of places and that they ought to have been very seriously addressed.  I also know that three years later when the 9/11 Commission Report came out, they simply used the original list of nineteen. They did not mention these reports at all. Even if they were false, fraudulent or hoaxes, that should have been demonstrated.   ?Who done it?? is a pretty fundamental question. Not to answer it makes the whole project seem doubtful.   The 2000 Election Recount  There is still confusion over this.   I remember reading the story in the NY Times when it came out. I too thought it said that Bush won. It was only years later that an article by Gore Vidal drew me to the truth. It was in the fourth paragraph:  If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin.   There are technicalities about undervotes and overvotes, but if all the votes in which the intention of the voters could be determined ? which is the Florida standard under the law ? Gore won. No matter how many ways you run it, and they ran it seven ways, Gore won.   It is understandable that people don?t know that. It was not only the NY Times that spun the story and buried the lead, so that they could in reasonable good conscience think that they had ?reported? the facts while they worked so hard to mislead us.   Here are all the consortium?s headlines.  The New York Times: "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote."    The Wall Street Journal: "In Election Review, Bush Wins Without Supreme Court Help,"   Los Angeles Times: "Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study Finds."     The Washington Post: "Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush"   CNN.com: "Florida Recount Study: Bush Still Wins."   The St. Petersburg Times: "Recount: Bush."  The truly fascinating thing is how all those major media organizations, committed both ethically and as a business proposition, to delivering the truth, all spun it the same way at the same time.   It?s one of the primary inspiration for the idea of Fog Facts. It?s one where the fog was deliberately created by the our most reputable news institutions.    Below the Law  There were a couple of comments that responded that people so awful as terrorists and unlawful combatants ought to be below the law. ?Cause they?re so awful. And because they feel that to treat them lawfully, and to refrain from torturing them, would somehow endanger our ?security.?   I would first direct you to :   McCain, of course, was tortured and abused in North Vietnam. So he knows something special about the subject.   I will quote from it because he makes the argument so well:  "  To fight terrorism we need intelligence. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that the intelligence we collect must be reliable and acquired humanely, under clear standards understood by all our fighting men and women. To do differently would not only offend our values as Americans, but undermine our war effort, because abuse of prisoners harms ? not helps ? us in the war on terror. First, subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy ? if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public. When they do, the cruel actions of a few darken the reputation of our country in the eyes of millions. American values should win against all others in any war of ideas, and we can?t let prisoner abuse tarnish our image.   ...   We are Americans, and we hold ourselves to humane standards of treatment of people no matter how evil or terrible they may be. To do otherwise undermines our security, but it also undermines our greatness as a nation. We are not simply any other country. We stand for something more in the world ? a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don?t deserve our sympathy. But this isn?t about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies. "  This addresses, first of all, the excuse for torture. It also discusses our ideals and our traditions.   But it doesn?t address the danger of having people below and above the law.   What does it take to be declared a ?terrorist? or an ?unlawful combatant??  Some guy in a momentary position of power says so. It could be the attorney general. It could be a GI. It could be a prosecutor in the justice department.   If they?re mistaken, or foolish, or they think you looked at their girlfriend the wrong way, or if they were in a bad mood, or you witnessed them commit a crime and they want to cover it up, what can you do about it?   Nothing. You can?t call your lawyer. You can?t call your family. You can?t appeal to their superiors. All you can do is sit in your jail cell and hope they don?t beat you too savagely and let you use a toilet instead lying in your own urine and feces.   If, by good luck, or a miracle, or change of administration, you are released, you have no recourse.   Now it is true that these powers have not yet been widely used against our own domestic population. But there is no rule ? now ? that says it can?t be. We have said that we will go to war against countries that harbor terrorists, indeed, that?s the class that Afghanistan and Iraq are in. Am I giving aid and comfort to the enemy when I say that torturing them is wrong? If you read the right wing blogs and comments you will find that they say such things even about John McCain and they call him despicable for being against torture. What is there to say that I or John or you, cannot simply be labeled and whisked away.
James Donald, the head of Georgia's prison system, has shown a willingness to tackle problems in the Department of Corrections. He is trying to restrain growth in the prison population &mdash; and save taxpayer money in the process &mdash; by stressing rehabilitation in hopes that there will be fewer repeat offenders. Alerted by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to allegations that guards had beaten helpless inmates, Donald began a statewide investigation that resulted in the firing of guards at two prisons. Those are pluses for his leadership. Yet he has displayed an extraordinary lack of judgment elsewhere. He sent state employee associations in search of donations from private industry &mdash; including prison system vendors &mdash; for a major corrections employee conference. In doing so, he ignored red flags raised within the Department of Corrections and by Gov. Sonny Perdue's office. More than $100,000 was solicited from businesses to help finance the prisoner rehabilitation conference last fall. A complaint about the solicitation was made and investigated by the GBI. Some of the vendors who were asked to donate felt pressured to do so, according to a subsequent report by the GBI. At the time, Donald was looking at possible changes in how the Department of Corrections awards contracts to vendors.
Getting Over Reagan   WARNING: this post is written in anger, therefore it contains tons of curse words. If you are easily offended by curse words, please read no further.*****What..the FUCK! America has been hit by our biggest natural disaster and our worst terrorist attack in the past 4 years. The poverty rate is climbing; racial tensions are at all time high; America is in the midst of wars with no end in sight; thousands of our boys have been killed; and what is the Republican solution? NAME EVERY FUCKING THING AFTER REAGAN!?!?! Rep. John Kline has joined the Reagan league and has written a bill putting Reagan's face on the $50 dollar bill!?!? Do you realize if these fuckers had their way Reagan would be stamped across all our foreheads!! Are these people for real! They wanted to replace FDR, Alexander Hamilton, and a major street in Washington DC with Reagan's name!?! You know what, fuck you Mr. Kline. Why don't you fuckers change the name of Utah to Reagan land?!?! What don't you change the name of Texas to Reagan land? Give it a fucking rest! Our country has just been hit by the largest natural disaster in a century and that is the BEST you can do? Fuck you Mr. Kline.  Grant saved the Union. Reagan straddled us with debt and Osama Bin Laden.  I can name about 20 Presidents who deserve to have their faces on major currency before Reagan's ass.  Or better yet, why don't you fuckers made a TRILLION DOLLAR bill and put his ass on it!  That's how much that fucker owes us!
Cory Doctorow: The Norwegian public broadcaster has broken new ground with a project that has put 20,000 video clips and 12 radio stations online. That's the good news. Hell, it's better than good. It is breathtakingly amazing.  The bad news is that they've released this media in Microsoft's DRM format for Windows Media Center.  That's not just bad news because the Media Center contains all kinds of restrictions on user-freedom (though it does). The worst of this is that the Norwegian broadcaster is selling out Norwegian taxpayers by setting them up to pay monopoly rents to Microsoft to the end of time.  Look at it this way: if the broadcaster had released the video as H.264 streams or a innother open format, they would have enabled Norwegians to buy products from any vendor in the world who wanted to make a player for the video that the broadcaster commissioned with public money, for the public's enjoyment.  Instead, by choosing Microsoft, they've put the Norwegian owners of the broadcaster -- i.e. the taxpayers -- in the position of having to pay again for Windows to play back the video that they already paid for once, with their taxes.  What's more, a Microsoft monopoly over the video they release means that Norwegian tech companies can't made products that play back Norwegian video without permission from an American company -- an American company that  can withhold permission or charge whatever it wants for the privilege of playing back Norway's storehouse of video.  It's true that Microsoft Windows can play the Media Center PC videos without a download, while H.264 requires you to get new software -- but why is that? With any other video format, the Windows Media Player just automatically gets the patch it needs and you're off to the races. But when it comes to file-formats that threaten the Microsoft dominance in the market, all of a sudden you need to jump through a hundred hoops to get up and running.  Many people have a hard time downloading new software, but every single P2P user (likely also to be the leading users for this service) has already demonstrated her willingness to download and install new apps.   And if it's hard now to get people to download and install non-Microsoft technology that  would provide a  level playing field to the Norwegian tech companies, imagine what it will be like in Norway after five or ten years of the state broadcaster officially supporting Microsoft -- and only Microsoft -- with the cultural product that is the life's blood of the nation.  Norwegian production companies rely on huge state subsidies, direct and  indirect, to fulfill the crucial role of providing cultural identity to a small nation. But Norway's many innovative tech companies provide an equally crucial service to Norwegians: offering economic independence and self-determination. To lock up Norway's culture in a wrapper that can't be opened by a Norwegian tech company is economic and cultural insanity.  If I were a Norwegian taxpayer, I'd be calling my MP and the public service broadcaster demanding redress for this. It's totally, utterly unacceptable for a tax-funded broadcaster to sell out the public and industry to foreign software giants. DRM doesn't work. No show that the broadcaster locks up with DRM will be prevented from showing up on the Internet almost instantly after it airs.   At a time when American state governments are throwing away their Microsoft products in favor of future-proof open standards, Norway has no excuse for selling out to Redmond.  This lockdown only adds cost, subtracts value, and betrays the national interest of Norway.  Link
THE OCT. 17 letter '' Verizon's moves on cable TV " misrepresents our company's position on proposed federal legislation to update and streamline the cable TV franchising process.
I was busy writing up my reaction to that awful police beating in New Orleans that has gotten so much media attention. I was trying to situate that incident in a broader context over violent policing in the region -- before, during and after Katrina -- when my friend Jordan sent out the perfect essay on the subject. Jordan Flaherty is working valiantly on the ground in New Orleans for a just reconstruction and a better city.  Rather than subjecting you to my armchair diatribe, I want to share his words with you - straight from the frontlines. (Thank you, Jordan.)    Crime and New Orleans   by Jordan Flaherty  People from New Orleans were not surprised to see video of police beating a 64 year old man in the French Quarter.  The only surprise is the increased attention the incident received due to the continued media focus on New Orleans, although news reports I saw took pains to point out the ?high levels of stress? New Orleans police are under.  Despite the attempts to explain away the officer?s behavior, the incident fits into a well-defined pattern of police conduct in New Orleans.  In the last year, seven young Black men have been killed by New Orleans police, and none of the officers involved have been punished.    This year has seen mounting evidence of a police department out of control.  Less than a week before Hurricane Katrina, on Wednesday August 24, Keith Griffin, a New Orleans police officer, was booked  with aggravated rape and kidnapping.  According to a Times-Picayune report, ?Griffin is accused of pulling over a bicyclist under the guise of a police stop in the early morning hours of July 11. The two-year veteran officer allegedly detained the woman, drove her to a remote spot along the Industrial Canal near Deslonde Street, then sexually assaulted her.?  This is hardly an isolated incident.  Another recent Times-Picayune article reported, ?in April, seven-year veteran officer Corey Johnson was booked with aggravated rape for allegedly forcing a woman to perform oral sex, after he identified himself as an officer in order to enter the woman's Treme home.?    Another article states ?Eight officers were arrested during a six-month stretch last year on charges that ranged from shoplifting to theft to conspiracy to rob a bank...In April 2004, 16-year veteran James Adams was booked with aggravated kidnapping, extortion and malfeasance after he was accused of threatening to arrest a woman unless she agreed to have sex with him. ?  Police misconduct in this notoriously corrupt city goes back decades, and occasionally it explodes in scandal.  In a September 2000 report, the progressive policy institute reported ?a 1994 crackdown on police corruption led to 200 dismissals and upwards of 60 criminal charges, including two murder convictions of police officers.  Investigators at the time discovered that for six months in 1994, as many as 29 New Orleans police officers protected a cocaine supply warehouse containing 286 pounds of cocaine. The FBI indicted ten officers who had been paid nearly $100,000 by undercover agents. The investigation ended abruptly after one officer successfully orchestrated the execution of a witness.?  According to one community activist I recently spoke with who is  familiar with the investigations, ?That crackdown just scratched the surface.  They didn?t even really begin to address the problems in the New Orleans police.?  According to a 1998 report from human rights watch ?Former Officer Len Davis, reportedly known in the Desire housing project as ?Robocop,? ordered the October 13, 1994 murder of Kim Groves, after he learned she had filed a brutality complaint against him.  Federal agents had Davis under surveillance for alleged drug-dealing and recorded Davis ordering the killing, apparently without realizing what they had heard until it was too late. Davis mumbled to himself about the ?30? he would be taking care of (the police code for homicide) and, in communicating with the killer, described Groves's standing on the street and demanded he "get that whore!" Afterward, he confirmed the slaying by saying ?N.A.T.? police jargon for ?necessary action taken.?  Community activists reported a chilling effect on potential witnesses or victims of brutality considering coming forward to complain following Groves's murder.?  The white-flight suburbs around New Orleans are in many ways worse. During the 1980s, Jefferson Parish sheriff Harry Lee famously ordered special scrutiny for any black people traveling in white sections of the parish. "It's obvious," Lee said, "that two young blacks driving a rinky-dink car in a predominantly white neighborhood? They'll be stopped."   The New Orleans Gambit newspaper reported that 1994, ?after two black men died in the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center within one week, Lee faced protests from the black community and responded by withdrawing his officers from a predominantly black neighborhood. ?To hell with them,? he'd said. ?I haven't heard one word of support from one black person.??  The  Gambit also reported in April of this year that in Jefferson Parish officers were found to be using as target practice what critics referred to as ?a blatantly racist caricature? of a Black male.  Sheriff Lee laughed when presented with the charges.  "I'm looking at this thing that people say is offensive," he says. "I've looked at it, I don't find it offensive, and I have no interest in correcting it."  These accusations of ?target practice? gained force a few weeks later with the May 31 killing of 16-year-old Antoine Colbert, who was behind the wheel of a stolen pickup truck with two other teens.   110 shots were fired into the truck, killing Colbert and injuring his passengers.  In response to criticism from Black ministers over the incident, Lee responded ?they can kiss my ass.?  As has been widely reported, the town of Gretna, across the Mississippi from New Orleans and part of Jefferson Parish, stationed officers on the bridge leading out of New Orleans blocking the main escape route for the tens of thousands  suffering in the Superdome, Convention Center, and throughout the city.  As the LA Times reported on September 16, ?little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans ? trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city ? the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move. ?This wasn't just one man's decision,? Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. ?The whole community backs it.??  Arguably, the actions of the Gretna police were one of the biggest dangers to public safety to arise from this tragedy, perhaps second only to the criminally-neglected levees.  Anyone that wants to focus on relief for the ?victims? needs to focus on what exactly people from New Orleans are victims of: racism, corruption, deindustrialization, disinvestment, and neglect.  That is why agencies and organizations such as Red Cross, FEMA, Scientologists, their hundreds of well-meaning volunteers are not really providing relief - they aren?t addressing the nature of the problem.  We call hurricanes and earthquakes ?natural disasters,? but the contours of these disasters are manmade.  As recent earthquake and hurricane-related mass deaths in South Asia and Central America demonstrate, who lives and who dies is intricately related to issues of poverty and access.  Whether the homes are built in safe areas, the soundness of the structures, the length of time it takes for relief to arrive, all of these are intricately tied to poverty.  And yet the media generally ignores these issues, and repeats the message that ?nature doesn?t discriminate.?  Because of this message, relief is misdirected, and when those receiving the relief aren?t sufficiently grateful, the givers become resentful.  An article in this Sunday?s New York Times reports on a community of displaced New Orleans residents in rural Oklahoma, where local residents are ?glad to see them go.?   ?With each passing day,? the Times reported, they ?could feel the sympathy draining away.?  The problem is the perception that this is a problem that could be fixed by a place to stay in another state, some hand-me-down clothes, and a few meals.  For many of us from New Orleans, what hurts the most is the loss of our community, and charity doesn?t help to heal those wounds at all.  Mayaba Benu, a community activist currently in the city, told me ?I miss everyone.  There?s a lot of reporters here, a lot of contractors and FEMA folks, but not many people from New Orleans.?  While thousands of out-of-state contractors line-up for work,  including hundreds of trash hauling trucks from around the US lined up near City Park, the people of New Orleans are still being excluded from opportunities to take part in the reconstruction of their city.  In fact, it seems to many that out-of-state workers are more welcomed than the New Orleans diaspora.  Jenka Soderberg, an indymedia reporter and volunteer at the Common Ground Collective reports from her experience at a New Orleans FEMA compound, ?I went to the FEMA base camp for the city of new orleans.  It made me feel sick to my stomach. We  walked around this absolutely surreal scene of hundreds of enormous air-conditioned tents, each one with the potential of housing 250 people -- whole city blocks of trailers with hot showers, huge banks of laundry machines, portajohns lined up 50 at a time, a big recreation tent, air-conditioned, with a big-screen tv, all of it for contractors and FEMA workers, none of it for the people of new orleans.?  Inside the FEMA camp, she was told by contractors, ?the tents are pretty empty, not many people staying here.?  However, ?we don't combine with the evacuees -- we have our camp here, as workers, and they have their camps.?  Soderberg comments, ?thousands of New Orleans citizens could live there while they rebuilt and cleaned their homes in the city.  But instead, due to the arrogance of a government bureaucracy that insists they are separate from the 'evacuees', and cannot possibly see themselves mixing with them and working side by side on the cleanup, these people are left homeless, like the poor man I talked to earlier in the day, living under a tarp with his mother buried under the mud of their house. Why can't he live in their tents?  It makes me so sad and mad to see so much desperate need, and then just blocks away to see this huge abundance of resources not being used. I have seen no FEMA center that is actually providing any aid for people -- I have been to this main FEMA base camp and three others in new orleans, and each of them have signs saying ?No public services available at this site/Authorized personnel only??  And with poor people out of the city, the developers and corporations are grabbing what they can - but there are no shoot-to-kill orders on these well-dressed looters.  NPR and other media have portrayed developer Pres Kabacoff as a liberal visionary out to create a Paris on the Mississippi. The truth is that Kabacoff represents the worst of New Orleans? local disaster profiteers.  It is Kabacoff who, in 2001, famously demolished affordable housing in the St Thomas projects in  New Orleans? Lower Garden District and replaced it luxury condos and a Wal Mart.  ?New Orleans has never recovered from what Kabacoff did,? one housing activist told me.  ?It was a classic bait and switch.  He told the city he was going to revitalize the area, and ended up changing the rules in the middle of the game and holding the city for ransom.  He made a ton of money, the rich got more housing, and the poor got dispersed around the city.?  This year, Kabacoff has had his eyes on razing the Iberville housing projects, a site of low-income housing near the French Quarter.  While Iberville residents were in their homes, they were able to fight Kabacoff?s plans, and held numerous protests.  Now that they are gone, their homes (which were not flooded) are in serious danger from Kabacoff and other developers seeking to take advantage of this tragedy to ?remake the city.?  The people of New Orleans need a voice in this reconstruction.  But what would community-controlled reconstruction look like?  Organizers are starting to grapple with these issues.  Dan Etheridge works with the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane and Xavier Universities.  He is currently organizing to create collaborations and build partnerships between community organizations and planning professionals ?not because its benevolent but because we will have a better city if the  community has a say in its reconstruction.?  He has organized an upcoming conference at Tulane University to bring together planners, architects, structural mitigation experts, geographers and other experts, along with grassroots community leaders from New Orleans, people such as ?the social aid and pleasure clubs, Mardi Gras Indian representatives, ACORN, building unions, artists, teachers, public housing resident councils, Peoples Hurricane Fund representatives,? and other community voices.  He hopes this will be ?the starting point for an ongoing program, a networking and organizing opportunity for autonomous public projects. we want our vision to be part of the master plan for rebuilding the city, but we want community groups to have access to the skills and funding they need for smaller projects towards reestablishing the complicated fabric of the city.  Instead of falling through the cracks, we want projects to grow up through the cracks.?  In a press conference today outside Orleans Parish Prison Critical Resistance New Orleans organizer Tamika Middleton said ?Katrina?s aftermath reflects the way we as a nation increasingly deal with social ills:  police and imprison primarily poor Black communities for ?crimes? that are reflections of poverty and desperation.  Locking people up in this crisis is cruel mismanagement of city resources and counters the outpouring of the world?s support and concern for all survivors of Hurricane Katrina.?     Middleton is part of a coalition demanding an independent investigation into the evacuation of OPP and amnesty for those arrested for trying to feed and clothe themselves post-Katrina, while calling for real public safety in a rebuilt New Orleans.  ?Rising from the devastation of Katrina, we have an amazing opportunity to rebuild a truly new and genuine system of public safety for New Orleans,? said Xochitl  Bervera, Co-Director of Families and Friends of Louisiana?s Incarcerated Children.  Discussing FEMA and other official ?relief? agencies, Jenka Soderberg says, ?its so different from how we are working at the common ground collective, or at Mama Dee's in the city, or the other community places that people are starting up -- where neighbors are helping neighbors, people just helping each other.  It's so different when we are all human together, instead of a militarized, razor-wired, fenced-in compound like the FEMA camp that keeps out the people in need and keeps the contractors and workers inside.?    Again, thank you, Jordan. And if you want more on-the-ground reporting, you can subscribe to Jordan Flaherty's low-volume email list.  To subscribe, email jordanhurricane-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. He is always on point, like this.
Since the arrival in Turkey and Romania, suspected cases have also been reported in Greece, Macedonia and Russia. It is still early days with the virus impacting humans but it is anybodies guess when it will mutate and become considerably more dangerous. The big problem is that the rich countries are trying to stockpile the vaccine now, when the problem is starting to spread beyond SE Asia. The problem is that the vaccine is owned by Roche who are unable to just mix up a batch and deliver it. The vaccine takes many months to produce so even if they started today, they could not produce enough to meet global demand. Sure, through negotiations and pressure from world governments Roche will probably be convinced/paid to allow other drug producers to manufacture additional supplies but this too will take many months.  Once again, why did the Bush administration wait so long to start this process and set such low goals for something that will save Americans when the flu arrives?
