Less of this, please.
Unrelated, but could this be the weakest threat in mankind's current arsenal? C'mon, Mr. Secretary.
All class, these guys-
'President George W. Bush, who won the White House in 2000 promising to change the bitter tone of US politics, will not scold Vice President Dick Cheney for using an obscenity against a Democratic senator, a spokesman said.'It all depends on what your definition of "change" is. Look, it's not the absence of 'scolding' another (barely) adult man that I care about, it's the implicit rewarding of that man's limitless arrogance. Vote the arrogance out of office. Better no one on the throne than these [fill in the blank]...
Once again I find that stretches of days are passing between posts. I apologize for the 79-pound weakling effort lately.
But that energy has been primarily channeled into my new job, the first one of my career that I can say I am truly passionate about and stimulated by. In the past, I held positions where my intellect wasn't challenged all that much, and I that left me copious amounts of time to read and think about current events, politics, and so on. (You might even remember back when I started this thing, that I was linking to a dozen items per day!) I had the time to set down material to either link to or comment upon during the day, and more recently, in the evenings. The time just isn't there right now.
So where does that leave The Weigh In? Sadly, not one of my top priorities over the past few months. (Don't forget the new dog in all this!)
I will try to keep up with some more regular writing as best I can, circumstances permitting. I'm going to undertake an effort to steer clear of repeating myself, and of unproductive habits such as throwing out personal attacks passing as righteous rage (the targets are quite worthy of scorn, but in the end it's just useless and doesn't effect any change in the target). But at least you all know a bit more to account for the dearth of activity 'round here.
Why does inhaling helium make one's voice sound strange?
Are you Rick James, bitch?
When the zombies take over, how long until the electricity fails?
Answer: Not long, sad to say.
Just a few weeks ago, WOXY 97.7 FM in Cincinnati, honestly the only interesting radio station in the region, signed off the air after having been sold.
So you can imagine my joy to read the following news on their web site a couple of days ago...
'Kind fate has sent us two dedicated listeners with the vision and courage to step up as partners to fund the continued broadcast of 97X The Future of Rock and Roll over the Internet.These magnanimous folks want to remain anonymous, but they feel passionately about "doing the right thing" and "doing good work," and we are the lucky recipients of their generous spirit.
Like Phoenix rising from the ashes, 97X - just as we have always loved it - will be returning soon. It will take us a few weeks to get set up for the future, but be assured that Mike and Barb and Shiv and Bryan Jay are already hard at work to bring it all back.
Keep checking woxy.com for updates ... we'll announce an air date just as soon as we know it.
Give a little shout of thanks to our "angels" - and stay tuned!'
In keeping with the theme, check out this analysis of the best and worst television dads.
Are getting their 15 minutes in the spotlight, courtesy of Time magazine and the like. There is talk of the Federal Marriage Amendment being brought to a vote in the House in July. The Bush Administration hasn't enough pairs of lips to kiss the asses of bishops and priests nationwide, in a possibly-illegal naked display of politics, in order to do nothing more than line up votes for the election. I hope reasonable people of faith see through all their horseshit. And that people like Andrew Sullivan are as serious as they claim about their anybody-but-Bush feelings.
It is nearly time to act. Specifically, to vote Bush and Cheney (and puppet/bitch Karl Rove) out of office. They are congenital liars, just the way Bill Clinton was. They are shamelessly arrogant, just like Clinton was. Their association and camaraderie with white-collar criminals and environmental polluters is repugnant. And they have been more divisive, closed-minded, and power-hungry than any other public servants in recent memory. Our country can do much better. It disappoints me that so many people are willing to tolerate in Bush and Cheney the very same qualities they loathed in Clinton and Gore. (And it is frightening to consider how many more people will have voted for some hapless idiot on American Idol than for President.)
