Open thread

Cold and rainy in Chicago. I want snow. Read the rest of this post...

The Wall Street Journal complains that blogs are too partisan

Seriously. And even funnier, they "prove" their point by attacking conservative blogs, in detail, but not liberal blogs (sure, they complain about both, both only provide details about conservative blog excesses):

Because political blogs are predictable, they are excruciatingly boring. More acutely, they promote intellectual disingenuousness, with every constituency hostage to its assumptions and the party line. Thus the right-leaning blogs exhaustively pursue second-order distractions--John Kerry always providing useful material--while leaving underexamined more fundamental issues, say, Iraq. Conservatives have long taken it as self-evident that the press unfavorably distorts the war, which may be the case; but today that country is a vastation, and the unified field theory of media bias has not been altered one jot.

Yes, because the Wall Street Journal's positions are never predictable. Actually, he raises a fair point for discussion. But not about blogs. Rather, about every partisan media - and that includes FOX, the WSJ, and blogs. All have a partisan political agenda, unlike the real media, such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, or ABC/NBC/CBS. They are real news people - whether they do their job well is another matter. But they do not exist to push a partisan agenda, which is why conservative hate them so - independent arbiters of fact are dangerous to small minds.

In any case, yeah, there's always room to question whether you're simply preaching to the choir. Whether you're helping find the truth when you have a political agenda behind your words. But I'll still put my writing and thinking above FOX News's - or the Wall Street Journal editorial page's - any day. Read the rest of this post...

Civil Unions law signed in NJ

Governor Corzine signed the law today. Civil unions will be the law of the land in the Garden State starting February 19, 2007. That is, civil unions will be the law of the land til full marriage rights are established.

Civil unions are a step in the right direction. But, check out Blue Jersey's Think Equal campaign and you'll understand why it isn't enough. Read the rest of this post...

Two gay men attacked for holding hands

Federal hates crimes law already covers race, religion and national origin. It does not cover gender, disability or sexual orientation. It should cover everyone. Whether or not you agree about the need for, or wisdom of, hate crimes law, if we're going to have a law on the books - and we already do (and ironically, the existing federal hate crimes law already covers Christian conservatives, the very people who most object to adding anyone else to it) - then the law ought to cover everyone. More from the Arizona Republic. Read the rest of this post...

Gay-loving gay-hating Mormon Evangelical Christian pro-stem cell research anti- stem cell research Mitt Romney is confusing folks

Actually, Mitt Romney is only confusing the uneducated, easily-led masses of the religious right. They're so desperate to be loved, they're willing to accept any hypocritical, lying panderer as their next savior. Even a gay-loving, stem-cell praising, non-Christian who hopes no one has a memory longer than two years. More from the Washington Post. Read the rest of this post...

Bush no longer says Iraq war needs will be dictated by commanders on the ground

Okay, that's four years of lies thrown out the window.

Every time Bush has been criticized for his poor handling of the Iraq war - from the number of initial troops sent in, to the their body armor and plan for victory (or lack thereof) - Bush always replied that he was listening to the commanders on the ground and doing whatever they wanted. Now, not so much.

From the Washington Post:

The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified yesterday as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers.

So now, rather than listening to the military experts, Bush will conduct the war based on the grand powers of his own intellect.

What does John McCain think about this? What do the Republicans think about this? This is their party, this is their leader. What are they going to do about the fact that he's out of his mind? Read the rest of this post...

Brownback continues obession with gays -- heads up to any GOPer who is nice to the pregnant Mary Cheney

Sam Brownback wants to be the leading gay basher in the Republican party. He's got a lot of competition. This year, he's been harassing a federal judge nominee who attended a same-sex commitment ceremony in 2002:

Sen. Sam Brownback, who wants to champion social conservatives in the presidential race, said Tuesday he wants a Senate panel to re-question a judicial nominee who attended a same-sex union ceremony.

Brownback, a Kansas Republican, said he wants Michigan state judge Janet Neff to testify about her role in the 2002 Massachusetts ceremony, her legal views on same-sex unions and her ability to be impartial if called upon to rule on such cases.

This is what Brownback thinks it takes to lead the Republican party. His inquisition should serve as a notice to any Republican who sends a baby gift or goes to a baby shower for Mary Cheney. Sam Brownback is watching you. If he can make a big deal out of a low-key private commitment ceremony, imagine what he can do with a very high profile lesbian birth. Don't apply for any federal jobs if you are honoring that baby's birth. Brownback will make vilify you. His gay obsession is peculiar to say the least. But, this is what happens when the haters run the party. That's what Mary Cheney worked so hard for. Read the rest of this post...