I'm guessing the 2,000 dead American soldiers in Iraq, who still never got their body armor, are background noise too. President Bush vowed Thursday to avoid the "background noise" of criminal investigations and other Republican political problems to focus on the nation's needs.  "The American people expect me to do my job, and I'm going to," the president said. "Actually, they expect you to tell the truth and act like a man when your top aides commit treason.
The Washington Post this morning reports on the difficulties Republicans are having recruiting first-class talent for the 2006 senatorial elections....: The Washington Post this morning reports on the difficulties Republicans are having recruiting first-class talent for the 2006 senatorial elections. In what is shaping up to be a tough year for Republicans, a lot of the party's best talent does not want to face the voters. Now ask yourself: Does...
There has not been a moment since October 3 when I have not felt sick and sad about this Miers...: There has not been a moment since October 3 when I have not felt sick and sad about this Miers battle, but today may have been the worst day yet. This morning, the president mobilized Laura Bush to join him on national television and accuse critics of the Miers nomination...
This story of a floundering shoe designer who returns home for a family tragedy gets lost in undeveloped plot lines and lackluster performances.
In today's New York Times, reporter Judith Miller offers a lengthy and seemingly comprehensive summary of her testimony before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury.  Miller's account is interesting, but it falls short of explaining what all the fuss was about.  In general, Miller's story seems to exonerate "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, with whom Miller had a series of conversations about Joe Wilson.  In the course of those conversations, Valerie Plame's name was mentioned a couple of times, but there is no suggestion that either Libby or Miller had any idea that she was a "covert" CIA employee, rather than an analyst.  (In fact, as far as I know, she wasn't.)  Reading Miller's account, the impression that this investigation is much ado about nothing is only strengthened.  We, and many others, have speculated about why Miller finally testified after serving nearly three months in jail.  Miller doesn't add much that is new to that part of the story; she alleges again that Libby was the source that she thought she was protecting by going to jail--a claim that I find incredible.    We and others have offered two theories as to what changed, so that Miller finally felt free to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury.  The first theory is that she had multiple sources for her knowledge of Plame's identity, and was protecting one of those other sources.  Initially, Fitzgerald had refused to agree to question her only about Libby.  The second theory is that Miller was worried about being questioned about matters completely extraneous to the Plame investigation.  The leading candidate for such a matter was a controversial episode in which Miller called an Islamic charity that was about to be raided as a terrorist front, and tipped them off to the impending raid.  That incident was also under investigation, also by Fitzgerald.  Miller's account appears to support the second theory.  She says:  Equally central to my decision was Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He had declined to confine his questioning to the subject of Mr. Libby. This meant I would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Mr. Wilson or his wife - for articles published in The Times. Last month, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning.  Without both agreements, I would not have testified and would still be in jail. "  Later in the article, Miller writes:  Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I could recall discussing the Wilson-Plame connection with other sources. I said I had, though I could not recall any by name or when those conversations occurred. "  It is hard to square this with the interview given by her former lawyer Floyd Abrams, in which Abrams said that Fitzgerald's agreement to limit his Plame questioning to Libby, and forgo asking about other sources of the same information, was critical to Miller's decision to testify.  Miller's story ends by describing an exchange she had with Fitzgerald, which will be construed to suggest that the letter Libby recently wrote to Miller might be considered obstruction of justice, on the ground that he tried to influence her testimony.  The exchange is, frankly, weird:  Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to read the final three paragraphs aloud to the grand jury. "The public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me," Mr. Libby wrote.  The prosecutor asked my reaction to those words. I replied that this portion of the letter had surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame's identity. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job.  Mr. Fitzgerald also focused on the letter's closing lines. "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning," Mr. Libby wrote. "They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."  How did I interpret that? Mr. Fitzgerald asked.  In answer, I told the grand jury about my last encounter with Mr. Libby. It came in August 2003, shortly after I attended a conference on national security issues held in Aspen, Colo. After the conference, I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyo. At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me. He asked me how the Aspen conference had gone. I had no idea who he was.  "Judy," he said. "It's Scooter Libby." "  Which strikes me as a low-comedy conclusion to a low-comedy investigation.
President Bush planted the seeds of the destruction of his Iraq policy before the war started. Salvaging the venture will require an unprecedented degree of candor and realism from a White House that was never willing to admit -- even to itself -- how large an undertaking it was asking the American people to buy into.
Skip It                 In 10 Words or Less  A prostitute and a thief try to make it work  Reviewer's Bias*  Loves: A good hooker movie  Likes: The Dutch  Dislikes: Boring movies  Hates: Depressing movies  The Movie  Steve + Sky opens and closes with two stories that are alike, yet different, and in neither case can I understand their point. Then again, there's an hour and a half of story in between that's relatively meaningless as well, so I guess it all fits together. Directed by Felix van Groeningen, with a sense of gritty style, the film is half a meditation on what kind of bad deal life can be, and half a portrait of loneliness. What it is not, is a happy film.  The titular Steve is a small-time loser, wh...Read the entire review
Progress for America's pro-Miers website, www.JusticeMiers.com is even worse than I thought at first view. As an example of...:  Progress for America's pro-Miers website, www.JusticeMiers.com is even worse than I thought at first view. As an example of praise for Miers, JusticeMiers.com quotes under "What They Are Saying" this supposed tribute from John Roberts of CBS News, on 10/3/05 edition of "The Early Show": ?The President conducts a...
With Halloween approaching, the U.S. House of Representatives has passed a frightful new energy bill packed with treats for the oil industry and dirty tricks for American consumers facing rising energy bills. The bill approved last Friday would provide taxpayer-funded subsidies to build refineries on public lands that had previously been off-limits to such development. It would also grant exemptions from regulations that require some parts of the country to use "blended" fuels as a way to reduce air pollution. As if that wasn't bad enough, the bill commits taxpayers to help pay legal fees for oil companies if permit applications to build refineries and related facilities result in lawsuits.
I've written many times on racial preference policies for native Hawaiians that use a noxious "blood purity" test to benefit the privileged from everyone else. The madness continues. Jeff Goldstein notes a new federal lawsuit by five Hawaiians challenging a...
The movie Rocky 6 is now.    This film project is clearly a publicity stunt intended to boost Sylvester Stallone?s slumping movie career. Yesterday, the White House manufactured an even greater publicity stunt with   This thing was not just staged, it was superstaged. In a disgusting display, the President again used our troops as political props in an event so scripted that it basically turned into a conversation with himself. I wish the White House had put this much effort into post-war planning when my platoon hit Baghdad.   Not only were the teleconference troops told what to say by Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Allison Barber, they were also prevented from speaking freely by the looming threat of their ground commanders.  Undoubtedly there was a PAO (Public Affairs Officer?likely someone ranking Major or higher) standing directly off-camera making sure the soldiers spoke in line with White House directives. Every troop presented an upbeat view of the situation on the ground in Iraq.  There was no talk of armor issues or mortars attacks.  A token Iraqi soldier in the group at one point gushed to President Bush, ?Thank you very much for everything.  I like you!?    When I was an Infantry Platoon leader in Iraq, I was interviewed by CBS 60 Minutes. As the tape was rolling, my commanding officer stood behind the camera carefully listening to my every word with his arms crossed.  I knew it wouldn?t be fun for me if I strayed from the prescribed talking points.  That incident was one of the motivating factors that led me to create --an organization that truly represents the candid voice of our troops and Veterans. The voices we heard today were neither candid nor representative.   The makeup of this group at the teleconference was not an accurate reflection of our forces on the ground in Iraq.  Let?s look into the composition of the 10 troops who spoke with the President.  5 of the 10 were officers.  0 were black. In actuality, officers constitute 15% of the overall military. 20% of that force is black. No wonder the President?s  is so low.  This teleconference did not present the real voice of the troops.  It was a shameful and misguided use of our military. The Commander in Chief has no right to use America?s sons and daughters as a defibrillator for his ailing Presidency.
IThe FogI is sure to spook young lovers who use the flick as a date movie and is guaranteed to have enough jumpy moments to have that date sitting closer by the end. Hopefully those who use the movie for that purpose will put more time and effort into sucking face then focusing on the movie itself. As a PG-13 horror flick its a sloppy mess. As a remake it makes you wonder why they bothered with a picture that neither honors nor pays tribute to the original.
Eavesdropping: Part I    There has been an ongoing conversation in the office this morning between our sales director and a "designer" regarding a sell sheet for a new product coming out. This sell sheet is extraordinarly complicated, you see, because it requires a color image and text to be incorporated in a pleasing and coherent manner that must then be emailed to our client list. This is nuclear physics people, so don't tread lightly. (Please note: the use of the word designer in this case means "posseses Microsoft Publisher and a 10-year old clip art database")      "Well I tried it in a jpeg but the text was blurry and hard to read."     The answer is: rasterized text. Ditch the jpeg, go tif at the very least.      "I can try it in Adobe too to see if that looks better."     The answer is: assuming she means Acrobat, yes, ding ding ding! We have a winner! Acrobat=industry standard, surefire success. At the very least a better choice than an image file.     Then all hope is dashed when I hear her say "Okay, I'll try to save it in Acrobat."     The answer is: NO NO NO NO NO! Distill! Distill! It's not just about liquor!     As my brain liquefies and begins to leak out of my ears, it is difficult not to scream out in frustration as my colleague points out many typos in the text of the sell sheet, including mispelling the name of our local major league football team three separate times.   Truly these are the endtimes. Maybe I should pull a Joan Collins: "How many times have I told you - no clip art! No more clip art! No more clip art EVER!"
While Jane Fonda steals the movie in her return to the screen, a tired script and flimsy performances make this borderline comedy fall flat.
Dear Mr. President: Respectfully &mdash; and mindful that you have made it a point of personal pride throughout your administration never to admit a personal mistake (I know you said recently that you "take responsibility" for problems encountered during the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, but that's not the same as admitting you made a mistake) &mdash; I urge you to pull the nomination of  White House counsel Harriet Miers to serve as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. I accept your characterization of Miers as a smart lady. But come now, Mr. President, can you really continue to claim that of all the nearly 300 million people in this country (including millions of illegals who you refuse to take serious steps to round up and deport), Miers is really the single most qualified to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor?
. Rory Gilmore was helping her grandmother plan a Daughters of the American Revolution benefit for the troops. They were having trouble selling out the seats for the event and Rory suggested spending a little more money on marketing to make the event a success.   Here's the exchange:  " Rory: "In any business endeavor, sometimes it makes sense to run a deficit in order to achieve a bigger pay-off later."  Random DAR member: "Oooh, we're lunching with Grover Norquist!"  " Gilmore Girls is prone to making political references. During the 2004 election, they were pretty run-of the-mill-- picking on George Bush and taking cheap shots at the Swift Boat Vets-- but lately they've gotten a little more sophisticated.   A couple of weeks ago, Rory's grandmother suggested that she and her husband "call Scooter Libby" for a favor "before an indictment comes down." In the same scene, Rory's grandfather mentioned Ann Coulter.   Tonight, the episode featured Rory's trust-fund-baby college roommate, who had just lost access to her parents' dough and had to come face-to-face with her first job. After working as a waitress for about an hour, she started spouting Marxist theories and bemoaning the plight of the downtrodden working class under the thumb of capital-controlling pigs.  Rory, who has held a job before, just rolled her eyes. My thoughts exactly, Rory.
Reviewed by James A. Stewart  Quote: "Although I haven't read Count Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, it was immediately evident that there's a lot missing here. A quick check of the novel's plot on Wikipedia reveals that tons of material (including an out-of-wedlock pregnancy) was lost, between the condensation of an epic novel into 93 minutes and the restraints of the Hays Code."
Saint Condi: Judy Miller and exec editor Bill at the New York Times are getting zapped, with cause, but isn't it curious that the media -- ever as credulous as Miller and Keller -- is busy fashioning a halo for Condi Rice? Talk shows boost her as a presidential candidate for 2008  (and see Dick Morris book Condi. v. Hillary), but this is the woman beside whom Judy Miller looks like Joan of Arc. As  National Security Adviser Condi kept terrorising us with Saddam's bomb - "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"  (CNN Sept 8, 2002) - when she knew there was expert testimony that the celebrated aluminium tubes were not at all for centrifuges for a nuclear program. The Times pre-war, pre-Keller, was a culpable part of the White House war propaganda recycling factory, but the  fullest documented expose of the administration's  deceits and vast carelessness appeared where? In Keller's Sunday edition of October 3, 2004. So give Keller a break.       As for Condi boosters, they  should be forced to eat  all 10,000 words of the Times piece and for dessert her testimony  to the 9/11 Commission on why she did nothing about the warning of sleeper cells inside the U.S. - "there was no recommendation of anything that needs to be done" - and why she yawned and did nothing following  CIA briefing of August 2, 2001, headed "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." She characterised it as "historical information based on old reporting." The past is prologue.
It's getting hard to keep track of all the lies we've been told. Here's a quick cheat sheet:  We now know that Cheney lied to the American people about his involvement in the effort to smear Joe Wilson.  Three months after reportedly receiving a briefing about Wilson's trip to Niger from George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, and then telling Scooter Libby that Plame may have helped arrange her husband's trip, the Vice President went on national TV and told Tim Russert he didn't have a clue about the situation: "I don't know Joe Wilson... I don't know who sent Joe Wilson... I have no idea who hired him and it never came up."  We now know that Karl Rove lied about his involvement, too.  Back in September 2003, when Rove was asked if he had "any knowledge" about the Plame leak, he answered with an unambiguous "No."  Since then, we've learned that Rove was actually up to his Turd Blossom in Plamegate, discussing Plame and her role at the CIA with Matt Cooper and Bob Novak, and taking part in what a source familiar with his four visits to the grand jury characterized as "an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife."  We now know that Scooter Libby also lied about his involvement.  Libby told Pat Fitzgerald that he first learned Plame's identity from Tim Russert. But his own notes show that it was actually his boss, Dick Cheney, who first clued him in about Plame. (Russert, of course, has said he learned of Plame's identity by reading Novak's column, but that's a conundrum for another blog!).  And we now know that Rove and Libby also lied to Scott McClellan, who then -- knowingly or not -- lied to reporters about the two men's involvement.  When pressed today about the fact that in October 2003 he had "categorically" assured reporters that Rove and Libby "were not involved" in the Plame leak, McClellan made it clear that he was just passing on "the assurances that I had received on that." In other words, I only lied to you because they lied to me.  Potential Bonus Presidential Lie: In June 2004, when asked whether he stood by his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity, President Bush (taking a cue from Rove) answered with an unambiguous "Yes." But the New York Daily News reports that Bush knew that Rove was involved in the leak two years ago. So why, a year later, was he still acting like he had no idea who'd been involved?  Let's put aside the legal arguments for a moment and just focus on this glut of lying. Clearly, these guys knew that what they were up to should be kept in the shadows. Hence Rove's desire to have his conversation with Cooper be kept on "double super secret background," his self-assessment that he'd "already said too much" to Cooper, and Libby's request that Judy Miller identify him as a "former Hill staffer" instead of the usual "senior administration official."  Cheney, Rove, and Libby obviously felt that their actions had to be covered up.  But what they were covering up was much more than the outing of Valerie Plame. They were covering up the way the White House had used lies and deception to lead us into a war that was reckless and unnecessary -- what Lt. Gen. William Odom, National Security Agency director under Reagan, has called "the greatest strategic disaster in United States history."  The reason why Cheney, Rove, and Libby were so aggressive in attacking anyone who questioned their rationale for war is because, by the summer of 2003, it was becoming embarrassingly clear how wrong they had been about Iraq -- wrong about WMD, wrong about flowers thrown at our feet, wrong about the cost of the war. Had their incompetence not been so grotesquely manifest, there would have been no need for the attack on Wilson -- and the resulting coverup -- that has now landed them all in such legal hot water.  If Rove and Libby are indeed indicted (adding Cheney to our Merry Fitz-mas gift list would just be getting greedy), I believe it will shake up our government in a way we haven't seen since Watergate.  To borrow a phrase from that era, let me make myself perfectly clear: I'm not saying that Plamegate is the same as Watergate. I'm saying it's worse. Much, much worse. No one died as a result of Watergate, but 2,000 American soldiers have now been killed and thousands more wounded to rid the world of an imminent threat that wasn't.  Could there be anything bigger?  After getting a fumbling cipher like George W. Bush elected president, the powers-behind-the-throne must have believed they were untouchable and could get away with anything -- including lying about WMD, outing a CIA agent, and, perhaps, lying to a special prosecutor.  Like Nixon, their mindset was "if you try to get in our way we'll destroy you." (See how quickly those keep-us-safe national security guys were willing to jeopardize an intelligence asset in the name of covering their asses.) And their hubris caused them to over-reach.  Like my old Greek pal Icarus, they flew too close to the sun... and now it looks like they, and their multitude of lies, are about to come crashing down.
WHILE YOUNG professionals of the North End hardly condone out-of-control behavior, we feel that the contempt shown by elder residents is uncalled for and falsely premised. We want a good night's sleep as much as anyone, but when you live in an area where the local economy is heavily dependent upon nightlife, you must expect some noise.
I was appalled by the Oct. 2 news story "Volunteer Border Patrols Broaden Reach; Women, Hispanics Joining Campaign to Halt Illegal Immigration From Mexico." This one-sided article misrepresented what has thus far been the failure of such vigilante groups to garner the support they claim to have.
The Were-Rabbit is a product of another disastrous experiment by Wallace, which will not surprise anyone familiar with the British series. For over ten years, creator Nick Park has created short films about a wacky inventor and his sidekick dog. In ICurse of the Were-RabbitI, they run a vegetable protection patrol called Anti-Pesto. Veggie-craving rabbits sneak into yards for buffets of produce, and the townspeople have joined together in outrage.
So far, looking for progress in eliminating  unfair farm subsidies has been like watching corn grow: Change is invisible to the naked eye. This year, American taxpayers will spend about $14 billion  on farm subsidy programs that accomplish little. As U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman noted last week,  other countries are complaining loudly about those subsidies, and so are critics here at home. As domestic critics point out, most farm subsidy payments go to large agriculture operations instead of to the small farmers who were supposed to reap the benefits of such programs. The subsidies increase land prices, encourage overproduction and lead to the  dumping of excess agricultural products on the world market, undercutting struggling  farmers in less-developed countries.
So now it's 2,000. Two thousand American military men and women, dead in Iraq. More than three times that many wounded so badly they had to be sent home.  The name the Pentagon attached to number 2,000 was Staff Sergeant George Alexander Jr., a Texan, 34, wounded in Samarra by an IED not quite a week before, died at an Army hospital in San Antonio over the weekend.  The thousandth American service member killed in Iraq died on September 7 of last year. Number 1,000 had no name attached. In the kind of bombings and assaults that leave three, four, five soldiers dead in one horrific moment, no one can really say who died in what order.  So it was with the very first U.S. military dead in Iraq, in the early days of the war -- a couple of Marines lost in firefights, four more in the crash of a helicopter, and again, who could say with authority who was the first of them to go?  A spokesman for the U.S. command called the 2,000 figure an "artificial mark on the wall," and urged reporters to accentuate the positive. "Mark on the wall" -- a good choice of words, whether he meant them to be or not. We put marks on the wall to remember how tall our children were, and how tall they have become. The marks always get higher, never lower. The death toll will only grow; it does not diminish. They will be all coming home, but they will not be coming back.  We humans fix on the thousandth and two-thousandth because we are creatures with ten fingers and ten toes, and base-ten multipliers matter to us -- tenth and fiftieth and hundredth anniversaries, tin and gold and diamond milestones.  I think the most important casualty number in Iraq could be a strange-sounding figure: 2,750. Whoever draws body bag number 2,750 will be the death that surpasses the number of people killed in the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001 -- the casus belli for this Iraqi war. The number of American military people who will have died avenging the World Trade Center deaths will be more than the number of those who in fact died at Ground Zero.  There's some flex in this number; we could choose to add to the 2,749 at the World Trade Center the 184 dead at the Pentagon, the 40 on flight 93 who died in a field outside Pittsburgh. [We do not add the 19 hijackers, whose names and numbers should not be commingled with their victims'.] All told, that makes 2,973. I have no doubt that, at the present course of this hideous excuse for a war, we'll reach that milestone, too. The first death, the thousandth, the two thousandth, the 2,974th.  As we suspected then, and know for a certainty now, Aeschylus was right -- war's first casualty is always truth. Who will be its last? Whose death will be the end of all these deaths? Whose name, whose face, will haunt us again with the question that a young John Kerry posed in 1971 to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
It is troubling that U.S. authorities would attempt to send to other countries food that they do not consider safe for American consumption ["Katrina Food Aid Blocked by U.S. Rules," front page, Oct. 14].