And in the process send a screaming message to the politicized religious right- Stay the fuck out of our lives. Oppose them in any and every way, to work toward the day when there are no more attempts to amend the Constitution to discriminate against fellow Americans (I still can't believe that in the year 2004 I have to write that sentence). No more school board votes to teach creationism in public schools on equal footing with evolution. No more money and resources wasted in prosecuting hopeless, uninformed, failed 'wars' on drugs and pornography. Start by voting out the bible-waving hand-puppets in our government. We Americans should at least be free and mildly happy while waiting for the next terrorist attack that our government does nothing to prevent because it’s too busy cracking down on pot smokers and Howard Stern.
Will the culture be different if John Kerry is President? Will the political donor class lose any power? Will anything change in this country? Probably not. But having this current assemblage of buffoonery which passes for our nation's leadership humbled and defeated is a small reward all its own.
Sorry for the rant, I'm very tired and cranky lately...
Mike Lupica used to be the king, but his massive ego replaced a great sports writer several years ago.
I am sorry that Bill Simmons gave up / lost his writing gig for Jimmy Kimmel Live, but that just means his wonderful ESPN Page 2 columns are again being written with increasing frequency. This most recent one was really enjoyable, even forcing me to respect a basketball player I haven't always held in the highest regard.
Visit Opensecrets.org, brought to us by the Center for Responsive Politics, to learn about how political campaigns in your area are being funded. I had no idea of the disparity of the spending between Democrats and Republicans in the latest Ohio elections (March 2004). It saddens me to see millions upon millions of dollars dumped into the war chests of mediocre, self-important people ("politicians") every year, often spent on media advertising that is more easily forgotten than the last three seasons of "Friends." I'll leave it at that; people are free to spend their earnings as desired. But money is the true religion in this country; wealth and power are more important than health, even salvation. And those misplaced priorities lead to scores of unintended consequences for the rest of us who would just like to be left alone.
I guess I'm having some kind of burnout, because the struggle for ideas and items of interest to write about has been more difficult recently. The brain's still buzzing away at top speed, but my thoughts are having a private party, so to speak.
Check back soon for signs of life, by the weekend for sure.
Their insatiable power trips have run their course.
It's time for Ashcroft to go.
It's (sad to say) time for Rumsfeld to go.
And most importantly, it's time for our out-of-control President to go.
As long as these theocratic psychotics represent the future of the Republican Party, you'll never see me vote for the GOP again.
I'm currently reading Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, the book that 'converted' Howard Stern to the anti-Bush cause.
Franken's attention to detail and sense of humor are sharp and welcome in this particular book sub-genre, "debate-stifling political polemics", a place where the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Michael Moore are rulers of mini-fiefdoms of reflexive, mindless proles.
He makes interesting and scathing points against President Bush and his shamefully lackadaisical efforts to fight terrorism pre-9/11, and his passionate, desperate efforts to prevent the 9/11 commission from having any teeth (and from being formed in the first place, actually). And Franken hammers on a point that is obvious to most clear-thinkers: Fox News is no more "fair and balanced" than Reuters or CBS or the New York Times are.
Bush may still inspire loyalty and pride in many people, but he, and Cheney, and Ashcroft, and Rice, and dozens of others, have shown a thorough disregard for anything during the last two years save accumulating wealth and power. It's time they were rudely ushered back into the private life.
I thought we might get our FIRST POST-9/11 FIRING today, but it turns out self-inflicted-
'CIA Director George Tenet, battered by Sept. 11 fallout and criticism of Iraq intelligence mistakes, said Thursday he would soon resign in a jarring announcement that threw open a key position at a critical time in the war against terrorism.'Let the nostalgic, whitewashed tributes commence. I'll personally be keeping count of how many government officials refer to him as "brilliant."
Via Arthur Silber-
'There is pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills: S 89 and HR 163) which will time the program's initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 -- just after the 2004 presidential election. The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public's attention is on the elections, so our action on this is needed immediately.'I am wholeheartedly opposed to the reinstatement of a military draft, even more so given the specifics of the situation at hand and the leadership guiding this military expansion. Fight this idea tooth and nail. Write your Congresspeople, as I intend to do. And strongly consider voting Bush and his planners-without-a-plan out of office.