More proof that the Senate Democratic majority really matters

Bob Geiger, who probably knows more about the Senate than most Senators, has a great analysis of the GOP's Senate only "success" this past session - killing Democratic initiatives:

Of all the nauseating tactics used by the Republican party in the 2006, midterm election campaign, one of the more galling was their continued insistence that Democrats had "no plan" for national security. To provide cover for that bogus claim, the Senate's GOP leadership made damn sure that, on September 13, 2006, they killed 528 pages of a national-security blueprint, proposed by Democrats, called the Real Security Act of 2006 -- and then went around for the next six weeks saying the Democrats had no plan.

That legislation, dumped on an almost-straight party line vote, was one of many Democratic-sponsored measures to die in the Republican-controlled Senate in 2006 and part of a whopping three-quarters of Democratic initiatives squashed over the two years of the 109th Congress.

An analysis of all Senate roll call votes in 2006, shows that, true to the form they established the previous year, the GOP killed most legislation proposed by Senate Democrats. In all, Democrats were able to scrape together a handful of Republican votes to pass just 28 pieces of legislation in all of 2006.

Didn't matter how vital the legislation was. The GOP killed it. Geiger provides a list of some of the bills that Frist and company deemed necessary to destroy. They were an especially vindictive bunch. Every time the choice was politics over sound policy, politics won. But, in the end, they lost the Senate.

It's a whole new world on Capitol Hill. Imagine a Congress that actually passes legislation that is in the nation's best interest. What a concept. Read the rest of this post...

Libyan death sentence: a litmus test?

There are occasionally hyperventilating warnings against a supposedly emerging "isolationism" on the left. Now, the fact is the true isolationists are on the right (see: Buchanan, Pat), and also, as Jim Henley astutely observes, when used as an accusation, it's often true that "'isolationism' means a reluctance to travel a long distance to kill foreigners at great expense. I say, let's have some of that."

The vast majority of Americans, of both parties, support(ed) our military effort in Afghanistan, which means the vast majority of Americans are internationalist and, at least at times, interventionist. Taking an extraordinarily foolish war and making it a litmus test for general foreign policy orientation is stoopid.

Which brings me to an example that is both interesting and provocative.

This week, a Libyan court again sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to be shot by firing squad for deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV. Quick background: in 1998, children began testing positive for HIV in a major hospital in Libya's second-largest city, sparking a health crisis. An investigation found the infections occurred in an area where many Bulgarian nurses were assigned, and Libyan dictator Qaddafi accused health care workers of acting on the orders of the CIA and Israel's Mossad. So far, so ridiculous.

A Libyan court eventually convicted the six health professionals of intentionally infecting the children, despite extensive testimony that that the virus predated the nurses' arrival and was likely spread through the use of contaminated needles. Several appeals and retrials later, and after seven years (seven years! having done no wrong!) of imprisonment, they are still sentenced to death, with four-way negotiations between Libya, Bulgaria, the EU, and the U.S. having stalled. Two of the five nurses have said they were tortured into confessing. More detailed information on the case is here.

So, what can/should the U.S. do? This is clearly an example of one country, which is not an ally in any sense of the word, abusing people from another nation (as opposed to internal civil conflict or abuses, which tends to complicate things). Bulgaria is a NATO ally, and the egregious mistreatment of humanitarian workers offends American and Western ideals of due process, presumption of innocence until guilt is proven, and sovereignty. When we talk about legitimate and beneficial interventions, with limited scope and clear goals, isn't this the kind of thing many of us mean?

I would not at all be opposed to a rescue operation to extract these workers from Libya. A NATO special military operation to rescue six wrongfully imprisoned workers, condemned to death by a reactionary population fueled by a dictatorial leader, would, to me, be an appropriate use of force. If agreed to by NATO-member nations (and I should note that UN disapproval would not be a deal-breaker for me) and planned and executed in a way that effected minimal civilian casualties, I think I would support such an action.