This article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal sets out to debunk speculation about whether Joel Hinrichs, the University of Oklahoma student who blew himself up outside the Oklahoma football stadium, may have intended a terrorist attack.  It fails.  The Journal cites a number of blogs, including us, who have talked about the OU incident.  (We discussed it here, here, and here.)  The reporters interviewed several bloggers for their story, but didn't make any attempt to contact us.  The Journal's article acknowledges the features of the story that have led many to wonder whether there was more going on here than a tragic case of suicide by a depressed college student:    Several facts about the case fed the speculation: Suicides committed with bombs are rare, as are those committed in public near a crowded event. Mr. Hinrichs ... had a Pakistani roommate. They shared an apartment one block away from the only mosque in Norman -- the same mosque attended in 2001 by Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to helping plan the 9/11 terrorist attacks. ***  Adding to community concern was the revelation that two days before he blew himself up, Mr. Hinrichs visited a feed store and inquired about buying ammonium nitrate -- the same chemical Timothy McVeigh put in the bomb he used in 1995 to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, 20 miles to the north. "  But the Journal goes on to dismiss these troublesome facts, and to assure its readers that there is nothing to the Hinrichs story:  To that unsettling set of facts, blogs and local Oklahoma TV stations added several apparent inaccuracies, including: that Mr. Hinrichs was a Muslim and visited the mosque frequently; that he tried to enter the stadium twice but was rebuffed; that he had a one-way airplane ticket to Algeria; that there were nails in the bomb and that Islamic extremist literature was found in his apartment.  None of these claims are true: Mr. Hinrichs's family, university officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation say Mr. Hinrichs suffered from depression, and the explosion was an isolated event.  The FBI's investigation is nearly complete. On Oct. 4, the FBI issued a statement saying, "At this time, there is no known link between Hinrichs and any terrorist or extremist organization(s) or activities." "  The Journal seems to be making a logical leap here.  It is very likely true that Hinrichs had no connection to any terrorist or extremist organization; I wrote here that:  I assume that Hinrichs was, at most, a "free-lance Islamic terrorist," like the D.C. snipers of three years ago, not an al Qaeda operative. "  But the question whether Hinrichs was part of a terrorist cell is entirely different from the question whether he intended mass murder.  There are two intractable facts that suggest that there was more going on here than an "individual suicide."  The Journal acknowledges both facts, but fails to deal with them.  The first fact is that additional explosives were found in Hinrichs' apartment:  In fact, authorities did find, in Mr. Hinrichs's bedroom, additional explosive material. They detonated them at the police firing range the next day, jolting the city again. "  Given that Hinrichs had enough explosives left in his apartment to "jolt the city," isn't it reasonable to wonder whether more was going on here than an "individual suicide"?    The second problematic, and undisputed, fact is that two days before his death, Hinrichs tried to buy a load of fertilizer at a feed store--the same material that Timothy McVeigh used to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.  I suppose it is possible that someone could commit suicide by detonating a truckful of fertilizer, but I've never heard of it, and it certainly would be a roundabout way to do away with oneself.  It is, on the other hand, a common method of committing a terrorist bombing.  So the Journal's assurance that there is no story here is profoundly unconvincing.  Especially so, in view of the fact that the paper gives no explanation of how it knows that "none of these claims are true."  In particular, it has been reported that Hinrichs, or someone like him, tried to enter the stadium but fled when a gate worker wanted to search his backpack.  We have no idea whether these reports are accurate.  I assume the FBI has investigated them.  But the quote cited by the Journal for the proposition that "none of these claims are true" sheds no light at all on these important facts.  The FBI simply said, on October 4, "At this time, there is no known link between Hinrichs and any terrorist or extremist organization(s) or activities."  As we have said before, we have no independent knowledge of Joel Hinrichs.  We don't know whether he was a free-lance terrorist, part of an extremist group, or just a depressed student.  But it simply won't do to cite bland, "no known link" statements by the FBI as an excuse to sweep all questions under the rug.  It is important to know whether Hinrichs intended a spectacular terrorist attack at an Oklahoma football game.  If he did, it is important to know whether he was inspired by extremist ideology, and it is important to know whether he was part of an extremist group that is still operating.  The answers to these questions may be No, No and No.  But at this point, we have no reason to believe that the authorities actually know the answers.  And the Journal's effort to stifle discussion of the subject is unworthy of that newspaper.  Speaking for myself, I'm still waiting for an explanation of why Hinrichs wanted that load of fertilizer.
Delay Indicted   The congaline of Republican ethical and legal misdeeds continues (two Republican Governors convicted, Frist insider trading) and now Delay. The Plame shoe hasn't even dropped yet (that might take out Rove, Libby, and lord knows who else). These are the joys and prices of being in the majority. Republicans have some despicable members within its ranks, but none worse in my book than Mr. Delay. He is a cruel, vicious, and arrogant man and none deserve the take down more than him (with the exception of Zell Miller). If Republicans continue this, they will be swept out of power in 2006 and Bush will face impeachment charges...(trust me..if the political environment in America has changed enough that Democrats actually capture the House and Senate..you best believe there will be at least an attempt to impeach him in the House).
I am appalled and angered by William J. Bennett's statement that if we wanted to reduce crime, we could abort every black baby [news story, Sept. 30]. While he went on to say that this was "impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible," his original statement produced imagery that sticks in people's minds and is enormously demeaning and insulting.
The Huffington Post yelped, almost Drudge-style, "NBC/WSJ Poll: 2% Of African-Americans Give President Bush A Positive Rating," with the helpful modifier, "UNBELIEVABLE..." And, indeed, it is. For a good reason: It's not exactly true. While two percent grabs headlines and make Tim Russert all wriggly ("Only 2 percent -- 2 percent!"  as he spurted last night), the more significant number is buried in report. Dug up by Dan Froomkin, it's this:  Out of 807 surveyed for the poll, only 89 were black. As Froomkin puts it, "there is a considerable margin or error." Our statistics are rusty, but it seems like it could be high as +/- 10 percent. Sure, there's a possibility that Bush has a -8% approval ratings from blacks. Or maybe Kanye West should investigate whether NBC/WSJ care about what black people really think.  A Polling Free-Fall Among Blacks [Froomkin]
Book Reviews: If you have a taste for trash biographies of controversial people, you'll probably like "The Truth About Hillary," by Edward Klein. If you think controversial people -- especially women who don't fit your cliched idea of womanhood -- should be slimed by anonymous gossip you never bother to verify, you probably are Edward Klein.
Having lured the president out onto a far limb on Social Security, the Democrats have begun sawing. Democratic leaders immediately rejected the president's plan and stood up for all that is good and true and saintedly Rooseveltian -- without, of course, offering any alternative.
Ross Douche-hat  As my friend Ralph Luker has pointed out, it was pretty commonly agreed by those who read it that the New York Observer piece about Ross Douthat from two weeks ago pictured Mr. Douthat as an annoying human being. So does this article of last week in Slate. I'm personally grateful that the Observer and Slate are calling some of these characters on their pretentiousness. As Ralph said, they havebecome primary evidence of some of the failures of the education that they received and now criticize.  UPDATE: Let it be known to all of you who read this blog -- both of you -- that my original construction for the headline to this post was "Ross Douche-at," but Mike suggested its current formula as an improvement over the original. Just giving credit where it's due. (Edited again for grammar. Dude, you need a copy editor.--ed.)
The Thing About My Folks lacks cohesiveness, and the cloying tone makes the talkiness grating.
The movies biggest flaw is a lack of originality.  While the Mike Ditka angle is a clever one, the rest of the story is a rehashed mixture of iMighty Ducksi meets iThe Big Greeni.  What helped to make those movies work was the spotlight they focused on their talented child cast.  iKicking and Screamingi takes the ball away from the kiddos and gives it to Ferrell.   In return, he spends more time falling down in slow motion than Caviezel did in iThe Passion of the Christi.
Krauthammer and Kristol have both called for the Miers nomination to be withdrawn. Rush Limbaugh, George Will, and Laura Ingraham...: Krauthammer and Kristol have both called for the Miers nomination to be withdrawn. Rush Limbaugh, George Will, and Laura Ingraham have expressed the gravest concern. Your ballots are running more than 15 to 1 against confirmation. (I will close the balloting at 5 pm Eastern Time today and post results...
Mass Shootings:  The American non-reaction  A teenage kid goes on a rampage shooting up his school on an American Indian reservation? A crazed criminal grabs a gun and shoots up a courthouse? A man, disliking the sermon he hears, opens fire on his fellow church members? A hunter, pissed off at his fellow hunters, decides to open fire, killing several of them? A former Marine and his adopted son go on a sniper shooting spree? Many many are killed as our schools are invaded by angry teens looking for revenge?In America, whenever anything usually happens, we have a tendency to overreact (9/11 comes to mind). However, the one issue Americans never ever seem to overreact on are gun deaths. Beyond the fact that America leads the world in gun deaths, these random acts of aggressive shootings should be a sign that maaybbee we should rethink our gun love culture.Instead, the few reactions that we have, are usually in the wrong direction. Our political leaders don't ask for greater accountablity of our gun culture, but instead, they blame the "activist judges" for enticing the violence or they look for cultural issues (dang blacks, Asians, and Red, people). Or worse, they are like the NRA, and believe everyone, including teachers, should carry guns.In the 1990's one party did actually care about gun control, but that party, tired of losing, is now giving it up. Though Democrats probably won in 2000 (despite being the gun control party at the time) and lost any way in 2004 by avoiding the issue, Howard Dean and the rest have all but declared the gun control issue dead.  Our answers to this violence have been piecemeal nonsense such as blaming it on those crazy video games, but someday, this country will have to confront this issue. During the 1990's, I'd tell anyone who'd listened that America's lax security and our sheer arrogance in believing we were safe would catch up to us.  It did sadly.  I fear that someday, we will have an incident so terrible and so violent and so coordinated that America will have no choice but face another reality.
A voodoo horror flick without the mojo, Venom is chock full of gory impalings of interchangeable teenage girls and hunky guys by an unstoppable zombie whose unimaginative rampage quickly lulls us to sleep.
It has long been said that Americans have short attention spans, but this is ridiculous: Our bold, urgent, far-reaching, post-Katrina war on poverty lasted maybe a month.
Two things have become clear about the modern conservatives who run Washington these days. First, they have failed at the basic responsibilities of governing ? creating broad-based prosperity, managing our finances, keeping us safe and meeting new challenges as they...
Guess the Answers  What do the following two things have in common:1. Getting a job on the K Street, the place where Washington lobbyists work.and2. Being sent as a US delegate to the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meeting (where telecommunication standards are discussed).The answer:  You have to be a Republican to qualify these positions. No, it's not enough to do your job well, and, no it doesn't matter that K Street jobs are private market jobs; you must also prove that you support Georgie Porgie.3.  What do you do if you work for the government and its own statistics show that you are doing poorly?The answer:  Order the statistics not to be published anymore.  This is what Condoleezza Rice has just done.  It's also what the old Soviet apparatus used to do quite routinely.4.  How many scandals can the Bush administration brag about so far?The answer: At least thirty-four.5.  How many of these scandals have damaged the administration's credibility?The answer: None
Combined Rating: 35% (S:39%; P:33%) - With its plot construction problems and desperately inept lead, the least Ridley Scott could do is deliver on the controversy we were promised when the New York Times began floating the script around to religious experts and historians. Instead the film is even handed to a fault. There is the minor matter of the Vatican's own army portrayed as thuggish glory hounds fighting for riches instead of god, that is a little controversial but it's too weakly played to really resonate in the kind of controvery you remember and talk about after the movie.  No, in fact there is little to remember or discuss about Kingdom Of Heaven, another mundane excercise in Hollywood spending and marketing.
On Thursday President Bush met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office.  At the conclusion of their meeting they made statements in the Rose Garden and fielded a few questions.  The White House posted a transcript here.  I found the president's comments dispiriting.  President Bush described Abbas as "a man devoted to peace and to his people's aspirations for a state of their own."  Looking through the statement for evidence of acts that, in Bush's view, demonstrate that Abbas is a man devoted to peace, what do we find?  According to President Bush, Abbas facilitated Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.  I think it's fair to say that that evidence is susceptible to differing interpretations.  The remainder of Abbas's initiatives cited by President Bush are verbal.  He "ran on a platform of peace"; he has rejected terror and advocated one lawful authority.  As to the latter, President Bush cryptically observes: "The United States, in cooperation with the international community, has helped you achieve this through the efforts of our senior U.S. security coordinator, General Kip Ward."    Given the continuing operation of multiple non-PLO terrorist groups in addition to Fatah's own terrorist groups in Gaza and the West Bank, I find the president's statement mystifying.  Whatever has been achieved, however, still leaves plenty for General Ward's successor to do:   In the coming days, I'll be naming our new coordinator to build on the progress General Ward has made. This person will take on an enhanced mission to help President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority carry out their responsibility to end terror attacks, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, maintain law and order, and, one day, provide security for their own state.  " President Bush then addressed economic issues as part of "the way forward."  What actions are included in "the way forward"?  Abbas has apparently agreed to accept billions of dollars of economic aid:   Quartet Special Envoy Jim Wolfensohn is coordinating a broad effort to generate economic and financial support from the international community for the Palestinian Authority, and he's doing a good job. I'm going to continue to consult with our Quartet partners to ask Jim to extend his mission until next spring.  " President Bush doesn't pause to consider whether the past aid showered on Arafatistan has promoted peace.  Even worse, however, are the rest of the specific acts marked out in "the way forward":   It's important that we make quick progress on the issues that Jim has identified as most critical for the Palestinian economy, including opening the Rafah crossing, connecting the West Bank [and] Gaza, improving the ability of Palestinians to travel in the West Bank, and beginning work on the Gaza seaport. These are all practical steps that will help the Palestinian economy grow and flourish.  " These are all practical steps to be extracted from Israel; is there any prior or reciprocal obligation on the part of the Palestinian Authority?  President Bush states:   In the short-term, the Palestinian Authority must earn the confidence of its peoples, by holding elections and having a functioning government that delivers economic opportunity. The Palestinian Authority must also earn the confidence of its neighbors by rejecting and fighting terrorism.  " President Bush says nothing about the participation of terrorists in the election.  Is that consistent with "fighting terrorism" or not?  Moreover, the meaning of "fighting terrorism" is left unspecified, as is the fact that Abbas has taken no act to date to "fight terrorism."  We seem to be in the domain of happy talk, where words are cheap and hard truths left unsaid.  Are words enough?  They have apparently been enough to earn a couple trips to the White House and the accompanying red carpet treatment.  On the other hand, following Israel's painful withdrawal from Gaza and the subsequent savagery on display there, President Bush articulated some surprisingly specific demands on Israel:   Israel must continue to work with Palestinian leaders to help improve the daily lives of Palestinians. At the same time, Israel should not undertake any activity that contravenes its road map obligations, or prejudices the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized posts and stop settlement expansion. It also means that the barrier now being built to protect Israelis from terrorist attacks must be a security barrier, rather than a political barrier. Israeli leaders must take into account the impact this security barrier has on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities.  " What in turn does Abbas have to say?  He celebrates his role in facilitating Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.  He demands further concessions from Israel and has the temerity to add "also a very important sensitive issue, which is the release of prisoners of freedom from Israeli jails."  And, oh yes, "the establishment of an independent, democratic Palestinian state, on all the territories occupied in 1967."  In short, Abbas seems to have in mind the strengthening of his hand for war.  His statement continues with a brief pat on his own back for having "banned armed demonstrations" and a reference to the "refugees" in Lebanon:   Our discussion of the overall situation in the region has afforded us the opportunity to point out what we reaffirmed repeatedly through the past few weeks on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization: We are determined not to interfere in domestic Lebanese affairs. We reiterate that the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are subject to the authority and the laws of Lebanon as temporary guests awaiting the resolution of the refugee problem in the accordance with the international resolutions.  " Abbas envisions a "way forward" that would serve nicely to put liberated "prisoners of freedom" back to work:   Peace requires a departure from the policies of occupation and the adoption of the principle of freedom. Peace requires departure from the policies of settlements construction, the collective punishment, unilateral acts that undermine your vision toward two states and replace that with progress towards negotiations. Peace and security cannot be guaranteed by the construction of walls, by the erection of checkpoints, and the confiscation of land, but rather by the recognition of rights.   Peace cannot be attained by the enforcement of discriminatory road policies and by the policies of imposition and creation of facts on the ground, but rather through belief in the principles of partnership, parity and mutual respect.  " Well, thanks, President Abbas.  I get it.  Peace can be attained through rendering the other side incapable of defending itself.    There does not appear to have been much interest among the mainstream media in taking a close look at Thursday's remarkable Rose Garden ceremony.  I am aware only of the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens, who focuses on Abbas's reference to the "prisoners of freedom" (i.e., terrorists) held by Israel: "A history of violence."  UPDATE: A reader refers us to Debkafile's look inside the Oval Office meeting according to its mysterious "exclusive Washington sources": "Bush to Abu Mazen: Palestinians must start helping themselves."  The Debkafile report cites President Bush's answer to the question regarding the timeline for Palestinian statehood in support of its version of events.  UPDATE 2: Reader William Holl has directed me to this New York Sun story by Eli Lake: "Bush tells Abbas U.S. won't have contact with Hamas."  Lake reports:  President Bush yesterday privately told his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, that while it was up to him as to whether terrorist groups could participate in upcoming municipal and parliamentary elections, America would have no contact with terrorists in his future government.  "
What a shame that chef Davide Megna's first and only experience with whole-grain pasta will be his last ["Whole-Wheat Pasta, We Found, Is Something of an Acquired Taste," Food, Sept. 21].
Now we know: President Bush's supporters are prepared to be thoroughly hypocritical when it comes to religion. They'll play religion up or down, whichever helps them most in a political fight.
Poor Donald Hollowell. The distinguished civil rights attorney, who died last year, deserved better than to be memorialized along a street synonymous with desperation, poverty and crime. When the state Department of Transportation renamed a stretch of the notorious Bankhead Highway in honor of Hollowell in 1998, it did him no favors. Nor did it make much of an impression on the denizens of the area. It's unlikely the group of nihilistic young thugs who attacked a tanker truck last week &mdash; apparently causing the crash in which driver Rafael Diaz Jr. was seriously injured &mdash; have any idea who Hollowell was. Nor would they care. Of course, simply changing a street name never improves a neighborhood's prospects. Check out the countless Martin Luther King Jr. streets, drives, boulevards and avenues throughout the country. Their near-universal lack of promise makes that clear.
Thanks to its creaky and formulaic script, The Skeleton Key is more mumbo-jumbo than hoodoo and more dull than scary.
The rumor mill keeps churning in Washington about indictments in the CIA leak case. Although no one is sure if or when the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is going to issue indictments, it seems like the White House is already "shaking in their boots" about replacing Rove. Here's an excerpt from today's New York Times:  Given the political ramifications attached to Mr. Fitzgerald's decisions, officials at the White House have begun discussing what would happen if Mr. Rove was indicted.  Among the names being discussed to take some of Mr. Rove's responsibilities should he have to step aside, an outside adviser to the White House said, are Dan Bartlett, currently Mr. Bush's counselor; Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee; and Robert M. Kimmitt, the deputy Treasury secretary.  "  Bush administration officials are already, obviously speaking with each other about possible indictments&#160;&mdash; after all, if they weren't&#160;&mdash; why would they already be talking about a replacement? And, if the usual "leak free" White House is leaking this information to the New York Times&#160;... maybe things really are falling apart inside??
The Nation - The Nation -- Today's edition of the New York Times devoted exactly one sentence (on page A18) to one of the most important news stories of the day. "No Rise in Minimum Wage," the headline read. The nation's minimum wage has, shockingly, been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997. Yesterday, two proposals--from both Democrats and Republicans--were rejected in the House.
Why do the Little Fibbers among our media get canned but the Big Liars get a pass? Take the case of  the young, now-former reporter,  Nada Behziz from the daily Bakersfield Californian. Not only did this cub reporter get immediately canned for allegedly making up some sources and plagiarizing some quotes on a few local and rather insignificant stories, but her editors decided the sordid story of her professional demise was front page news.  As if the readers care about such mundane inside baseball.  Worse, her boss said the staff was "mortified" to find a liar in its midst. Oh puh-leeze! Mortified? Don't these reporters ever get out and talk to some real liars, like their local elected officials?  Which brings me to me Judith Miller. As I explain in detail on my latest personal blog posting, it's rather odd, don't you think, that some poor soul like Behziz loses her career for fudging a story about teen smoking, while Miller survives her wholesale lying about smoking guns, mushroom clouds and WMD?  Even as the New York Times' ombudsman says he thinks it would be "very difficult" for Miller to continue her reporting job, publisher Arthur Sulzberger says all is forgiven and Judy can come back, as long as she agrees to certain "limits."  Limits? Doesn't he mean strait-jacket?  That sort of hypocrisy is built right into the current, obsolete model of American Mainstream Media. Spell the name of a street wrong for your local rag and wind up working at the Wal-Mart. But run a series of articles that justify an unnecessary war, based on absolutely fraudulent sources, and for the New York Times no less, and watch your editors sit back and take it.  Well, it looks like Miller has finally been called out?albeit a couple of years and one war too late. The most we can expect in her future is the million-dollar tell-nothing book and then maybe a tenured appointment at some third-rate J School. Good riddance.  But how many more Judith Millers are there in the front lines of American journalism? How many more dutiful, diligent stenographers to the powerful, blithely passing off partisan spin as some sort of Objective Truth?
Justice Sunday  Welcome all brethren in Christ!  This is a blog run on the literal interpretation of the Bible!  Halleluyah!  Now let us pray.And now let us read this sentence from the Bible and let us harbor it in our minds and hearts:Deuteronomy 22:11: Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.And what do we see when we look at the Nine Wicked Judges in the Supreme Court?  Woolen gowns over linen shirts!  Woolen suspenders over linen trousers!  And who knows how much more wickedness there might be in the hidden underlayers!  Fye!Now, my brethren, be not disheartened.  We are right and we shall win.  The evil Democrat filibustering will end and the words of the Holy Book will be the Law of this land.  The true believers will be victorious!  Stores will be built separately for linen and for wool and all the faithful will be clad in justice!Amen.