Silber puts it best here-
"In this way, while the Bush administration talks endlessly about bringing "freedom" to the rest of the world, by means of military force if necessary, it simultaneously plans to make all of the citizens of the United States slaves.
If the state has the power to dispose of your life -- for one month, or one year, or for any period of time at all -- and if it has the power to send you to your death, then you have no rights at all."
ADDITIONAL READING: Another insightful post by Silber on the idea of the military draft.
POST-SCRIPT: Let me make one additional point here. My mind hasn’t changed at all regarding our current approach to the war on terrorism, or the continued need for reforming Iraq, or about pointing out the worthlessness and hypocrisy of old Europe and the anti-war psychotic left mindset which continues to have too much influence on the Democratic Party. We must continue to ruthlessly kill terrorists from Al !aeda to Hamas, without hesitation or reflection.
I remain very conservative politically (while standing quite progressive regarding many social and fiscal issues), but now I’m simply a small-government conservative-- remember that idea?-- against the Bush Administration and its huge expansions of government spending and power, its ceaseless blending of religion and politics, its avoidance of critical thinking, its deference to old boy networks and big business both here and internationally. I no longer believe our country’s short or long-term goals can be achieved if Bush continues to hold office.
Maybe I can do more good as a conservative liberal, than as vice versa.
Yet If Kerry can’t prove that he’s willing to be tough and principled regarding the war on terror and treating all Americans fairly (that means a fairer tax system and no amending the Constitution to discriminate against homosexuals, for starters), then he too will lose my vote.
RELATED (Wednesday, 9:52 PM): Kevin Drum believes that the aforementioned bills are nothing more than a PR ploy by the Democratic Party members who sponsored them. So it was wrong of me to directly link President Bush with a near-future military draft. But it does seem accurate to say that current U.S. foreign policy will be unsustainable without one.
Just haven't had much to say (especially anything positive) about the news lately. Riding out a writer's block of sorts. Be back soon.
If it isn’t full-frontal clear to everyone now, President Bush is not interested in anything beyond getting reelected in the fall. He is myopic, mistake-prone yet unwilling to admit to error, critical of others yet unable to think critically, and driven by a religious fervor that is not representative of many millions of this country’s citizens. And Karl Rove's "Bush must stay on message no matter the situation because all Americans are sheep and think on a 3rd grade level and won’t know the difference" is really getting on my goddamned nerves. It’s nearly time for these power-sick old white guys to go. Even though another inept bunch is hungrily waiting in the wings.
Look, I understand that millions of people (including me) are very proud of the President’s handling of 9/11 and the ensuing combat in Afghanistan. Up to that point, loyalty and trust had been earned by the public.
And I'm completely convinced that we must maintain a very aggressive military and diplomatic foreign policy to cripple Al Qaeda and radical Islam even if that means killing every single terrorist barehanded and pissing off old Europe on a daily basis.
But just consider for a minute this man since the start of 2003: after all the lying, dissembling, evading over the past year with the war in Iraq, all the arrogance and narrow-mindedness and mistakes, all the terrible leadership (still no firings after the 9/11 and Iraq intelligence failures), all the ceaseless religious imagery and preaching, all the cuddling with Saudi Arabia, all the breaks and passes offered to superwealthy friends and business associates, the failure to devote proper resources to protecting American borders and preparing citizens for domestic terrorism threats, the outright failure to even attempt to win the war of ideas between the West and barbaric Middle East regimes.
Could John Kerry do worse than that? In other words, does George W. Bush actually deserve the chance to be president for 4 more years? Regardless of who I eventually vote for, I think the unequivocal answer is NO.
Very thought-provoking Salon article written by Linda Baker on the subject of overhauling traffic design. She argues (and provides proof from other nations) that less structure, and more chaos, would make our streets safer. It would force citizens to be more alert and aware of their surroundings, and it would restore a balance on the roads and sidewalks between cars and pedestrians. (Hint: The cars are currently winning)
It's counterintuitive, and awful radical a change in perspective considering how ingrained things like crosswalks and traffic signs are in U.S. culture, but there's a strange logic to the ideas. Think on it.