I'm not saying NATO (or the U.S.) should go traipsing around the world in search of wrongs to right, or that something like this would be a binding precedent for future action. Nor do I take lightly the effect of violating sovereignty in such a manner, or of antagonizing a nation over humanitarian concerns. But it seems like taking action in this case, at this time, would be judicious. Am I wrong? Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

So much for the campaign by Bush and the theocrats for sexual abstinence. A new study found 9 out of 10 Americans engaged in premarital sex. Those numbers probably hold true for the Bush family and the White House staff, too. So, we're at war, but the Bush administration has spent a lot of time and money fighting sex. Go figure. They're losing the sex war, too.

Start it up. Read the rest of this post...

Did Bush miss even more opportunities to take out bin Laden?

A new documentary is making the claim that French-NATO troops had him located two times but were not given approval for an attack. Why does this administration miss every possible opportunity to stop terrorist leaders who kill Americans? Why does Bush hate Americans?

The filmed report, by journalists Eric de Lavarene and Emmanuel Razavi, asserts that the French troops had bin Laden in their rifle scopes in 2003 and then again six months later in 2004.

Four French soldiers assigned to a 200-strong special forces unit in Afghanistan under US military control all confirmed -- "at different times and in different places" -- that they could have killed bin Laden but that the order to shoot was not forthcoming, the report claims.

Tora Bora was bad enough but two more chances? Read the rest of this post...

Climate change - bears in Spain not hibernating

Until entire cities are under water, some people just won't get it.

The FOP is financed by Spain's Environment Ministry and the autonomous regions of Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia and Castilla-Leon, where the bears roam in search of mates. Indications of winter bear activity have been detected for some time, but only in the past three years have such signs been observed "with absolute certainty", according to the scientists.

"Mother bears with cubs make the effort to seek out nuts and berries if these have been plentiful, and snow is scarce," Mr Palomero said, adding that even for those bears - mostly mature males - who do close down for the winter, "their hibernation period gets shorter every year".

The behaviour change suggests that global warming is responsible for this revolution in ursine behaviour, says Juan Carlos Garci­a Cordon, a professor of geography at Santander's Cantabria University, and a climatology specialist.

"Meteorological data in the high mountains is scarce, but it seems that the warming is more noticeable in the valleys where cold air accumulates," Dr Garci­a Cordon said. "There is a decline in snowfall, and in the time snow remains on the ground, which makes access to food easier. As autumn comes later, and spring comes earlier, bears have an extra month to forage for food.

"We cannot prove that non-hibernation is caused by global warming, but everything points in that direction."

Anyone who looks around the world and connects all of the pieces will be hard pressed to miss all of the warning signs. Read the rest of this post...

Tell FOX News to stop the war on Christmas

For the love of God, why does FOX News hate the baby Jesus? Reader Melanie just sent me the following:

ON FOXNEWS.COM RIGHT NOW:

FOX NEWS: HELPING OUT THIS HOLIDAY SEASON By E.D. Hill

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY SURVIVAL STRATEGIES: TIPS FOR SUCCESS:

FOX NEWS: AVOIDING HOLIDAY HANGOVERS

FOX NEWS: REALLY LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY GIFT IDEAS AND STOCKING STUFFERS

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY SALES TO INCREASE 5%

FOX NEWS: HELPING SANTA - We were able to help a good deal of people who were looking for hard to find HOLIDAY gifts

FOX NEWS: MIRACLE DIET PILL TO DROP THOSE DREADED HOLIDAY POUNDS!

FOX NEWS: GIFT TIPS: Tips to keep yourself and your belongings secure while making HOLIDAY PURCHASES (video, lower right)

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

FOX NEWS: INSURING HOLIDAY GIFTS MEANS PEACE OF MIND

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY PARTIES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUN...BUT BEHAVE YOURSELF

FOX NEWS: PLAYBOY 'GIRL NEXT DOOR' KNOWS WHAT WOMEN WANT FOR THE HOLIDAYS

FOX NEWS: GIFTS FOR MEN - The guy's guy is back, so invest your money in macho and make this HOLIDAY SEASON the season of the man (video, half way down)

FOX NEWS: HANDLING THE HOLIDAYS (video, lower right)

FOX NEWS: HAPPY HOLIDAY RECIPES

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY TROOP SHOUT OUTS!

FOX NEWS: HOLIDAY BEAUTY (video, lower right)

FOX NEWS: HANDLING THE HOLIDAYS
Don't let the holidays stress you out! Expert tips and survival strategies.

..and a link on many of the Fox News webpages:

• CLICK HERE FOR FOXNEWS.COM'S HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE: example

No one could have ever predicted that FOX was run by a bunch of lying hypocrites. Read the rest of this post...