John Edwards is having a personality crisis. is reporting that the former North Carolina Senator and VP candidate has joined a Wall Street investment firm where he will do "global deal making."   Back in North Carolina at UNC-Chapel Hill, Edwards chairs the holier-than-thou .   Good to see Edwards will be fighting for the little guy on Wall Street. Maybe he can channel some dead people, or get to work on uniting those two Americas he always talks about.
The worst thing that can be done [for African prosperity] is to give more foreign aid to African nations...
A story of disjointed family members yearning for true emotional depth, An Unfinished Life teeters between overtly saccharine sentiments and moments of real intimacy.
An old-fashioned, if bland, adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's novel.
Signs of trouble and Judy Miller were like Mary and her little lamb. Everywhere that Judy went, a flashing warning sign was sure to follow.  Indeed, in looking back on her career, it's clear that there were more red flags popping up around Judy Miller's work as a journalist than at a May Day parade in Red Square.  We now know that Miller's bosses were being warned about serious credibility problems with her reporting as far back as 2000 -- a warning that came from a Pulitzer Prize-winning colleague of Miller who was so disturbed by her journalistic methods he took the extraordinary step of writing a warning memo to his editors and then asked that his byline not appear on an article they had both worked on.   In today's WaPo, Howard Kurtz quotes from a December 2000 memo sent by Craig Pyes, a two time Pulitzer winner who had worked with Miller on a series of Times stories on al-Qaeda.  "I'm not willing to work further on this project with Judy Miller... I do not trust her work, her judgment, or her conduct. She is an advocate, and her actions threaten the integrity of the enterprise, and of everyone who works with her. . . . She has turned in a draft of a story of a collective enterprise that is little more than dictation from government sources over several days, filled with unproven assertions and factual inaccuracies," and "tried to stampede it into the paper." "  It's the journalistic equivalent of Dean telling Nixon that Watergate was "a cancer on the presidency." But while the Times corrected the specific stories Pyes was concerned about, the paper, like Nixon, ignored the long-term diagnosis. And, of course, the very same issues Pyes raised in 2000 -- Miller's questionable judgment, her advocacy, her willingness to take dictation from government sources -- were the ones that reappeared in Miller's pre-war "reporting" on Saddam's WMD.  And Pyes wasn't the only one at the Times raising concerns about Miller's reporting. As Roger Cohen, who was foreign editor at the time of Miller's WMD reporting, put it in Sunday's article: "I told her there was unease, discomfort, unhappiness over some of the coverage." And as has been reported by New York Magazine's Franklin Foer, Cohen did not express his concerns only to Miller: "During the run-up to the war, investigations editor Doug Franz and foreign editor Roger Cohen went to managing editor Gerald Boyd on several occasions with concerns about Miller's over-reliance on Chalabi and his Pentagon champions... But Raines and Boyd continually reaffirmed management's faith in her by putting her stories on page 1." (So, as Eric Altermann points out, the neocons got their Manchurian Reporter.)  Franz and Cohen's visits (piled on top of the Pyes memo) are eerily reminiscent of the email Jon Landman sent regarding Jayson Blair, in which he wrote "We have to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right now." Here it was a number of respected journalists all but pleading: "We have to stop Judy from reporting for the Times. Right now."  But, instead, Miller was allowed to keep doing pretty much whatever she pleased. In fact, as a journalistic insider told me: "Howell Raines was thrilled with Judy's WMD coverage, however credulous, because it allowed the Times to slough off the liberal label and present themselves as born again tough hawks -- perfect for the post-9/11 zeitgeist." That was Raines. What was Keller's excuse?  Because perhaps the most damning admission in the Times' quasi-self-examination was Keller's pathetic claim that, despite being removed from her WMD beat, Miller "kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm." "Kept kind of drifting on her own"? When did the Times stop being edited?   So Miller was very questionable goods. And everyone knew it. Yet this is the person they chose to rally behind, body and soul. And reputation.  The Times is in the midst of severe cutbacks, laying off 200 workers earlier in the year, with another 500 to come. "The paper is cracking down on expenses to such an extent," a Times staffer told me, "all travel now has to be approved by an editor. Used to be, if a story broke, a national correspondent could just book a flight and go -- and not have to wait six hours to get the trip approved. Now you need to have the agreement of an editor saying, 'Yes, this story is worth spending the money on, go'. That's a very big change for the New York Times. Yet the paper's management chose to spend millions of dollars in legal fees defending Judy Miller."  It's an utter disgrace, and an integral part of the paper's disastrous WMD coverage, which is without a doubt the blackest mark in the paper's long history.  And yet, even after all that we've learned, the Judy-ites continue to defend her.  "Judy has always been a pioneer and an agent of change." That was Tom Friedman on CNN. Yesterday. Hadn't he read his paper's story and Judy's laughable companion piece? Or maybe by "agent of change" he meant someone who has changed the culture of integrity at the Times to its polar opposite.  Tom Friedman -- and anyone else still hanging out at Camp Judy (I notice we haven't heard from Lou Dobbs or Tom Brokaw since the Judy-culpa came out) -- really need to update their talking points. Maybe they can all chip in and get a group rate on a good rewrite man. I suggest looking for a writer with a background in novels -- because trying to present Judy as anything even remotely resembling a journalist will now require someone very adept at crafting fiction.
Perpetual critics of President Bush's initiation and prosecution of the war in Iraq are displaying a perverse glee over his currently low approval ratings and the public's waning support for the war.  Do you not detect their palpable air of triumph at the apparent success of their endless carping? They seem determined to persist and even ratchet up their rhetoric until George Bush is finally bludgeoned into submission and, with his dying political breath, grudgingly issues the order to withdraw every last soldier from Iraq before resigning in shame.
Harriet Miers, proud founder of the Harriet Miers blog, has deigned to give AMERICAblog an online interview later this evening.  Sure, the witch sold us out and interviewed with The New Yorker first.  (She told us last week that she couldn't do OUR interview until today because she was "busy" - busy, my scatalogy.  She was just waiting for the New Yorker to scoop us.  But we're not bitter.  Perhaps she's still pissed at me about that RADAR column I wrote about her.)  Anyway, the interview is in a few hours and I'm looking for questions, good probing questions.  Got any?  Best questions make it into my interview.
What has happened to the Democrats over the past few decades is best captured by the phrase (coined by Kevin Phillips) "reactionary liberalism." Spent of new ideas, they have but one remaining idea: to hang on to the status quo at all costs.
Hellbent is proof that gay slasher films can be just as tedious and mediocre as straight ones.
I've never been a big fan of the Iraqi constitution project. Issues such as federalism and the role of Islam are simply too large and fundamental to be decided this early in Iraq's democratic evolution. It is more appropriately the work of years as Iraqis learn accommodation and tolerance and the other habits of self-government.
IT IS inconceivable to me how Jeff Jacoby could get through nearly 800 words on the plight of Elian Gonzalez without once mentioning the boy's father (' 'Elian and the party line ," op ed, Oct. 9).
UH-OH: I'm not a lawyer and I've never been to law school. But even I know that there is no such thing as "the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause" as it relates to the Voting Rights Act. It appears that Harriet Miers is more clueless in this respect than I am. That is a very low bar for the Supreme Court. If this is the state of play, the hearings could be excruciating.
Despite the steely presence of Samuel L. Jackson and the comic timing of Eugene Levy, The Man's plot is pointless and its jokes rehashed, as it ends up playing out like the Odd Couple with gas.
Sep 23, 2005:  Mike Binder's passive-aggressive, misogynistic HBO series "The Mind of the Married Man" disappeared after two seasons, a victim of its own shortage of likeable characters. The men on the Chicago-set show represented varying degrees of piggishness, and the women did not have sufficient backbone to push these shlubs in front of the nearest elevated train.
I've solved my problem with the TSA. They have their procedures, and I have mine. Mine include minimizing my exposure to stupidity. Therefore, where I used to board a commercial flight three or four times a month, over the last three years, I've reduced it to once, maybe twice, a year...
Bush must not be satisfied with record low approval ratings and wants them to go even lower because when everything finally comes out it is going to be painfully clear that nobody in his team knows how to tell the truth, himself included. Has a president ever become a lame-duck so early in his second term?  Rove testified he told Libby about his contact with Novak about two days after it happened.  Libby's testimony stated that Rove had told him about his contact with Novak and that Libby had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson's wife from NBC's Tim Russert, according to a person familiar with the information shown to Rove.  Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The network has said Russert told authorities he did not know about Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it.  Prosecutors also have evidence that Libby initiated the call with Russert and had initiated similar contact with another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, several weeks earlier.  Rove was pressed by prosecutors on several matters, including why he failed to mention during the first of his four grand jury appearances that he also had discussed the Plame matter with a second reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.  Rove testified during the first appearance about his contacts with Novak in the days before Novak wrote a column outing Plame's identity. When asked generally if he had conversations with other reporters in that session, he answered "no."  The e-mail jogged Rove's memory and during a subsequent grand jury appearance, he volunteered his recollections about his conversation with Cooper, and his lawyer provided the e-mail to prosecutors. Cooper also wrote a story about Plame. "
The waitress took our order and then disappeared. After awhile we went and got a manager, the manager asked who our server was, then told us that she had gone home for the evening. After he put our order in himself, we finally got our food after an hour. Our new waiter was not attentive and we had to go find the manager again who filled up our drinks. The manager never apologized or asked us to come back, and we will not. His name was Jimmy or Johnny or something like that.
The U.N. report on the murder of Rafik Hariri was tweaked before its release Thursday night: "UN office doctored report on Hariri."  The London Times reports:   One crucial change, apparently made after the report was submitted to the UN chief, removed the name of President al-Assad?s brother, Maher, his brother-in-law, Assef al-Shawkat, and other high-ranking Syrian officials.  The final, edited version quoted a witness as saying that the plot to kill Mr Hariri was hatched by unnamed ?senior Lebanese and Syrian officials?. But the undoctored version named those officials as ?Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamal al-Sayyed?.  The deleted names represent the inner core of the Syrian regime. Maher al-Assad, President al-Assad?s younger brother, is a lieutenant-colonel and head of the Presidential Guard. He is known for his quick tem- per and six years ago was said to have shot his brother-in-law, General Assef Shawkat, in the stomach during an altercation.  General Shawkat, also among the deleted names, is married to President al-Assad?s headstrong sister, Bushra, and was appointed commander of Syrian military intelligence on February 14 this year, the day Mr Hariri was murdered. Gen- eral Shawkat?s predecessor at Military Intelligence was General Hassan Khalil, the third name on the deleted list.  General Bahjat Suleyman, the fourth Syrian on the list, was until June the head of the internal affairs section of the powerful General Security Department, the main civilian intelligence service.  " Is there someone in high office at the U.N. who can't handle the truth?
dot the i starts out as a standard love triangle, but last minute revelations turn the movie into a gimmick.
Confederate-Americans: The Forgotten Ethnicity  There are Polish-Americans, German-Americans, Irish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and of course, that cursed "sensitive" race known as African-Americans. Their is a collective (hidden and not-so hidden) feeling that blacks in this country are somehow unjustifiably indignant.Often, I hear the moans of how, we will "never get over it." By getting over it, I'm told to brush aside centuries of slavery, brutality, and a caste system heavily stacked against my forefathers in the name of American "unity." Everyone laments black voting patterns which uniformly support Democrats and buy into the myth that blacks are all poor, all ghetto, and all live off of subsidies. This is all far from the truth, but being black in America means accepting the fact that you are the "black" sheep of the American family.No offense to virtuo-dad Mr. Luker, but I have to call out the ones who SHOULD be the black sheep of the American family. The last, true ethnicity in America who are indignant and refuse to "get over it" are none other than the Confederate Americans (often called Southern whites). We do not think of them as a traditional ethnic group, but shouldn't we?Southern culture is different than that of any other anywhere else in the United States. Whereas the North, West, and Midwest were populated with strong immigrant mixtures of Irish, English, Germans, and "mongrelized" Americans, the South is the only area of America that has largely been homogeneous and unchanged. Whereas, there is "Polish" culture from Chicago to New York city, in the South, you are either white or black. It has been this way since the founding of the nation.Whereas Northern culture tamed in its worse excesses in the 1850's through the establishment of formal police powers, jails, judicial systems, and laws, the South developed under an agrarian system of violence and fear. The South and these Confederate Americans, with their backwood, honor code based on violence, lived and died by its system of slavery. Slavery as a system demented Southern thought and ideology and distinctly separated it from the rest of America, probably forever.Here were a relatively small band of Southern whites (in South Carolina, 60-70% of the population were black slaves as opposed to the small band of whites). These whites were in the minority, surrounded, by angry, bitter slaves ready to kill them at any moment. The Confederate Americans responded, decade after decade in America's beginning, by matching their sense of endangerment with violence against their slaves, by beatings, and by night patrol systems. They thought their very survival depended on being the biggest, baddest, and most violent (sorta like the schoolyard bully or a Napoleon complex).Whereas the North and West, with its multiple ethnic groups had to learn to balance its heterogeneous society, the South was homogeneous and united (rich and poor largely) in their defense and belief that their system had to be maintained at all costs.These Confederate Americans, even after losing their rebellion, continued their culture of honor and violence. Just because they lost the war, certainly didn't mean they lost their unity as a homogeneous group. They were white, hateful of blacks as a people (but never as individuals; they always loved blacks as individuals), and had a love/hate relationship with the rest of their countrymen.On the one hand, they embraced American wars and their love of violence as a proof of honor by fighting harder and in larger numbers in American wars than any region of the country. On the other hand, they drone on and on in their textbooks, in their churches, in their homes, telling the myth of their grand "Lost Cause." They named their schools, their parks, their playgrounds, and their streets after Robert E. Lee, Jeff Davis, and even the murderous Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest (and founder of the KKK). Their politicians stood in doorsteps swearing on the names of Jeff Davis, and Stonewall Jackson and all those who led them to ruin, how the South would "rise again."As I stated, much is made of the fact that blacks vote in a block, but Southern Whites have voted in a block just as long. Indeed, the reason blacks vote in droves for one party is not because of "welfare" or whatever reason, its because the party we vote for is likely against the one that the Confederate Americans support. These Confederate Americans, overall voted for Bush by some 70-75% throughout the South. While Bush wins Mississippi by 60% of the vote, he actually wins the white vote by some 80-85%, while losing the black vote by an equally uniform number near 95%. Throughout Southern states, from Louisiana, to Alabama, to Mississippi, to Texas, to the Carolinas, Southern whites have been nearly unanimous in their voting since 1789.While Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and northern and western states with deep ethnic roots and a diverse group of whites can split and show a diversity in their voting patterns, no such split has ever existed in the South. Confederate Americans voted for Democrat Grover Cleveland and Sam Tilden over a century ago on the same levels that they vote for Bush and Reagan now. Sure there are exceptions in their voting patterns (Truman, and Clinton),overall though, these Confederate Americans are homogeneous to the core.And speaking of living off of subsides, if blacks are seen as the "welfare queens" of the ethnic groups, then the Confederate-Americans surely are the welfare kings. These Confederate Americans live off government subsidies by taxing their hated Northern foes. From military bases, to Social Security, to federal highway dollars, these "rough and rugged" Confederate Americans are all too hypocritical.They have the highest divorce rates and the highest crime rates and the highest spousal abuse rates (which apparently they find quite funny), yet claim themselves as the guardians of American "honor" and gentility. All the while, they and their leaders moan on about the decline of American morality, though they lynched thousands upon thousands of blacks and now execute more blacks than any other region.Yes, we forget to hyphenate and ostracize our Confederate-Americans as we do our African-Americans. But if their is an ethnic card to be played, its been played by the Confederate-Americans just as much as the African-Americans. If such a thing Afrocentrism exists, then there is surely Conferocentrism.
I shuddered when I heard that a movie called North Country was being made out of the Jenson case, in which a group of female miners sued the owner of a taconite mine in northern Minnesota.  I happen to know something about that case, which inspired a book called Class Action.  The movie was said to be loosely based on the book and the actual case, and I could imagine how distorted Hollywood's product would be.  The movie is now out; it stars Charlize Theron, who was no doubt cast for her striking resemblance to the miner she plays.  The film's web site is remarkably preachy, posturing the movie as a landmark in the battle against sexual harassment.  The New York Post's review of North Country confirms that the movie is awash in liberal stereotypes.  But one jarring note jumped out at me:  Inspired by Anita Hill's testimony at the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Josey talks Bill, a local hockey-hero-turned-lawyer (Woody Harrelson, in his best work in years) into mounting a lawsuit. And like Hill, Josey is confronted by the mine owner's "nuts and sluts" defense that focuses on her own sexual past. "  The real Jenson case was filed in 1985, six years before the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing.  So this particular embellishment is pure fiction.  Why did the moviemakers throw it in?  Why do you think?  The Supreme Court is in the news, and Justice Thomas is a hero to conservatives.  So the liberals who made North Country went out of their way to slime him, shifting the movie's time line by six years just so they could slander a Republican.  No wonder conservatives hate Hollywood.  And, by the way, what's this about Anita Hill being "confronted" by a "defense" that "focuse[d] on her own sexual past"?  I don't remember hearing anything about her sexual past; the defense put forward by Thomas and his supporters was that she was a liar, which the evidence seemed to show pretty convincingly.
Bobo's World    The title refers to a series of posts* on Eschaton about what the New York Times wingnut columnist David Brooks calls the mainstream America: the fundamentalists and people with "family values" in general. "Bobo" is Atrios's affectionate term for Brooks.  This series shows the nasty underside of the fundie America. Now a new blog with the same name, Bobo's World, has taken up the task of following the more unsavory aspects of Brooks' family values people. Which pissed me off as I have been gathering these snippets myself for later condension into a gigantic blogosphere expose! Alas, it will not be now. Hence, I might as well show you what I have collected so far, in a time span of only about a month.  First, there was the case of Douglas B. Smith:       Boy Scouts of America's National Director of Programs Douglas B. Smith will appear in a Dallas courtroom tomorrow to face charges of distributing child pornography, according to reports by NBC News.    Then this little bit:       An Allen Superior Court judge denied a sentence reduction request by a 34-year-old man convicted of having sex with a teenager whom he mentored through church and who had baby-sit his children.     ...     A jury convicted him last year of having sex with a 14-year-old girl between June and August 2000 while he was a volunteer minister at a Fort Wayne church. He knew the girl's family and mentored her in church activities.    And then:       A former East Texas principal was convicted of sexually assaulting seven girls and sentenced to 15 years in prison.      A jury on Thursday sentenced Russell Thomas Hirner, 43, after deliberating for about four hours. He was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child earlier in the day.      "I accept responsibility," Hirner, the former principal of the Longview Baptist Christian Academy, testified. "I couldn't bring myself to tell and I vowed to God that after it came out I'd make a disclosure."    And finally, today:       A self-described Internet evangelist who has preached about everything from morality to spirituality on his family's Web site was arrested Wednesday and charged with raping a child younger than 12.      Charles Michael Balfe, 60, was picked up at his job site at 84 Lumber in DeLand, DeLand Police Cmdr. Randel Henderson said. He is being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail without bail.      Balfe, married and the father of three, is accused in three warrants of raping a child younger than 12, Henderson said. The remaining counts accuse him of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious molestation and domestic violence.    And I didn't even make any special efforts to dig these cases up! They are probably just the tip of the iceberg. It would be useful and interesting to do a proper study about any relationship between strongly expressed fundamentalist beliefs and various types of sexual abuse. Note that I'm not arguing that only wingnuts commit these acts or even that they would be unusually likely to commit them (though that could be the case, of course). But it seems very odd that the people who are most vociferous about family values and the horrible lewdness of the liberals and progressives crop up so frequently in these kinds of news. And I have not seen Bobo write anything about this trend, no explanation, no clarification, no ethical condemnation. Hmmm. ---- *As Raznor points out in the comments, it is also the name of a book by David Brooks.
A Chronicle of FEMA's Internal Interactions on the Evening of Aug. 31, 2005 (2 days Post-Katrina)  Marty Bahamonde, the New England FEMA regional director and FEMA's only body in the Superdown, e-mailed Michael Brown, then-FEMA director and point person in Baton Rouge, to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours."  He continues, "Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical...The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out."  Micheal Brown's press secretary, Sharon Worthy, e-mailed her colleagues:  "He [Michael Brown] needs much more than 20 or 30 minutes [to eat dinner].  Restaurants are getting busy.  We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choice, followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you." "  Bahamonde messaged a co-worker:  "OH MY GOD!!!!!!! I just ate an MRE [military rations] and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants." "  This chronicle demonstrates why my disgust cannot be put into the appropriate words.  I can only support the sentiment expressed by Bahamonde in an e-mail on September 3rd. "The leadership from top down in our agency is unprepared and out of touch. ... I am horrified at some of the cluelessness and self concern that persists."
Blog Wisely    A journalism professor at Boston University - one of the most prestigious schools in that field - keeps a blog. So, who doesn't? Well, in his, he exhibits a remarkable contempt for the pervasiveness of media, and unwisely comments on the sex appeal (and ancestry) of one of his students.      "Today was my first day teaching course 308/722 at the Boston University Dept. of Jounralis (sic). There are six students, most of whom are probably smarter than me, but they DON'T READ THE PAPER!!! Not the Globe, Times, Herald or Wall Street Journal. I can shame them into reading, I guess, but why are they taking the course if they don't like to read. But I digress. Now here's the nub of my issue. Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn't you know it?) is incredibly hot. If you've ever been to Israel, she's got the sloe eyes and bitchin' bod of the true Sabra. It was all I could do to remember the other five students. I sense danger, Will Robinson."       Also - of course they don't read the paper. They get updates emailed to them. The last time they had black ink all over their hands from a paper they were changing out the bird cage.     He was fired. Not for his stupidity, but for his unprofessionalism.     So this entry is a bit incestuous, blogging about blogging. My apologies. But herein lies a lesson: Do not blog about things that will undermine your credibility in the future. I've given up my lifelong political pipedream, and thusly can bitch online to my heart's desire. If I ever chose to move into a respectable profession I'll just have to change my name, is all.
Last week the Society for Professional Journalists honored Judith Miller for protecting a source (or sources). The Society acts as though that is the foremost value, when in fact it is not. The foremost value is the reverse, connecting a source to a message -- attribution, having a source stand behind his message.  The idea behind "protecting a source" has the whistle-blower in mind, the person who is shedding light on power and the misuse of power, from the bottom up. That idea does not apply when the source is at the top in the power chain. Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney et al are the last people who should be shielded. If they believe Saddam Hussein has WMD they can proclaim it. They will have an audience (as indeed they did even without proof and without attribution).  The Society, Judith Miller, Bill Keller and the New York Times are so clueless as to valid journalism. The Society is flinging around a catch phrase (protecting your source) that is simply inapplicable to manipulative leaks from the top. Leaks from the top are not whistle-blowing, far from it. Judith Miller was nothing more than a mouthpiece for shielded power from people who should have stood up and spoken directly to the nation.  And now Keller fails to see the profound implications of leaks-based reporting, the system on which the New York Times flourishes and on which it falsely has gained the reputation as The Great Newspaper. Actually its "greatness" come from being a ready, veiled mouthpiece. It is easily used, and willingly and regularly used.  Miller was a disaster area, but she fit in with the NYT milieu. What's wrong with Miller is wrong with the paper.  And that SPJ doesn't see it suggests serious problems within the industry.
I can always tell when a particular loony left web site has attacked one of my posts, because they publicize my work email address, and I get four or five emails like this one:  "You dumb s***.  How the f*** did you get through law school?"  They are almost always crude, hateful, and virtually identical.    This time, the lefties took issue with this post, in which I disputed Howard Fineman's notion of a "conservative crack-up."  As usual, they don't try to argue with the post as a whole or dispute its principal themes.  Instead, they pick out a particular statement of fact and claim that it's wrong.  Here, I took issue with Fineman's assertion that the religious right is up in arms about the Harriet Miers nomination, and considers it an affront--a claim which struck me as downright bizarre.  (If Fineman had written that the staff of National Review considered the nomination an affront, he would have had a point.)  The sentence the goofballs took issue with was this one:  "I am not aware of a single religious leader who has in any way objected to the Miers nomination or called it an 'affront' to religious people."  The lefty site tried to contradict my statement by offering three examples of "religious leaders" who have opposed Miers:    1)  Liberty Counsel.  I, personally, had never heard of Liberty Counsel, but that organization is self-evidently not a "religious leader."  What was the moonbats' justification for including this organization on their list of religious leaders?  The group has "close ties to Jerry Falwell."  Oh, really?  Guess what:  Falwell has come out in support of the Miers nomination.  2)  Concerned Women for America.  This is a well-respected, secular organization that, once again, is obviously not a "religious leader."  Moreover, CWA has reserved judgment on the Miers nomination.  3)  Operation Rescue.  I kid you not.  Once again, this fringe anti-abortion organization may be a lot of things, but it is not a "religious leader."  Is its President, Troy Newman, even a minister?  Beats me, but he certainly isn't a religious leader, either.    So there you have it.  The loonies strike out again.    More important, really, is the left's inability to engage in rational debate at any level.  It may well be that at some point, someone who could plausibly be considered a "religious leader" could oppose Harriet Miers' nomination.  So what?  That would not in any way detract from my point, which was that Fineman's suggestion that religious conservatives, as a group, are so "affronted" by the nomination that none of the Republican Senators who count on their support will vote for the nomination, was ludicrous.
Given President Bush's not-so-conservative track record of increased government spending, lax border enforcment, and now his SCOTUS nomination of Harriet Miers, his conservative base, according to a Human Events columnist, is now starting to feel like black Democrat voters: loved only during election time, and ignored soon after.
a tourettes-inspired analysis  the fuckers at cnn and msnbc and fox news ("fair and balanced. and pussy.") were too busy giving gable-to-gable coverage to steroid-pumped prehensile slackjawed mouth breathing troglodytes to cover anything serious this week and they're too chicken shit to just come out and tell the truth: congress is wholly comprised of douchbags. this whole week's been just absolutely ridiculous. There's Haliburton bilking taxpayers out of billions, no WMDs, and a botched post-war Iraq, but the only thing the House is interested in "investigating" is steroids in baseball. what a bunch of losers. fucking assholes. there's also this terri schiavo case. when tom delay starts talking about the case and uses morality to frame his argument, the other side automatically wins. fucking Republican assholes can't help but fuck with a sunshine-state problem. Congress moved on drilling in ANWR, federal judges, and the bankruptcy bill, but those stories got little or no treatment all week long, and most Americans have no idea that they're getting fucked over by a government that can't help itself. what a piece of shit democracy we've got. i'm going back to asia. or to sleep.  *("prehensile slackjawed mouth breathing troglodytes" was coined by derek catsam, to describe Yankees fans last October... just giving credit where it's due.)
Mrs. R. reports that Patty Murray is now speaking against the Coburn Amendment, and has just issued a threat against any Senators who vote for the amendment:  we on the Appropriations Committee will take a "long, hard look" at any projects in your state.  Can anyone say, "culture of corruption"?
Now that I have spent a few hours absorbing this latest installment in the ongoing soap opera "Desperate Editors," I can safely say that not since Geraldo cracked open Al Capone's vault has there been a bigger anticlimax or a bigger sham. The question everybody's been asking is: who was the source who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Judy Miller? And the answer? She cannot recall. Given the "gee-whiz, it all just sort of, like, happened, and I don't know when or why or where or who..." tone of her mea no culpa , maybe Judy is vying for a role on MTV's "Laguna Beach." Which is just as well, because if these two articles have revealed anything at all, it's that Judy Miller is no journalist. Read my whole take HERE.   But there was more than Judy Miller to puzzle over this week: Did Karl Rove find that after four visits to the grand jury, practice makes perfect? And what, exactly, was the president talking about when he told Harriet Miers, "No more public scatology"? Check out some of the best of this week's blogs below, plus indispensable takes on Plamegate from Jane Hamsher, Mark Kleiman, and Jeralyn Merritt.
The Oct. 4 news story "Australians Win Nobel in Medicine; Two Scientists Discovered Bacterial Cause of Peptic Ulcers in 1982," about the prize awarded to Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren, was incomplete in explaining  why it took 10 years for the scientists to convince their colleagues that bacteria live in the stomach lining.
When in 1962 Edward Moore Kennedy ran for his brother's seat in the Senate, his opponent famously said that if Kennedy's name had been Edward Moore, his candidacy would have been a joke. If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her.
Despite a strong performance by Queen Latifah, Beauty Shop is in need of some style pointers.
The life story of model-turned- bounty-hunter Domino Harvey struggles to get out of this overwrought and excessive biopic.
Having lured the president out onto a far limb on Social Security, the Democrats have begun sawing. Democratic leaders immediately rejected the president's plan and stood up for all that is good and true and saintedly Rooseveltian -- without, of course, offering any alternative.
The script is mediocre and fails to give Ferrell a proper comedic showcase.
Sunni clerics and political party spokesmen may be encouraging their constituents to go to the polls tomorrow, but this has only redoubled the efforts of jihadists to murder and intimidate them, regardless of their democratic ambivalence or committed disdain for an American military presence in Iraq. The New York Times reports:  Sunni insurgents launched five attacks against the largest Sunni Arab political party on the eve of Iraq's crucial referendum Friday, bombing and burning offices and the home of one of its leaders in retaliation after the group dropped its opposition to the draft constitution. "   --MICHAEL WEISS  Continued after the jump.  Sunni Divide on Display a Day Before Iraq Vote [NYT]  In Iraqi Swing City, Hope vs. Defiance [WaPo]  Zawahiri Letter [English translation]  It's not exactly a feather in anyone's cap if national elections are successful because the wellspring of potential Al Qaeda recruits and sympathizers has been drained by Al Qaeda itself. But thuggery, almost by definition, means a power struggle, a process of self-cannibalization, which if this occurs within the ranks of jihadism, can only be to the greater good of Iraq.  Consider the recently translated letter sent by Osama's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to the leader of "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It argues for an about-face of strategy in luring Iraqis away from democracy and toward the establishment of a Sharia-governed caliphate in the Gulf: i.e., stopping killing those same Iraqis. If the letter is in fact authentic, then the advice contained within it certainly hasn't been heeded.   Zarqawi consistently maintains that his two biggest fears are a large, well-equipped Iraqi military and police force, and Iraqi self-determination. He's even floated the idea of his own "timetable" for withdrawal from the country -- to a more propitious "field of operations," like Syria -- should these two criteria be satisfied. He's declared open war against the Shiites, "collaborationist" Sunnis, and any group he considers atheistic or apostate of the "one true Islam."  This can't be pleasing to "The Base" in Pakistan, Afghanistan and wherever else Bin Laden's original lieutenantry lurk because while it's true that they adhere to same core fundamentalist tenets, they also appreciate the value of pragmatism and public relations, two things for which Zarqawi has no patience. His stubbornness in assaulting the very people he should want to win over can therefore be seen as a more hopeful sign that his forces will grow increasingly isolated, even in the so-called "Triangle of Death." For a majority of Sunnis to cast ballots tomorrow, and for the draft constitution to be approved, would be a devastating blow against Al Qaeda, not just regionally but globally as well.  Morale on this side of the battlefield in the war on terror is at an all-time low, thanks largely to the incompetence of the Bush administration. But what's seldom discussed is what morale is like on that side, thanks to an entirely different species of incompetence.   Again, it's no cause for self-congratulation that the short-sightedness and stupidity of a man like Zarqawi may yet prove to be our greatest ally.
There is indeed a good amount of tension in this French slasher, but the dubbing is bad and the end twist unbelievable.
On Monday, several homeless advocates went to the Atlanta City Council to insist that the poor have the right to panhandle. The Rev. Ed Loring &mdash; who runs the homeless-friendly Open Door Ministry on Ponce de Leon Avenue &mdash; and others demanded that the council drop plans for a new ordinance to outlaw panhandling in certain downtown areas. While they achieved at least a temporary victory, persuading the council to table the ordinance, their strategy seems peculiar. Do homeless advocates help the poor and homeless by defending their right to beg? Shouldn't they be more concerned with helping the poor find employment that prevents the need for begging? The Rev. Loring and his compatriots, including the Rev. Richard Cobble, a vice president of Concerned Black Clergy, are behind the curve, fighting the previous battle. Because they have misread the future, they have missed the chance to home in on the issues that should concern them &mdash; including the disappearance of low-cost housing in the city.
Georgians have spent the last few months nervously watching gasoline prices. But as winter nears, many of us will soon face an even bigger potential economic wallop: rising home heating prices. The numbers are sobering. The Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority predicts that homeowners will see home heating bills rise 60 percent to 65 percent. And that's compared to last year's already-high prices. A colder-than-predicted winter or a slower-than-expected recovery from this year's hurricane season could make even these predictions seem rosy. Rising energy prices threaten to leave many families struggling to make ends meet. Demands for heating assistance (coupled with higher costs to heat and light government buildings) will strain state budgets. And the entire economy could be hurt if consumers find themselves with less disposable income to spend.
Choppy logic and uneven performances are overshadowed by not-so-special effects that makes the suspension of disbelief a nearly impossible task.
In our lifetime has there been a more politically poisonous Supreme Court decision than Roe v. Wade ? Set aside for a moment your thoughts on the substance of the ruling. (I happen to be a supporter of legalized abortion.) I'm talking about the continuing damage to the republic: disenfranchising, instantly and without recourse, an enormous part of the American population; preventing, as even Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, proper political settlement of the issue by the people and their representatives; making us the only nation in the West to have legalized abortion by judicial fiat rather than by the popular will expressed democratically.
THANK GOD Eileen McNamara isn't afraid to say that Mayor Menino has been running from his record in office ('' The mayor won't answer ," City &amp; Region, Oct. 16). Boston has community leaders and residents who have been intimidated by a public servant who refuses to be held accountable. Would you let your contractor not answer questions with what ...
New York Post - How wacky is this: The state Demo cratic Party &#x2014; which represents 67 percent of registered city voters &#x2014; cannot legally donate more than &#36;4,950 to Freddy Ferrer's mayoral run.
I'm debating two oil industry reps on the NPR interview show  Hammer. DeLay was able to squeeze a partial victory for the oil industry through the House, on a 212-210 vote that came only after 45 minutes of desperate arm-twisting of Republican moderates like Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD). Not a single Democrat voted for the bill, even though it had been successively defanged by removing broadly unacceptable provisions to open the outer continental shelf in California, Florida, and the East coast to the oil industry and to allow outmoded and dirty refineries to continue polluting indefinitely.   The bill as passed now heads for the Senate, where the narrow margin in the House strongly suggests it will wither. In addition to an insulting $2,000,000 appropriation to encourage energy conservation through carpooling, its main feature is that it gives the federal government permission to select three former military facilities around the country and plop new oil refineries down on them -- without state or local consent. This, allegedly, will solve the shortage of refinery capacity currently plaguing the country. Among the locations under consideration: California's Monterey Bay. (For  a full list of the places the President might decide to jam a refinery down a local community's throat, )  The debate on  opens with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi repeating her ringing denunciation of the heavy-handed way the House leadership rammed the bill through. Leon Panetta, who represented Monterey in Congress before becoming President Clinton's Chief of Staff, follows with a discussion of how absurd the idea of putting a refinery in Monterey Bay would be. Then the two petroleum voices, Anita Mangels for the Western States Petroleum Association, and William S. Cooper, an oil-industry attorney at Hunton & Williams in DC, get to come after me. They are, to put it mildly, wildly contradictory for the whole half hour. Either this bill really does nothing, or it will solve our refinery crisis. Either we have a refinery crisis because of outrageous state and local permit requirements, or we can solve it without infringing on state and local autonomy. Either refineries are good neighbors, or the reason why so many were shut down is because they couldn't afford to operate cleanly. Either the idea of drilling for oil off the California coast is a canard and a distraction because no one is seriously considering it (Mangels), or it is a very good idea and a key to our energy future (Cooper).   Cooper claims that renewable energy won't replace petroleum because it can't compete. I suggest getting rid of all the subsidies to all forms of energy -- fossils, nukes, and renewables -- to level the playing field. Cooper announces that since the oil industry pays taxes, he doesn't consider any of the payments it gets from the federal government to be subsidies. Well, I pay taxes, too, but no one's offered me a several billion dollar subsidy.   The reality is that this bill makes no sense, and by itself would probably do nothing. But it is, as Mangels says, "the first step." "The first step to what?" is the question.   The answer is clear: Oil industry members of Congress and their allies in the Administration believe that America needs new petroleum sacrifice zones. It's not enough that the oil industry has devastated the Louisiana and Texas coasts by destroying the wetlands that should have protected New Orleans, by fouling the turtle nesting areas of Padre Island National Seashore, and by killing and maiming thousands of residents of Cancer Alley along the Mississippi River. Now, California, Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, and New England must also be turned over to the oil industry. First we must throw them billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars to ensure their engorged profits. Then we will allow them to build new refineries without regard for their neighbors or for state and local control. Then we will bribe state governors to turn their coastlines into oil fields to feed these new refineries. And then we will eliminate public health standards to make these refineries even more profitable. This is not even a conspiracy -- it's not secretive enough.  But the tactic is, well, not exactly straightforward and upright. Two weeks ago Richard Pombo,  by weakening Clean Air Act regulations governing old, dirty facilities -- exactly the change with regard to refineries that the Republican leadership in the House had to drop to squeeze their energy bill through by two votes last week.  When it comes to members of Congress, we can't be distracted by what they say when they come home -- we need to watch what they do in Washington, DC.   And what do the American people think? Well, according to this week's  three quarters of them think that environmental regulations should either be strengthened or kept at their present level. So perhaps it is not surprising that Congressional approval ratings continue to decline, with the latest NBC poll finding only 32 percent of the public approving of the leadership.   Eventually,
How dare you people write'Team photo (or dartboard).' All that Red Sox team did in the last three years for Boston: a World Series and two playoffs series. I will never buy a copy of your paper again...
MAURA HENNIGAN misses the point in the controversy related to her use (or maybe misuse) of the drawings from ''Make Way for Ducklings" (' 'Hennigan ad ruffles scupltor's feathers ," City &amp; Region, Oct. 18).
APOCALYPSE SOON: As so often, Charles Krauthammer cuts through to a central question of our time. His column today is a chilling one, and it's about the potential for both a natural or a deliberate outbreak of a deadly flu virus. Money quote:  [R]esurrection of the [1918 flu] virus and publication of its structure open the gates of hell. Anybody, bad guys included, can now create it. Biological knowledge is far easier to acquire for Osama bin Laden and friends than nuclear knowledge. And if you can't make this stuff yourself, you can simply order up DNA sequences from commercial laboratories around the world that will make it and ship it to you on demand. Taubenberger himself admits that "the technology is available." "I fear we are close to the moment when our intellectual capabilities as human beings overtake our moral capacity for self-restraint. We are becoming too smart for our own good. We know too much, and have too much potential for massive destruction for major shit not to hit the fan relatively soon. I'm not even talking about unintended consequences of intellectual or scientific advances. I'm talking about deliberate use of destructive technologies to end our civilization as we have known it. Have we advanced morally as a species at the same pace that we have advanced technologically? The question answers itself. In the recent past, we feared nuclear immolation at the hands of governments, but the logic of mutually assured destruction kept the peace. Now, the very technology that empowers a blogger like me can also empower any number of murderous lunatics to kill on a massive scale. What are the grounds for hoping that the worst won't happen in our lifetimes? What are the odds? If someone out there can provide an argument to cheer me up, I'd be grateful.
It is time that I confess to an illicit love. I am now, and have been almost all my life, an admirer of William F. Buckley Jr.
I love the Adbusters cover.  Let's be honest, though.  Even if Bush is primarily a PR creation, the fact is, he's largely been a popular brand.  If there are cracks in the facade right now, it's not like they haven't been revealed before.  (Consider, for example, the stunningly amateur performance Bush gave without his precious script in the first Kerry debate, and the ensuing fun we all had over  -- surely a transmitter! -- beneath his jacket.)  The main problem in effecting a Bush demise is that we, the opposition, are not having a whole lot to do with it.  (Sure, Katrina and Rita have caused political damage, but these two were not White House interns blowing through Bush's private office, or a pair of Democratic Senators that might have created a storm when it was time to vote against the war.)   or even coalescing personalities on the Democratic side to engage the vast numbers of people at or near the center (and don't believe they aren't out there) ready to watch something better than the next totally-rewritten "all new season" of the Bush Show.  Sure, it's great to take hope (and, satisfaction) when thing are going so badly for our "so-called" President.  But, how strong are the chances of finally shattering the facade when Bush is primarily left to spin or fall on his own?  For more of the visual, visit .
Instead of creating the restaurant industry version of IOffice SpaceI, they go for easy jokes meant more to offend than garner laughs.  Well at least in that they succeeded. Unless youre a hardcore pedophile, they will definitely offend.
In every time, and in every place, there are demagogues who ride to power by whipping up the fears and resentments of an anxious populace. Our current Joseph McCarthys are the contentious cranks and nativists who want to drive every illegal immigrant &mdash; especially Mexicans, Hondurans and Guatemalans &mdash; out of the country. U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) would overturn a century of constitutional consensus granting citizenship to all who are born in the United States, regardless of their parents' immigration status. He and his ilk have already pushed through a provision that makes it virtually impossible for states to issue driver's licenses to undocumented workers. And here in Georgia, Republican legislators have proposed a bill that would prohibit illegal immigrants from attending state colleges and universities. Never mind that those who are bright and resourceful enough to complete college would make excellent candidates for citizenship. A ban on college is not really intended to curb illegal immigration, any more than a prohibition against driver's licenses. Those proposals are intended, instead, to whip up the emotions of those Americans frustrated by the demands of an unacculturated underclass and resentful about the pace of demographic change.
President Bush has survived summers of discontent before. But this season's doldrums -- reflected in dismal poll numbers and a surprisingly weak Republican showing in a special Ohio congressional election -- will be harder to surmount. They are the culmination of doubts about Bush that have germinated below the surface of public opinion for much of his presidency.
WHEN WILL Logan learn? If it's concerned about losing customers to smaller regional airports, it needs to look no further than the horrible treatment its visitors get.
Reports that Senate Democrats are deeply divided over how to deal with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John Roberts both oversimplify what's happening and underestimate the conundrums the party faces.
The Karl Rove Confidence-o-Meter has taken a hit. Back in 2003, White House spokesperson Scott McClellan huffed, in response to Rove being the source of the CIA leak: "there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."  Then last July, Scott beamed that "Every person who works here at the White House, including Karl Rove, has the confidence of the President." Today, asked about the President's confidence in his senior adviser, Scott McClellan deadpanned, "he's continuing to do his duties."   Press Briefing [WhiteHouse.gov]
IInto The BlueI is the movie version of a Sports Illustrated calendar. There is no need to waste time on a good story when you have models strutting their stuff in excess. The dialogue by Matt Johnson, who also wrote ITorqueI, is so awful that you have to wonder how many writing classes he failed before hitting it big. When Bryce first meets Sam, he exclaims, Hey, can I get a what-what and a side of fries?
Speaking Bush    "Bush" is my shorthand term for the language that our president uses. It takes some translating and decoding into plain English. We got another load of Bush tonight when the president gave what one news source called "one of his rare prime time news conferences". They are rare for a very good reason, and that is to save all of us the torture of listening to a full hour of Bush. My head swims.   A nice make-up job, isn't it?   Bush spent the time selling two of his projects: the energy bill and the idea that Social Security needs to be all changed around. On the energy bill he forgot to mention that most of it consists of big paybacks to his faithful donors in the energy industry. On the proposal to change Social Security he decided to appropriate a Democratic proposal which would let the retirement incomes of the poorest rise faster than those of the other earners:       Bush said a system in which benefits for low-income workers "grow faster than for people who are better off would solve much of the solvency problem" facing the government retirement program.      "I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get," he said. But a White House fact sheet suggested changes that include lower benefits than currently planned for all but lower-income future retirees.    Everything that was wrong with these projects is still wrong after Bush's news conference. For example, he exaggerated the problems in the Social Security system by giving statements like this one:       And to compound the problem, there are fewer people paying into the system. In 1950, there were 16 workers for every beneficiary; today there are 3.3 workers for every beneficiary. Soon there will be two workers for every beneficiary.    Indeed, but worker productivity has risen so much that the real burdens on workers don't correspond to the numbers given here.  He also refused to consider making payroll taxes payable on incomes above the current annual 90,000 dollar limit; the rich must be protected. But not the middle classes: the progressive indexation proposal would give them lower rates of return than the ones from the current system.  Then he went on to say this:       In a reformed Social System, voluntary personal retirement accounts would offer workers a number of investment options that are simple and easy to understand. I know some Americans have reservations about investing in the stock market, so I propose that one investment option consist entirely of treasury bonds, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.    Remember that only a few weeks ago he argued these bonds to be worthless pieces of paper, held in a filing cabinet somewhere in Virginia? Which is it?  Most of the other things the president said in Bush were either already known or waffle-waffle. Though it is interesting that he seemed to make faces at the religious right:       Bush disagreed with the contention of the conservative Family Research Council that his judicial appointments were being held up in the Senate because of their religious faith. "I think people are opposing my nominees because they don't like the judicial philosophy of the people I've nominated," he said.    This was either a lapse on his parts or an indication that he has no need to pander to them now that he won't need their votes.
Reviewed by Dennis Prince  Quote: "Sadly, the fact that these are shortened episodes makes it difficult to recommend a purchase here. Rent these discs, for certain, but purchase only if your life depends on it."
The White House has been pushing two irreconcilable ideas at the same time about the Iraq War. 1. War was a last resort. 2. We decided to go on the offense. How is a war started for the express purpose of going "on the offense" a war of last resort?  Here's a quote from White House Press Secretary, Scott McClellan from just a couple of days ago:   '"[W]hen you're engaged in a war, it's not always pleasant, and it's certainly a last resort. But when you engage in a war, you take the fight to the enemy, you go on the offense. And that's exactly what we're doing."  How does this make any sense? Every time I see a quote like this, I get embarrassed for the Democrats. How did they lose to these guys? How are they not able to pick apart this terrible logic, or lack of logic?  If Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks against us on September 11th -- as the 9/11 Commission concluded and the White House admitted -- then how is starting an offensive war against them, a war of last resort?   They never say that Afghanistan was a preemptive strike or a first strike because Afghanistan was sheltering al-Qaeda, who did attack us. The very definition of preemptive indicates the other side has not struck yet. Iraq had not attacked us by the administration?s own definition. So, there were plenty of other choices rather than launching an invasion of a country that did not attack us.  Furthermore, we seem to have forgotten that preemptive means to preempt. Does anyone in their right mind believe Iraq was about to launch an attack on us? In order to launch an attack, you need something to launch. They didn't have nuclear weapons, they didn't have the submarines and drone planes the White House comically claimed to be worried about -- they didn't even have a single weapon of mass destruction.   You have to be nuts or completely disingenuous to believe that Iraq was about to launch an invasion of the United States. If you agree that Iraq was not about to attack, then the Iraq War cannot be called a preemptive war. It certainly cannot be called a war of last resort. The one thing they do have right is that it can be called an offensive war. That also has another name -- a war of aggression.  Is that what we do these days? I remember other countries in history going "on the offense." I remember other nations starting wars of aggression. I don't want to be one of those countries. Do you?
When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast more than a month ago, it exposed egregious planning failures within the federal agency that's specifically charged with responding to natural disasters. Despite some progress since then, there are still troubling signs that relief efforts intended to provide the most basic human needs are being mismanaged at great cost to storm victims and to American taxpayers. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is providing housing for more than 500,000 Louisiana and Mississippi residents who were displaced by the hurricane. Evacuees, many of them destitute, are being temporarily housed in a hodgepodge of shelters, hotel rooms, private homes, apartments, trailers and luxury cruise ships. But FEMA's post-Katrina housing program has been hindered by an all-too-familiar lack of coordination, and in some cases, a lack of common sense. As a result, the costs of the program are soaring, and families that have been cruelly uprooted by the storm may once again find themselves without a place to live.
Because Two for the Money is a drama set in the world of sports-betting advisors, it's ironic and rather unfortunate that  Universal Studios has taken its own gamble on the marketing campaign for this film. One would think a picture teaming up all-time...
THE FRONT PAGE photo of Tony Graffanino, and headline ''Curses, again,"(Oct. 8) were an altogether unfitting epitaph to the 2005 Red Sox season. To trot out the ''cursed" theme, and plant the goat horns on Graffanino, smacks of sensationalism and poor journalism.
DVD Reviews: One of the most beloved shows of the past 30 years, but you'd never know it from this features-barren boxed set of the show's first season. Devoid of original content,  collection is something of an insult to the series that saved a network, put indie Carsey-Werner on the map and proved that Americans could be color-blind when it came to great comedy.
Screw Kansas, What's the Matter With Florida!  On behalf of the rest of America, I have to ask: What is the matter with Florida! From electing W. (though not really) to your pyscho sex offender killers to your four hurricanes, to Andrew Ackerman, to Elian Gonzalez, to your comatose dead people, that state is sooo screwed up.  You guys just loveee being the center of American attention don't ya. Following the 2000 election, I was all for just sawing that sucker off the tip of Georgia and letting it float away.
Brigid Schulte's Oct. 12 front-page article, "Single Glass of Wine Immerses D.C. Driver in Legal Battle," was dismaying. It is unreasonable to have such a low alcohol level allowed, especially when so much research supports the 0.5 percent standard. It is not acceptable that the police would have such discretion in applying the test. Zero tolerance goes beyond the bounds of reason and invites abuses.
Regarding the Register&#146;s Oct. 9 and 10 articles on what others across the nation don&#146;t know about Iowa:  Most of the nation probably doesn&#146;t know that in a state that boasts about education, voter turnout in school board elections often is under 10 percent.  Most of the nation probably doesn&#146;t know that in a state that ballyhoos itself as the best place to pick presidential candidates, voter turnout in local elections often is under 10 percent.  Most of the nation probably doesn&#146;t know about the awful condition of our public lakes and waterways.  We need to clean up our acts more than we need to inform others about the virtues of Iowa.  -Herb Strentz, Urbandale.
Georgia Anne Geyer - WASHINGTON -- We all know of the bitter tragedy of the pets that accompanied the tragedy of the humans in the New Orleans and Gulf Coast hurricanes. Probably as many as 50,000 domestic animals were left behind by federal and local governments, making officials look in consequence just about as heartless as they were hapless.
"The corruption in Washington has gotten so bad that even Republicans can't stomach Republicans any longer." - Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee
It's CYA vs. CIA in Cheneyville today. The VP sent out a "secured undisclosed source" to regurgitate the latest spin to Bloomberg News, which is that while Cheney did tell Scooter about Valerie Plame he committed no indictable crime. Says a "Senior Republican with ties to Cheney":  The disclosure doesn't indicate that the vice president did anything wrong ...The person declined to make a similar statement about Libby ... (and) sought to portray Cheney as uninvolved in any violation of a 1982 law forbidding the revelation of a covert intelligence agent's identity. The official noted that both Cheney and Libby had the security clearances necessary to discuss Plame's identity. "  There's his defense in a nutshell. Sure, Cheney lied like a sonofabitch on Meet the Press, but telling lies on Russert's show isn't a crime. If it were, DC would become a ghost town. (Hmmm...)  So Cheney's new posture can be summed up as "I Am Not a Crook: A Liar, Yes. But Not a Crook."  A Night Light
THOMAS M. BOYD'S laughable description of the judicial nomination process dating back to Robert Bork ('' Unfair to conservatives ," op ed, Oct. 19) merits a response. It was not the Bork nomination that began the downward spiral of ''incivility" in the process. Rather, it was the systematic screening for ''ideological purity" in judicial nominees begun by the Reagan administration ...
Turning America blue   What a bizzare nation we live in. Today, while reading the paper, on the front page sat two big headline stories. On the one hand was a story about Bill Frist, leader of the American Taliban, err, I mean the Republican Senate, holding a "Stop Filibustering People of Faith" show in a church no less! On the other side, was a story about how the American prison population has exploded to 2.1 million souls. Gas prices are high and don't seem to be coming down; our prisons are overflowing while our pales are running dry and erstwhile, our leaders are concerned about whether two judges will get to decide law? Meanwhile their House leader is involved in scandal after scandal and all these "leaders" can do is circle the wagaons and defend each other. Garemko is right; Please defend these people!  I had said that things looked bleak for Democrats at least Senate wise. But it seems that (at this moment at least), fate has turned things around and the Republicans are on the verge of snapping defeat from the jaws of victory. Polls shows that Jim Talent, the Republican Senator of the red state of Missouri now looks like he's in trouble. Meanwhile Santorum's numbers have tanked while he has tried to stupidly defend Bush's SSA proposal in the blue state of Pennlysvania. I'm sensing a turn in America. Also, Conrad Burn's 47% negative rating leaves pause for thought.  Its ironic that if Democrats recapture the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008, it will be because America gave the Republicans everything they wanted for the last 6 years. Had Kerry won, he would've faced a divided Congress and a divided America where he'd get most of the blame for any and all problems. In today's America, even in red areas of America, there is no one left to blame BUT Republicans, thus all the fault of the nation lies with them (the joys of being in the minority). First Bush scapegoated the Clinton administration, then "terrorist supporting Democrats," and now judges. There is no one left to blame for America's failures, but there is no one left.  The conservative movement is doing more to turn America blue than any Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, or MoveOn 527. They are doing what billions of negative ads, progressive candidates, and Progressive thoughts could never do. They are defeating their cause by showing to all America and the world, what a "conservative" government with no checks really means. Keep on turnin' America blue.
Tony Bliar Blair    I never understood the political calculus that must have been taking place inside Blair's head when he chose to be Bush's poodle. I used to live in the U.K. but that was when Labour was still Labour and the conservatives were old-fashioned conservatives. Now that Blair is teetering on the rightmost edge of the political spectrum the Conservative Party has no identity. What could they say or do that would distinguish them from Blairism? Be pals with the American wingnuts? Go the extreme cleric route? I doubt that would go down well in Britain, and in any case Blair has marked Christianity for his own self, too.  Tony Blair took his country to a war that its citizens did not want, and it seems that he knew very well how shaky the grounds were:       ony Blair was told by the government's most senior law officer in a confidential minute less than two weeks before the war that British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq could be declared illegal.      Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, spelt out to Mr Blair the dangers of Britain going to war without a second resolution. It is understood that he then went on to warn that British soldiers could be hauled before the International Criminal Court.      He warned that while he could be able to argue a "reasonable case" in favour of military action, he was far from confident a court would agree. Indeed, he added, a court "might well conclude" that war would be found unlawful without a further UN resolution.      In a legal opinion which Mr Blair has repeatedly sought to conceal, the attorney warned the prime minister that Britain might be able argue it could go to war on the basis of past UN resolutions, but only if there were "strong factual grounds" that Iraq was still in breach of its disarmament obligations.    Does Blair stay up at night wondering if he got his money's worth? Well, we all will know the answer after the oncoming elections.
Looks like he was attempting to do some house cleaning on his Senate campaign fund to prepare for the big presidential run, which we all knew was going to be so hot. So when do we get to see his mug shot online as well? Sounds like we're going to have an entire collector's edition coming up soon with all of the gang.  Boy, they were all so happy just a few months ago...
Ann Coulter - A Supreme Court nomination may not have been the ideal time for Laura Bush to start acting like "Buy One, Get One Free" Hillary Clinton. At least President Clinton only allowed his wife to choose the attorney general. (Remember the good old days when first ladies only got to pick the poet laureate and the White House china pattern?)
Book Reviews: Jared Brown's "Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life," reads like an obituary -- in no small part because of Pakula's death in a freak car accident in 1998. But there is an unfortunate, perhaps unavoidable side effect: Every aspect of the esteemed, often undervalued director's life carries a kind of weight that feels unnecessary at best and inappropriate at worst.
Despite it's stylized and impressive sets, this horror-monster movie mish-mash suffers from  endless cliches and wildly implausible plotlines.
"Class, Color May Guide Repopulation of New Orleans" reads the headline of a front-page Washington Post article.     The Post presents evidence of the revival of two of the worst hit neighborhoods in New Orleans&#151;Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward.  The destruction was similar.  The demographics were not.     New Orleans' newspaper, the Times-Picayune, deemed Lakeview, decimated, using the headline "Homes Are Sludge Pits With Little to Salvage."  The similar destruction of the Lower Ninth Ward has been broadcast across America.  These neighborhoods both saw Katrina's horrific wrath.  However, the demographics of Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward are markedly different.  Lakeview is 94 percent white; the Lower Ninth Ward is 98 percent black.   49 percent of Lakeview's residents have a college degree; only 6 percent of the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward have a college degree.  In Lakeview, 66 percent of children go to private school and in the Lower Ninth Ward, more than 33 percent of residents live in poverty.  Lakeview is now seeing signs of revival. The water is on and the smell of bleach, which kills mold, is strong.  The thwack of crowbars and the whine of chain saws fill the air. Insurance adjusters have begun making rounds and the residents are home.    The Lower Ninth Ward still sits mostly empty as residents must leave by dusk and planners have raised the possibility of turning it into a flood-plain park.  This evidence logically leads to the Post's headline, "Class, Color May Guide Repopulation of New Orleans" and the fear that New Orleans will be "whiter, richer and more homogeneous." These are facts that I intuitively know&#151;one that corresponds to the racial tensions and segregation present in pre-Katrina New Orleans and one that I've seen exaggerated by the anti-poor people policies of the current Republican administration.  However, the documentation of this scenario in 2005 as an almost fait accompli by one of America's largest and most national newspapers is, in a word, sad.
David Horowitz is a vapid fool  Horowitz's new site, Discover the Network, can only reaffirm that he's an irresponsible intellectual. His routine for fairness in the academy comes with its own cliches to make it easily digestable -- "You can't get a good education if you're only getting half the story" -- but at some point anyone intelligent who listens to him has to pause and think, "Gee, is there anything of substance to his arguments?" (Not really.) He drolls on about a lack of intellectual diversity in the academy. But his arguments are nonesensical. There're so many professors on each university campus pursuing their own research, and each professor has his own unique intellectual background, his own data set of texts, be they historical, theoligical, anthropological, sociological, political... How can any serious intellectual charge that professors are not intellectually diverse if they each pursue different specialities and subspecialities and sub-sub specialities? As Adam Kotsko has pointed out on his blog, Horowitz and those who support his work are really just trying to exert a conservative hegemon on the last place in American society that they do not control.  Anyway... the purpose of Horowitz's new site might be separate from his tirades for intellectual diversity, but I find anything he says compromised by his bankrupt campaign for diversity and hard to swallow. I'm reminded by an editorial we ran in the student paper last year when he came to speak at Emory: Horowitz on Hold. It's worth reading.  Separately, let me add that I'm in agreement with Chris' comment below, that the display of the Ten Commandents is hardly worthy of litigating. Or it seems trivial to me, anyway. Of course, as my old boss, David Corn, pointed out on his blog yesterday, there're lots of people for whom this symbolic issue is not trivial, judging by the hundreds of protesters outside the Supreme Court yesterday.
Venezuela's minister of communication and information, Andres Izarra, recently accused The Post and several other American media of being part of a campaign to defame Venezuela directed by the Bush administration and funded by the State Department. Apparently I drew Izarra's attention by writing several columns and editorials lamenting President Hugo Chavez's assault on press freedom and the independent  judiciary and his support for anti-democratic movements elsewhere in Latin America.
Thurman does her best to pick up the slack left by IPrimeI disinterested script, but shes left running in place.  Worst is the pivotal miscasting of the movies lead.  Brian Greenberg is not a talent, hes a big waste of space.  So is the movie by the way, and its not worth sticking with it as it drags on and on, forgetting to laugh and struggling to find an inoffensive way to finish.  Its a go nowhere do nothing movie.  Go somewhere, do something better than spending time with IPrimeI.
Given the films moralistic overtones its not surprising to find the likes of Sean Penn playing the lead.  Thankfully there are no weepy, half-hour long dramatic monologues for Penn to practice his Oscar mugging.  Nevertheless, he still gets to revel in the kind of idealistic diatribes that no one is interested in enduring from him in the real world.
C'mon, it's so 1970's. What the hell does "US Force Kill 20 Insurgents" mean anyway? It has nothing to do with success or failure in Iraq as the military had previously said so why even report that rubbish now?
After I wrote recently about the lack of evidence connecting childhood vaccines preserved with thimerosal to autism, here and here, I received a slew of nasty letters from angry parents. Several cited "studies" showing that while the autism rate is 1 in 166 among the general public, there is no autism among the Amish who refuse vaccinations. Actually not all Amish do refuse vaccinations and there were no such studies. That assertion came from a single UPI story in which reporter Dan Olmsted pretended to have done his own survey. Muy scientifico. In the event, an Amish community has now suffered from the first U.S. polio outbreak in five years. That's what you get from not vaccinating your kids.
Jim Hoagland ["Legacies of a Leak Case," op-ed, Oct. 20] missed the point of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation when he said that it sends a message to government officials about the risk of divulging information about national security to journalists.
An article in yesterday's  at The Corner) suggests that the Miers' nomination, and the subsequent conservative angst, are the result of a failed attempt to stare down Democratic filibusterers on lower-court appointments.  " Last spring, the move to change Senate rules was opposed by Republican mavericks, including John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Herding those cats back into line would require an unusual combination of White House arm-twisting and grass-roots lobbying -- something all four resisted last spring. And in changing Senate rules to push through a particular nominee, the White House couldn't necessarily count on other independent-minded GOP senators such as George Voinovich of Ohio and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. There aren't enough carrots and sticks in White House to win over all those senators in the best of times, and these haven't been the best of times for Bush.  The numbers just don't add up. Limbaugh and his listeners may be armed for battle, but their fight was effectively over last spring, when the GOP failed to change the filibuster rules.  Now, social conservatives must wait to see if Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Miers prove to be right-wingers; it could be a long, painful wait.  " This is a point that I'm not sure has been sufficiently discussed within the brouhaha over whether Miers is a conservative, moderate, qualified, unqualified, token female, pro-life, evangelical, originalist Bush crony.  Is it a valid argument that the administration backed down from a more "extreme" nominee because his Republican allies in the Senate would have failed to win a filibuster fight?  If that possibility exists, then, should the President have still offered up a firebrand appointment, or must we acknowledge that he played the best hand with the cards on the table?  I suppose I'm still prone to the idea that President Bush should have selected the most qualified and established candidate, regardless of his or her tendency toward controversy.  But it seems that the Globe makes a valid point to suggest that the GOP may have lost more than it gained in not taking a more valiant stand against the minority party's blocking of earlier nominations.
George W. Bush staged -- in other words "faked" --  a teleconference with the troops today.  Those of us who recognize the true means of this propagandist and liar aren't surprised in the least.  :  "WASHINGTON - It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions     President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in     Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.    "This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you." "  "Conversation?"  That's rich.  Now let me ask you Bush apologists a very simple question...  If you were given an assignment at your job, and you were caught staging or faking the results, you'd probably be fired, right?  If so, why does the man who holds the most important job in America get your apologies when you would never be given such latitude in your work.  You can read the whole bullshit discussion .  And by "bullshit," I mean "staged."
Critics are leaving The Wedding Date at the alter, calling it shopworn, bland, and lightweight.
What Democrats Can Learn From Sonia Gandhi   These are dark times for our nation and its people. Poll after poll has shown that the Iraqi War, the balloning budget, the high gas prices, hurricane Katrina, and now Hurricane Rita have all worn us down. These are indeed the "conservative" 1960's, but there seems to be no end in sight to America's perpetual slide. The Election in 2006 should be a "shoo-in" for the Democrats, but alas, leave it to our party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In light of all this national sorrow, our party continues to be timid on health care, Iraq, Katrina, and gas prices. The party seems to be speaking with many voices and those voices seem to whine more than add concrete plans and advice. This is how Democrats can learn from Sonia Gandhi. When Sonia Gandhi took over the Indian National Congress Party in 1999(this is the "liberal" party of India), it was in disarray. The party, after decades of wins, had lost its way and lost its connection with the poor and those who naturally sympathize with their cause. Sonia Gandhi, undaunted, by the taunts of her wealthy birth and upbringing, struggled to connect her party with the poor and rural voters in India. She spent 5 years travelling around the countryside, meeting with citizens, asking them their concernss, and establishing herself as the "voice" of the Indian National Congress. She was their real leader and was focused on her theme: That India's "new" economy had left behind the truly poor and that it was all of our social obligations to lift EVERYONE up. On election day 2004, her and the Congress Party stunned the world through their victory. Though she never became Prime Minister, she accomplished her mission of rebuilding the party, reconnecting them with their natural base, and establishing one, unifying message to use as a launching pad for the elections. The Democratic Party can learn from all of these ideas as 2005 gives way to 2006. Its important for Democrats to unite behind one, legitimate, respectable voice. I'd suggest John Edwards (tho the only way the Democrats would unite behind him is if he vowed not to run for the Presidency). While this SHOULD be Howard Dean's role, frankly he's too radioactive to connect with rural voters and just isn't personable enough to sell this important and serious message. Edwards should not only host a 2006 Midyear election convention focusing on the poor and working class, but also work with local and state officials along with Howard Dean to establish a unifying message. We are who we are. Democrats are the party of the poor, the underdogs, and those with no hope. For those who say, "well didn't Al Gore try this", I reiterate that Gore really didn't start winning until after his pseudo-populist convention speech. Gore didn't start winning until he seemed like he was fighting for more than himself. Clinton, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, all were populist in speeches (though not necessarily in policy). Its time for Edwards or someone to pick up that mantle..and establish some plan "America's Promise"..whereby we reclaim America not only in the House and Senate, but retake the hearts of the heartland. Democrats need to unite behind one voice, one man, and one message that resonates with all Americans and is based on our traditions as Americans! Uniting behind one man, one voice, and one message is how the Republicans came to power in 1994 (remember Gingrich?) Democrats can and should do the same.
For those blacks in poverty or incarcerated, what's Mr. Hayes' message to them? Is it to wait for CEOs to fork over some reparations change and apologize for slavery? If that's the message, then those blacks who are poor are going to remain so, and those who are lawless will continue to experience high incarceration rates...
I have to express my strong objections to the Register&#146;s Oct. 9 editorial, "Spare Us More Embarrassment: Replace King." First, whose embarrassment are you talking about? Surely not that of the majority of the citizens of Iowa and, in particular, those of the 5th District.  If the Register would take the time to determine the facts it would find that a vast majority of the citizens of this state and this country do not subscribe to the politically correct mind-set of the mainstream media and the far-left liberals.  The truth is that there were a vast number of card-carrying communists/socialists exercising their influence to the detriment of the United States up to and including in the 1950s.  Perhaps the most ridiculous justification for your editorial&#146;s thesis was Congressman Steve King&#146;s objection to the naming of a U.S. post office for a largely unknown left-wing activist. Was the fact that she is a 94-year-old woman and suffering from Alzheimer&#146;s disease the justification for your outrage? Surely you would not advocate that every left-leaning person who has served on a city council should have something in the public domain named after them.  -Phil Van Ekeren, Monroe.
IDominoI is exactly as advertised, and considering the annoying nature of its trailers thats not a good thing.  I am a bounty hunter declares Keira Knightley for the first of a dozen times at the movies opening.  Keira, as Domino Harvey, narrates throughout the film, her voice inexplicably filtered to make it sound like shes reporting the weather over a bad cell phone connection.
WHAT REPUBLICANISM NOW MEANS: An interesting digest of what the GOP now represents:  Number of Pork Projects in Federal Spending Bills       2005 - 13,997     2004 - 10,656     2003 - 9,362     2002 - 8,341     2001 - 6,333     2000 - 4,326     1999 - 2,838     1998 - 2100     1997 - 1,596     1996 - 958     1995 - 1439 "Notice the doubling under Bush and his big-spending cronies and allies. You think these people will respond to "PorkBusters" campaigns? Puh-lease. They'll respond only when they are thrown out of office.
I woke up this morning actually looking forward to Meet the Press. Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe, but it was also the pleasant thought of the roundtable segment, which, this week, as well as the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes and the New Yorker's George Packer, included Frank Rich, whose columns have been relentlessly and powerfully linking Plamegate to the war in Iraq.  And of course I was looking forward to Tim once again not telling his viewers about his own involvement in Plamegate or even respecting his viewers enough to tell them that he won't tell them about his own involvement in Plamegate.  In the first segment, with Senators George Allen, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Chuck Schumer, we basically had each guest rattling off their prepared talking points, with little engagement of the other guests, the host, or the viewer. The only thing of note is the news that Senator Hutchison doesn't think lying under oath -- or what she called "some perjury technicality" -- is a big deal (sometimes it is, but not in this instance, and should only be prosecuted every now and again).  And then came the roundtable segment. With Bill Keller now practically publishing a blog of every-other-day mea culpas about what Judy Miller did to the New York Times, and with Public Editor Byron Calame slapping down the paper, surely, I thought, Tim would be able to get something of note out of the Times' star columnist, Frank Rich. And for those who don't subscribe to TimesSelect, this would be their only chance to hear Rich on the subject.  But, as they say in the sports world, Tim just didn't bring it today. In the roundtable segment, Tim continued his "okay, you talk for a minute, now the other guy talks for a minute" line of questioning.  It got so flat and boring that I actually found myself drifting back to Frank Rich's column in the Sunday paper, which was much better than what Tim got out of him on the show.  In "Karl and Scooter's Excellent Adventure," Rich takes us back to 2002 and the hatching of the Iraq war and  shows us how Libby, the Washington policy intellectual, and Rove, the Texas political operative, both decided for different reasons that they needed the war in Iraq and they had to sell it to the American people:  "For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. ... Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney were in the boiler room of the disinformation factory. The vice president's repetitive hyping of Saddam's nuclear ambitions in the summer and fall of 2002 as well as his persistence in advertising bogus Saddam-Qaeda ties were fed by the rogue intelligence operation set up in his own office." "  And as Rich concludes in his column, Plamegate "would seem a misdemeanor next to the fables that they and their bosses fed the nation and the world as the whys for invading Iraq."  That's it. You can't understand a crime without understanding the motive, and covering up the lies about Iraq is the Plamegate motive.  You wouldn't have gotten any of that from watching the show. But you would have seen two clips -- one of Bush saying in September 2003 that if someone in his administration "violated the law, the person will be taken care of," and one of Scott McClellan saying that Rove and Libby "were not involved" in the Plame leak -- twice. Once in the first segment, and once in the second.  What made watching these clips, twice, even odder was that they served to highlight Russert's own hypocrisy. What's the purpose of this parlor game? Is Tim ever going to come clean, as the New York Times is at least trying to do? And as Matt Cooper and Walter Pincus already have done?  At this point, it seems unlikely. But it's going to be a long few months for him, if he's just going to, as he seemed to be doing today, run out the clock with open-mic talking-point slams.  When I asked my HuffPost partner Kenny Lerer what he thought of the show this morning, he told me he started it, and then switched to Pet Keeping with Marc Morrone. In fact, he then said he's decided to start competing with Russert Watch by blogging every Sunday about Pet Keeping, so stay tuned for that. The funny thing is, you're as likely to learn the nature of Tim's involvement in the Plame affair from Pet Keeping as from Tim's own show.  My conclusion: stay in bed and read Frank Rich. And watch Pet Keeping.
Say what you will about Bashar Assad, dictator of Syria and perhaps the dimmest eye doctor ever produced by British medical schools, but subtle he is not. Since the huge street demonstrations against his occupation of Lebanon, three terrorist bombings have occurred there, all in heavily Christian, anti-Syrian neighborhoods. Only slightly less subtle was the nearly half-million-man Beirut rally demanding Syria's continued occupation, staged by Syria's Lebanese client, Hezbollah, followed by the "spontaneous" demonstration Assad orchestrated for himself in Damascus.
An Oct. 3 front-page article highlighted the ridiculous situation in which arbitrary visa regulations block hundreds of thousands of qualified foreign women who live here from working.
Reviewed by Jeff Andreasen  Quote: "Tetsu is the most annoying brat protagonist since Edward Furlong's John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I kept praying for the Choshu assassins to strike during the festival and whack this shrieking punk."
The lunch specials were small in portion, poor in presentation, and the services were not too good either.  The side orders tasted like they been frozen for a long time.  Over all experience were poor and when I got the bill...I thought they charge too much for the food and services.  I will not go back again!
Sep 30, 2005: "A History of Violence" is a family drama with guns, graphic gore and explicit sex that's not fit for the whole family. Nor is it recommended to people of any age easily offended by such borderline NC-17 goings-on. Some may head for the exits faster than a speeding hollow-point before the end of the second reel (and some did at a recent local screening).
And may I stress - these are supporters of the president. We're not trying to undercut the administration. We are...: And may I stress - these are supporters of the president. We're not trying to undercut the administration. We are trying to save it, the Supreme Court, and the country from an error that can only do harm to all involved....
A witless follow-up to the surprise 1999 hit,  Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is raunchy, politically incorrect, and not particularly funny.
In the calm, autumnal reflection of Sunday morn, it is impossible to shoo away the sad conclusion that Bill Keller and Pinch Sulzberger have fucked the dog. Screwed the pooch. Hijacked the greyhound. They seemed to have taken the lessons of the Jayson Blair fiasco and strove to do a lousier job protecting the integrity of the New York Times the next time a reporter brought ill-repute upon the paper. Now that next time is here, and it is no mere reporter requiring a cleanup crew, it's a journalistic superstar slashing her way through newsroom and cafeteria with Pulitzer Prize ablaze.   Let us not be too harsh on Judith Miller herself, however. She was caught up in the hypnotic voodoo of highstakes journalism. We've all been there. All of us veteran reporters who risk our parking privileges in pursuit of a hot story know what it's like to have strange words leap into your notebook out of nowhere in the middle of an intense interrogation.   You're sitting there having breakfast at the St. Regis with Scooter Aspen, buttering each other's toast, and somehow the name "Valerie Flame" pops up in your notebook without you knowing how it got there! It's your handwriting, sure enough, but rack your brain much as you will, you just can't remember which little birdie tweeted that name into your ear.   Like I say, it could happen to any of us intrepid reporters on the danger beat.   Nevertheless, it does appear inescapably evident that Judith Miller lost sight of where her true loyalties lay, or lie.  Her first committment, the first committment of any star reporter, is to the integrity and reputation of her own phony-baloney career. And here Miller failed.   If she had been truly looking out for numero uno, she would have served her full sentence and then emerged chastened yet proud, like Martha Stewart, making America love her all over again even though we didn't love her the first time. Instead, she gets her get-out-of-jail pass before sentence completion, goes before the grand jury, and, to confuse matters more, goes before the grand jury a second time, emerging all secretive and full of no comment. Any publisher paying her seven figures for that aborted piece of jailhouse-courtroom theatrics is in dire need of serious counselling.   No, Dame Judith Miller made the error of subordinating her own interests and that of her newspaper to Scooter Aspen and his mysterious dance of the dangling waivers. And for that dereliction of duty, if justice is to be done, she must be booted through the uprights and never allowed to show her bangs and saucy at W. 43rd Street again.     As for Keller and Sulzberger, they owe us all a groveling apology mingled with sniffling tears and the ritual sacrifice of Pinch's stuffed moose.   "As for Keller?s apology (or more)," writes Greg Mitchell in Editor & Publisher, "consider just one of a dozen humbling sentences from the Times story: 'Interviews show that the paper?s leadership, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control.'   "Longtime Times reporter Todd Purdum testifies that many on the staff were 'troubled and puzzled by Judy's seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls.'   "At another point, Keller reveals that he ordered Miller off WMD coverage after he became editor (surely, a no-brainer), but he admits 'she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm.' Does he anywhere take responsibility for this, or anything else? Not that I can see.  "Keller should also apologize to the 'armchair critics' and 'vultures' he denounced this week for spreading unfounded stories and 'myths' about what Miller and the newspaper had been up to. If anything, this sad and outrageous story is worse than most expected."  Yes, we armchair critics resent being impugned, it browns our Cheese Doodles getting backhanded like that--especially by the editorial el supremo who allows one of his reporters to kinda sorta "drift" back on her own into the national security realm and, by not reining in that drift, forces the New York Times to defend her indefensible behavior and suffer millions of dollars in legal fees compounded by an incalculable loss of trust.   Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has more, and you didn't think Steve Gilliard would let this go by, did you?   P.S. And don't miss the major ongoing deconstruction of the Miller's tale by Swopa and Fubar at Needlenose.
Director John Stockwell is lost at sea with "Into the Blue," a diving adventure with a severe case of the dramatic bends.
My take on the Miers nomination:   Her Evangelical faith is supposed to be a factor in her favor. I have one question: is Harriet Miers really the most qualified Evangelical that George Bush could find?   If I were an Evangelical, I would be offended by the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
Iraqi voters return to the polls Saturday to render their verdict on a proposed constitution. If they reject it, whatever hope remains for a tolerable resolution in Iraq would be dashed altogether. It's hard to imagine what course events would take from there, but none of them would be good. Unfortunately, even if the constitution is approved, it would be hard to argue with a straight face that Iraq had reached a turning point of any kind, and that things would now start to get better. The levels of anger, distrust, violence and chaos afflicting Iraq are simply too high to be tamped down by something as fragile and theoretical as a constitution. Certainly, the trends are disturbing. U.S. military officials have admitted to Congress that the number of Iraqi units capable of operating on their own &mdash; a number that will determine when U.S. troops can safely withdraw &mdash; has fallen rather than increased, from just three brigades down to one.
Although it?s an objective and handsomely presented take on the Crusades, Kingdom of Heaven lacks depth.
A dumb, goofy, and vacuous adaptation of a TV show where plot is simply an excuse to string together the car chases.
Boasting a mix of industrial clank and loud guitars, the latest by this pioneering synth-pop outfit mostly turns out to be a shadow of the greatness that once was.
The first clue that we were not about to experience fine dining was when the hostess held up her hand, as if to say "STOP!" We had made a reservation, at least one week in advance. We had done so because we were a large party-13. We were celebrating  a family reunion and a 21st birthday. The table, or should I say tables, because they refused to accommodate our party by putting 2 tables together, were not ready. Let me add, in case anyone is wondering, there were no young children in our party.  The youngest were 15 and 16.  Everyone was dressed appropriately, "business casual." It was an early Thurday evening.The house wine was very good, though overly priced. Between the two tables we had 5 glasses of wine and one beer. The rest of the party drank soft drinks or water.  The steak was of obvious good quality but the portions were small and served luke-warm, at best. The sauce smothering it was tasty but instead of enhancing the flavor of the beef, it disguised it. The menu is a la carte, so the diner is as likely to loss his bank account at the dining table as the roulette table and  leave broke,hungry, and sober to boot!The service was nothing to speak about. In fact, the waitress had put a portion of broccoli on our table. We thought this was something the House did. Luckily, no one went to taste it, either with fork or finger, because several minutes later, the waitress removed it from our table stating that "it was put here by mistake!"In sum, the meal which cost us over $800, was our biggest mistake. Emeril should be ashamed of himself. The Venetian, a very beautiful hotel should think twice about renewing this lease.
Interesting to see how the middle class is getting walloped once again by the "conservatives" yet the lucky 1% is about to get even more tax breaks. Well, at least it's all fair and everyone is pitching in for the good of the nation. Good luck in 2006 and don't forget to ride those presidential coattails.  I hear Bush is a real vote-getter these days.  Talk about the war too...another popular program for winning votes and looking macho.
Less than six months after President Bush's inaugural address, the tension between his commitment to democracy and longstanding U.S. security and economic commitments grows steadily more acute, especially in the Muslim world. There is the problem of whether to endorse Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's half-baked presidential election; there is the dilemma of Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, who massacred hundreds of protesters in one town but continues to host a U.S. military base in another.
HuffingtonPost.com - Americans all have to consider the implications now of a worst case scenario-- the problems of scandal and polarization result in a meltdown of the W.
It is disingenuous of Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) to say, and of The Post to report, that Virginia's graduation rate for the 2004-05 school year was 94.6 percent [Metro, Oct. 18].
According to a couple of poorly trained economists, there's a bright side to Hurricane Katrina's destruction. J.P. Morgan senior economist Anthony Chan believes hurricanes tend to stimulate overall growth...
The Senate floor came to a crashing halt last week when Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska threatened to resign if the $450 million allocated in the new transportation bill for his pet project -- the so called ?bridges to nowhere? -- was redirected to help with post-Katrina reconstruction.   So much for compassionate conservatism.      Here?s my question: Why is this considered a threat?  I consider it an offer of the most magnanimous kind.  Stevens is indignant over bridges no one needs -- at the same time his state drip, drip, drips into a crisis caused by global warming.  Satellite data reveal that the area covered by Arctic sea ice hit a record low this September.  Meanwhile, four Alaskan villages are making plans for imminent relocation as the rising sea envelopes the coastline.  Stevens? colleagues should call his bluff and let him quit.  The survival of his state just might depend on it.  stopglobalwarming.org
Reviewed by David Johnson  Quote: "It is as if the collective subconscious of a hundred thousand eight year-olds on crystal meth spilled forth and materialized on screen. Batman and Robin is an unending onslaught of sensory overload, where every corner of every synapse of your feeble mind is continually laid siege upon for two hours."
Well we finally got the tua culpa from Judith Miller we've all been expecting: "W.M.D. - I got it totally wrong," she said. "The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them - we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong. I did the best job that I could." "In other news, Mohammed ElBaradai and the International Atomic Energy Agency win the Nobel Prize for getting it right.  You can't blame Judy.  It's hard to hear when you're so full of merde it's coming out your ears.  Besides, she was otherwise engaged in screwing over everyone she ever touched in this walking disaster.    She sticks it to her willfully ignorant bosses: Interviews show that the paper's leaders, in taking what they considered to be a principled stand, ultimately left the major decisions in the case up to Ms. Miller, an intrepid reporter whom editors found hard to control.  "This car had her hand on the wheel because she was the one at risk," Mr. Sulzberger said. "News flash, Pinch:  she's been driving on the rims, and you're along for the ride.  She sticks it to her co-workers: In two interviews, Ms. Miller generally would not discuss her interactions with editors, elaborate on the written account of her grand jury testimony or allow reporters to review her notes. "So much for the Hallmark Moment that was Judy's return to the newsroom.    Then she starts to get a little crazy and reckless.  She sticks it to her lawyer, which is not really the best idea when he's the only thing standing between you and a ten year stretch in chick prison: Mr. Bennett, who by now had carefully reviewed Ms. Miller's extensive notes taken from two interviews with Mr. Libby, assured Mr. Fitzgerald that Ms. Miller had only one meaningful source. Mr. Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questions to Mr. Libby and the Wilson matter. "Which would have been fine if it was true, but unfortunately Judy left one thing out: On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled.  I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him. "Which means Judy DID have another source, and Bennett went to Fitzgerald and sold him a big, fat load of crap in order to cut a deal for his client and get the limited testimony she was so proud of: Without both agreements, I would not have testified and would still be in jail. "Yeah you are PRETTY clever, Judy ol' gal.  Get yourself a deal to preserve your "principles" by punking your lawyer and getting him to sell one of the toughest US attorneys in the country a bill of goods.    Wow, you are sharp.  Judy skillfully avoids revealing in the article specifically when in the timeline this "unremembered source" (*cough*) revealed to her the identity of "Valerie Flame."    She had two sets of notes -- one she turned over to Fitzgerald covering her July 8 and July 13, 2003 meetings with Libby, which she testified about in her original September 30 command performance before the grand jury.  Then there are the one she "discovered" buried in her desk at the Times covering the June 23, 2003 meeting.  (As a side note, no wonder she was so nervous in prison.  If I had incriminating evidence that could send me to the slam indefinitely that was sitting in the midst of a bunch of people by whom I was pretty much universally hated, I'd be thinking "I owed it to myself" to get the hell out of there, too.  Hey -- how did Fitzgerald find out about that June meeting?)  Adam Entous of Reuters says that the "Flame" reference appeared in the July notes: Miller also disclosed for the first time that the notebook she used for an interview with Libby in July 2003 contained the name "Valerie Flame," a clear reference to Valerie Plame, the covert operative whose outing triggered a sweeping criminal investigation that has shaken the Bush administration. "But unless Entous has some special inside information, and there is no indication he has any more than what appears in the Times, I think he's presuming something that isn't there.  A careful reading of Miller's sodomizing of the journalistic tradition shows no indication of which set of notes the name appears in.    Indeed, inclusion in the June notes seems more likely.  Bennett didn't seem to realize that Judy had any other sources before he went off on his mission to poke the pit bull with a sharp stick.  And misspelling a name like that is a  mistake you make the first time you hear it -- not the second or third or fourth.  She says that Cowboy Scoots didn't bring up the name of Valerie Plame until the July 8 meeting, however: I said I couldn't be certain whether I had known Ms. Plame's identity before this meeting, and I had no clear memory of the context of our conversation that resulted in this notation. "If Entous is right about the appearance in the July notes, and the second "Flame" source was already indicated by Bennett and dismissed by Fitzgerald as not being  "meaningful" when he cut a deal for Judy to exclude any testimony that was not about Libby, Fitzgerald wouldn't be able to ask about that, right? Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I could recall discussing the Wilson-Plame connection with other sources.  I said I had, though I could not recall any by name or when those conversations occurred. "What's that?  Why, that would be Patrick Fitzgerald  asking questions at the time outside the scope of the deal to limit her testimony to Libby.  Moreover,  she did not refuse to answer.  Which means that her original deal with Fitzgerald was, indeed, bustado.   So what was Judy doing in Fitzgerald's office all day Tuesday with her criminal -- not First Amendment -- lawyer Bob Bennett?    I'm guessing she was playing Let's Make a Deal.
Government security measures haven?t yet produced an ?unbearable hell and a choking life?, but with all the emerging restrictions on our liberty, we can safely say we?re headed in that direction...
Just as you might expect, a group of poll-watching, finger-to-the-wind conservative congressmen have pledged to fight for legislation that would allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in courthouses around the country. A pair of recent Supreme Court decisions &mdash; one of which struck down such displays &mdash; has handed them a chance to seize the low ground on yet another hot-button issue. These are the same congressmen, no doubt, who roar with approval every time President Bush pledges that the United States will help Iraqis install their own version of Jeffersonian democracy &mdash; one that protects government critics, religious minorities and criminal defendants. So, if that sort of constitution is such a good idea for Iraqis, why isn't it a good idea for Americans? Iraq, after all, has a tiny minority of Christians, men and women who still suffer oppression, even after the fall of Saddam Hussein. They dream of the day when they will be free to worship as they please, without fear of intimidation. Would they feel equal under the law if every courthouse in the new Iraq housed huge monuments of popular verses from the Koran? Would they believe they could stand before a Sunni or Shiite judge and get fairness if the wall behind the judge posted a declaration from the Islamic holy book?
Paul Green is a walking hypocrite. He talks about his love of teaching, how some people are born for certain things and he, The Paul Green, was born to teach. That segment happens early in IRock SchoolI, and then is quickly followed up by Paul yelling at kids to get out, cussing severely, slamming doors, and throwing chairs. In doing so, he takes out his feelings of musical inadequacy on these nine to seventeen year olds that just wanna play, man. Its eighty-five minutes of Green having temper tantrums, five minutes of back slapping good jobs in the face of an audience, and three minutes of credits.
Even the endless shots of bronzed beach babes and buffed dudes can't keep this soggy scuba flick's plot from drowning.
Now we know why the target is red.  And, we seem to be getting a clearer picture as to why Target has sided with the far-right Christian wackos, in permitting their pharmacists to turn you away because they think you're a sinner.  Over the years, Target CEO Robert Ulrich has donated: - $71,353 to Republicans - $3,660 to Democrats "Hmmm... that's interesting.  Perhaps my favorite donation is the $5,000 he gave just two months ago to a PAC named "Every Republican is Crucial."  Among other donations: $1,000 to anti-gay bigot Mel Martinez, now the GOP Senator from Florida. $1,000 to kinky-sex-cage-my-wife-please GOP Senate hopeful from IL Jack Ryan. $3,000 to Bush-Cheney '04 $1,000 to Bush for President 2000 $1,000 to Elizabeth Dole for President 2000 $603 to the Republican National Committee $1,000 to Robert Dole for President 1996 "The only Dems he's given to in nearly 20 years, according to the online records, are Amy Klobuchar and Tim Penny from Minnesota.  Yeah, big hitter's, those two.  Oh Target. Things were so much easier when you were nice people rather than intolerant red state Bible thumpers.
TIME?s Mike Allen, late of the WashPost, begins his piece in the magazine this week with this:  Get ready for a whole new Harriet. After a disastrous two weeks, White House officials say they hope to relaunch the nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court by moving from what they call a "biographical phase" to an "accomplishment phase.? "  What is this?  Elementary School kickball?  Does the White House seriously expect the American public, let alone an already pissed off Senate, let the President call for a ?do-over??  Sorry, but when the President gets out there and says part of the reason he picked Miers for the SCOTUS is because she is an evangelical; when you have one of the biggest wing-nuts in the country say he learned things about her from the White House that he shouldn?t know; and when even Republican commentators are bemoaning the fact that her resume is devoid of experience on the bench and of any scholarly works on Constitutional issues, you don?t get to kick again.  Yet, a do-over that reintroduces Ms. Miers with a focus on her ?accomplishments? might be even sweeter to watch than the first go around.  Yes, she was a very successful private lawyer and headed up the Texas Bar.  And this qualifies her to rule on core matters of our Constitutional rights how?  John Edwards was a very successful lawyer too.  This apparently was a weakness, according to the GOP, when the issue of him as Vice President came up.  Yet, it?s good enough to put someone on the highest court?  Does the GOP wanting to focus on Ms. Miers ?accomplishments? mean any person who has ever headed a Bar Association is now qualified to serve on the Supreme Court?  This nomination is a ship in some stormy seas, and the crew is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  In fact, with Karl Rove distracted, the entire White House operation has become Romper Room.  Hmmm?. Maybe that explains this call for a ?do over.?
AN EARLY LIE? Why did Fitzgerald very quickly ensure that he could investigate obstruction of justice and perjury in his inquiry? Maybe one of his first witnesses provided an authoritative, over-arching story that was immediately contradicted by subsequent witnesses. Maybe contradictions began appearing almost immediately. Here endeth today's piece of informed speculation.  QUOTE FOR THE DAY: "[O]ddly enough, the scriptures seem to be telling us, this is part of God?s gift to us. God intentionally chooses to be mysterious ? for our sakes. If God were to be fully and completely revealed, if we were to see God beyond all hiddenness and mystery, our freedom would disappear. We would be forced to believe, forced to be obedient. No, this hiddenness is God's blessing. Certitude is a spiritual danger. If we claim to know God?s ways without question, we limit God to the shape of our own minds. As St. Augustine put it 1700 years ago, 'If you think you understand, it isn't God.' One of the troubling currents of our time is the tendency of religious people to speak as if we have seen God's face. A lot of what is being said in religious circles can suggest that some people claim to have God figured out, under control, in their pockets." - The Very Rev. Samuel T. Lloyd III, Dean of Washington National Cathedral. Without doubt, faith is not faith.   SONG FOR THE DAY: An unorthodox recording of "Oh, Holy Night." No, it's not Cartman.   MENSTRUAL BLOOD AND TARANTO: I think we have a new low in defenses of government-sanctioned abuse of prisoners. On Friday, WSJ blogger, James Taranto, tried to dismiss my ethical concerns about U.S. interrogators in Gitmo smearing fake menstrual blood on the faces of Muslim detainees. Taranto regards such techniques as "excellent." My concern, along with that of many others within the military and CIA, is that this technique deliberately targets Islamic religious taboos, shocks the conscience and undermines the war by making us as religiously intolerant as the enemy. This story explains the rationale behind the technique: Islam forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean. "The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to [the interrogator who smeared fake menstrual blood on his face], he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret." "Taranto endorses the use of a detainee's religious faith against them, but then appears to dismiss that angle as unimportant. The only people who would find this tactic abhorrent, he argues, are  adult men who remain strangers to the female body. Among them are homosexual men who identify as gay at a young age and thus do not have heterosexual experiences. Also among them are single men from sexually repressed cultures, such as fundamentalist Islamic ones, in which contact between the sexes is rigidly policed. "So my own concern with religious abuse is dismissed as a function of my sexual orientation! I have to say that of all the sad attempts to dismiss or belittle abuse and torture of detainees, this has to be about the lowest and lamest yet. For the record, my objection is because we should not transform this war into one against all Islam. Abusing Islam in military prisons or on the battlefield is both immoral and deeply counter-productive. Using people's religious conscience against them is a mark of totalitarian countries, not one where religious freedom is paramount. Taranto's exclusion of gay men from the categories of adulthood and masculinity is also, shall we say, revealing. Has the pro-torture right really been reduced to this kind of irrelevant bigotry? Is this all they have left?
Reviewed by Jeff Andreasen  Quote: "It's a valiant attempt to bring to life to one of the great literary efforts of the last century, but the spurious bloat grafted on to pad the thing to an acceptable running time seriously drags down the quality of the narrative."
Sep 23, 2005: "Mind Hunters" brings to mind crappy serial killer movies that were never really made, such as Donald Kaufman's "The Three" from "Adaptation" and "Death Fears Not the Reaper," on "Family Guy." Why? Because serial killer movies are so overdone that the prevailing joke of the screenwriting business is to write a story about a serial killer.
Let me start by saying that CNN's website sucks.  It's just a piece of garbage.  Why?  I heard a story last night on CNN and it got me riled up.  I went to look for something - anything about it, and came up empty-handed.    The story was that the middle [...]
The article about the abuse of MBTA employees only illustrates the fact that the public is sick of all the 'improvements' that make commuting worse. The T lost a large ridership due to the fact they ignored...
UNDERMINING THE WAR: If you need further proof that this administration's abandonment of clear Geneva guidelines has clearly undermined the war, then read this. The use of religion to taunt and torment the enemy has been going on for a long time now. From smearing inmates with fake menstrual blood, to desecrating the Koran, to forcing one Abu Ghraib prisoner to drink alcohol and eat pork, to burning Muslim corpses facing West ... we now have a litany of abuses that are objectively evil and almost designed to lose us support among the broad Muslim population. And we have military academies that have been found to be over-run by religious zealots - and a leading general, Boykin, never disciplined for saying that ours is a war of the Christian God versus the Muslim God. When you do not stamp out religious bigotry at its base, when you give it a wink in politics and in warfare, you make these kinds of incidents inevitable. Pass the McCain Amendment.
It's put up or shut up time at the paper of record.  Now that Judge Hogan has  full accounting of the Miller story.   Rarely has so much been riding on a single article. Especially internally. The frustration I've been reporting on  newsroom is a powder keg ready to blow.   But the Times finds itself facing a vexing Catch-22. In order to quell the rising newsroom rebellion -- not to mention fulfill its obligation to the Times' readers -- the Miller reporting team of Landman, Van Natta, Liptak, and Scott needs to produce an article that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what Bill Keller called Miller's "entanglement with the White House leak investigation." But how can they do that without going against the paper's unwavering editorial line in support of Miller?  As I've . It will entail the paper applying the same journalistic standards to the Judy Miller story it would apply to any other subject.   But how do you do that when your bosses are still sticking by the Judy-as-hero routine?  So which way will it go? Will the Times save its journalistic soul by coming clean or will it serve up a mushy bowl of Judy-shielding pablum to avoid contradicting its editorial stance so far?   If the language Keller has been using lately is any indication of the paper's mindset, it doesn't bode well. His references to "" don't sound much like a man ready to come clean.  If the big Times story does not break with this siege mentality, the paper will have made the kind of mistake it will be next to impossible to recover from. Expect an exodus from West 43rd Street. I hear that some of the Times' brightest stars are already being courted by competitors looking to take advantage of the mounting anger at the paper's handling of the Miller affair. Maybe that's what Keller meant by "vultures circling."  And this time, the anguish won't be brought to an end by the kind of ritual bloodletting that followed the Jayson Blair fiasco. Sulzberger sacrificing Keller won't do the trick. No one doubts for a moment that on all things Miller Keller has been acting as a loyal lieutenant to the publisher.  As a source familiar with the inner working of the Times  comes directly from the top. Nobody does anything there without Arthur Sulzberger's approval. It's the larger untold story in all of this -- that he now runs the newsroom."  Or as longtime Times observer Michael Wolff told me: "The distinction between the 3rd floor and the 14th floor used to be real. The editor was always in charge. That's no longer the case. And it's hard to avoid the conclusion that while Pinch has been running the paper, it just lurches from crisis to crisis. At some point you have to question the quality of his leadership."  And that questioning has already begun, leading to the unspeakable being whispered among big media players. As one of them boldly asserted to me: "Mark my words, this will end with Sulzberger's resignation."  It's a sign of how bad things have gotten that such a far-fetched scenario has moved from the realm of the preposterous (after all, nine of the Times board's fourteen directors  by the Sulzberger family) to the realm of the conceivable.   That's a hell of a lot to have riding on a single story.
A sampling of some recent emails: The left gets Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We get this. Ugh. ** You need to...: A sampling of some recent emails: The left gets Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We get this. Ugh. ** You need to get out of the Beltway more often. Your elitism is showing ** I too am very disappointed in President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers. I have been looking forward to...
If this picture was worth the full thousand words, what would it say about the Homeland Security Agency?  A crucial part of the the department is the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) Directorate.  Its job is to protect America's most critical infrastructure, which the agency lists as "commercial assets (e.g., stock exchanges), Government facilities, dams, nuclear power plants, national monuments and icons, chemical plants, bridges, and tunnels."  In addition, they are responsible for preventing cyber attacks, as well as monitoring "activities and access to current information" related to nuclear plants and chemical manufacturers.    With such a critical role to play in monitoring our infrastructure, why are these guys sitting around monitoring FOX News?  And, if Homeland Security was interested in avoiding charges of cronyism and the politicizing of the department, how intelligent was it to use this photo to represent the IAIP on the White House/Homeland Security website?  And, if you really cared about your image, wouldn't you want to run an image showing employees that, at least, looked like they were busy?  For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.  (referral: Jeff J.)  (image: unattributed. image sharpened for clarity. whitehouse.gov)
Polanski's version of Dickens' classic won't have audiences asking for more because while polished and directed with skill, the movie's a very impersonal experience.
Woody Allen's uneven Melinda and Melinda  fails to find neither comedy nor pathos in what seems like a rehash of his previous themes.
Regardless what a Texas jury decides about the guilt or innocence of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the district attorney in the case has already attained his political aims. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a loyal Democrat, has had DeLay in his cross hairs for years. Earle patiently went through six grand juries to finally achieve the indictment. At a recent Democratic fund-raiser, Earle bragged to the crowd that he was the man who was going to bring down DeLay. And sure enough, by corrupting the levers of justice, Earle has managed to force DeLay to relinquish his majority leader post.
Robert Bork and I don't agree on much, but we do agree on Harriet Miers: She is not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.   Bork has described the Miers nomination as a "slap in the face" to conservatives. But it is worse than that. It is a slap in the face to women, to the Court, and to the American people.  The politics of this nomination seems to have everyone in Washington spinning in circles. Conservatives, who only a month ago proclaimed that senators should not oppose a Supreme Court nominee "merely" because of a disagreement over ideology, furiously oppose Miers on the ground that the president has betrayed his committment to transform the Court in the Federalist Society image.   Liberals, who should oppose Miers because of her patent lack of qualifications, sit on their hands, relishing the internal Republican fireworks. They are paralyzed by the fear that if they join the right-wingers in defeating Miers, the president will then saddle them a more qualified and much more rigidly predictable conservative in her place.   What to do? For knee-jerk conservatives, this is easy: Oppose Miers and pressure the president to correct the error of his ways. For knee-jerk liberals, this is easy, as well: Abandon all commitment to principle and support Miers as a (possibly) rare stroke of "good luck." After all, they say, an unqualified conservative is better than a qualified right-wing ideologue. For principled moderates of both the left and the right, this is also easy: Oppose Miers as unqualified, and live to fight another day.   What will happen if a coalition of right-wing conservatives and principled moderates defeats the Miers nomination? Personally, I'd suggest Bush nominate someone someone like David Tatel of the D.C. Circuit or Dean Elena Kagan of the Harvard Law School. But, alas, Bush is not likely to consult me.   This isn't to say Bush couldn't find common ground, though. Once Miers withdraws or is defeated, Bush should come back with a highly qualified conservative -- someone who generally reflects the views of those who elected him, but who will also be an open-minded justice of real intellectual distinction. It's not as if such candidates are hard to come by. John Roberts was one. Others I would commend to the President includeI Maureen Mahoney, a conservative lawyer with a sterling record of achievement in both public service and private practice; Judge Deanell Tacha of the Tenth Circuit, a first-rate appellate judge who was appointed by President Reagan; Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit, a former journalist and law professor with an excellent record as a federal judge; and Judge Michael McConnell of the Tenth Circuit, one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars and a brilliant lawyer and judge.  I suspect even Robert Bork and I could agree on them, as well as on Harriet Miers.
Twice in a week, the California Governor who said he didn't need anyone else's money has  taking $100K from an industry group on the same day he vetoed a bill on the industry's behalf.    On Friday October 7th, Arnold vetoed one of the wine industry's top targets this year. SB 455 (Escutia) was opposed by the Wine Institute because it would have strengthened pesticide regulation. On that same October 7th, the Henry Wine Group, a major player in the industry, kicked in $100 K to the Gov's ballot initiative campaign committee, the California Recovery team. Talk about juicing an industry.   Also on October 7th,  Schwarzenegger . The bill would have ended a taxpayer subsidy of the insurance industry in which government health programs pay the medical costs of car accidents instead of the insurance company of the driver who caused the accident.  Taxpayers cough up $225 million each year to pay the claims that the insurance companies are allowed to duck.  The day of SB 399's veto the bill's leading opponent, the American Insurance Association, sent the gov a $105,000 campaign contribution.   Schwarzenegger's right wing ballot initiatives in his extra November election  is being financed by the "for sale" sign the Gov's  hung on his signatures and vetoes of legislation.
But don't worry, he'll cover himself with saying the opposite tomorrow, as he always seems to do.  His term can't end fast enough.
Here is the endorsements page from Progress for America's pro-Miers website. Is it not the most pitiful thing you have...: Here is the endorsements page from Progress for America's pro-Miers website. Is it not the most pitiful thing you have ever seen? They have been reduced to hunting down vaguely positive quotations from people - like NR's Rich Lowry and National Journal's Stuart Taylor - who actively oppose her nomination....
of Laura Bush's talk with Matt Lauer on the Today show, and says she didn't charge sexism in the way the MSM is suggesting:  " In the deceptive version being pedaled by Reuters and the Post, they have Laura say sexism was possible and then repeat it for emphasis: "I think that's possible." This has the subtextual effect of making it appear certain that the First Lady was agreeing with Lauer's question, that critics were motivated by sexism.  But in reality, Lauer asked the question and paused; Mrs. Bush started to answer and was cut off by Lauer, who finished asking the question... so the First Lady, being a trouper, simply re-commenced her same answer. She did not say "that's possible... I think that's possible;" she dismissed the charge with a curt "that's possible," then started a new sentence on a different topic.   Listening to the audio, it is clear that she was not agreeing with or even emphasizing the point. In fact, she was brushing it off.   "    She does sound like she's politely brushing the accusation off, but it's a shame that "sexism" made it into the talking points in the first place. How did that happen?
The problem with liberals, conservatives often say, is that they are too committed to old programs. This is an odd criticism coming from conservatives who regularly hail the low-tax, small-government policies of Calvin Coolidge as a model for good government. If wanting to bring back the 1920s isn't backward-looking, what is?
One of the worst expirences at a restaurant I have evver had. First thing you walk in the door and bamn you are back in the '70s. The steak was bland and tough, the soup was luke warm and again bland. The service was bad so and over-all disappointing expirence. I would recomend not going there if you desire eating good food.
Theres plenty to nitpick about here. One could argue that the Sisters are stereotypes who wouldnt come near each other in real life, or that Greece cant look like its been gone over with Soft Scrub so that even the dirty old men eyeballing Lena look clean. Do the women really have to be straight out of My Big Fat Greek Whatever, spouting home-baked philosophy and emoting hysterically?
Skip It                 The Movie:  Some people will say that for a movie to really fall into the category of film noir, it has to have been made in the US.&#160; I don't define the genre that stringently and feel that any country could produce a film that has the dark settings and ambiguous morality that noir films revel in.&#160; When Dark Sky's latest "lost noir" DVD arrived, the German made Wet Asphalt, I was very intrigued to see the German take on noir.&#160; I have already seen their other entry in the series, Without Warning, and found it to be a good film and the DVD to have high production values.&#160; It's too bad that this DVD didn't live up that one.&#160; I was disappointed in this disc for a few reasons.&#160; I wouldn't categorize this movie as film noir by a long shot and ...Read the entire review
My Stepdad on W: Bush was Right  Stepdad: "Back in 2000, Bush said if I voted for Gore, I'd have 2 dollar gas, a trillion dollar deficit, military base closures, a meddlesome federal government, and, a stagnant economy. I voted for Gore any way and everything W. said came true."
As the Plame outing scandal erupts, with new revelations every day, there's one more sinister manipulation to remember--the timing of the run-up to the Iraq War.  Dana Milbank of the Washington Post examined the White House's motivation at the time (9/16/02):  "Two weeks ago, the headlines were about a lethargic economy, a depressed stock market and corporate misdeeds; the news about Iraq was about policy disagreements among Bush advisers. Now, the debate has shifted almost entirely from Democrats' preferred domestic issues to preparations for military action, a GOP favorite."  Note the salience of this next point (emphasis added):  "It's hard not to notice that the sudden urgency of war with Iraq has coincided precisely with the emergence of the corporate scandal story, with the flip in the congressional [poll] numbers and with the decline in the Republicans' prospects for retaking the Senate majority," said Jim Jordan, director of the Democrats' Senate campaign committee. "It's absolutely clear that the administration has timed the Iraq public relations campaign to influence the midterm elections . . . and to distract the voting public from a failing economy and an unpopular Republican domestic agenda."   Milbank reminds the reader that it was only a few days before that Andy Card had uttered his most famous phrase:  "...Andrew H. Card Jr., Bush's chief of staff, said last week that the White House held back on promoting the Iraq policy in the summer because, 'from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August'."   The Bush Administration let on that it had new and secret information that necessitated fast action, before the November mid-term elections.  Milbank pointed this out, too:  "Although the administration has not offered new evidence publicly, it suggests such information has played a role. 'What's happening, of course, is we're getting additional information that, in fact, [Hussein] is reconstituting his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs and that's what really precipitates the concern now,' Cheney said on Rush Limbaugh's radio show Friday."   More Cheney propaganda, on the "pompous blowhard on loan from God" show.  Let's remember one more point--the first President Bush at least had the decency to keep his invasion of Iraq largely separated from the 1990 mid-term elections.  His son's Administration, lacking the same sense of honor and looking for a right-wing realignment, used the hype over Hussein to take the Senate back from newly-Independent Jim Jeffords and the Democrats in 2002.  What can we do about it now?  Just remind voters that the son was more deceitful that the father.  And remember it, to make sure the historians get it right when they try to explain this period to our youngsters...
