Open thread

Off with Joe in the morning to buy him a Mac. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Assembly starts to crumble in Maryland

You can often count on the GOP to cut taxes, despite the financial circumstances, expensive wars and reckless spending on pet projects be damned. There's really no one to answer to since lately voters don't seem to be interested in the economics happening. Now that voters are upset with the shocking news of a 72% energy rate increases in Maryland and an election is just around the corner, Maryland GOP governor Ehrlich is struggling to hold his party together. Ehrlich and his thinning ranks of GOP supporters who are holding steady are much less sympathetic to higher payments by voters then they are to lower profits for the energy company.

Go figure...a Republican propping up higher profits for an energy company. The GOP wants to make the 2006 elections about local issues and it's an election for governor so Ehrlich is stuffed. He either flip flops and loses face with national GOP leaders (he has national ambitions) or he blatantly sides with Big Energy over the voters which is going to be a tough sale in the Democrat leaning state of Maryland. Read the rest of this post...

Hastert shows America how to make millions the old fashioned way

No, I'm not talking about Cheney's eBay story, but real money. America is truly the land of opportunity, especially when you buy large pieces of land and then play a key role in the federal taxpayer funding for the project that just happens to run nearby. OK, sure, land developers were involved and they are throwing out a few bones to help with cashing in on the next round of development but hey, who out there couldn't get such a deal? It's not like being Speaker of the House had anything to do with any of this. Just damned good luck and good ol' American hard work. What another proud moment for the GOP and Denny Hastert. Check out the timeline for this amazing stroke of luck and thank your lucky stars that America is such a great land of equal opportunity for all. Read the rest of this post...

NYT editorial calls Bush to task for Iraq happy faces

From the NYT:

No upbeat presidential trip to Baghdad or flag-waving Congressional resolution can long divert attention from the sorry reality. More than 130,000 American troops are now spending their fourth year mired in a dangerous and ill-defined mission with no realistic plan for success and no end in sight.

Read the rest of this post...

Tech lesson of the day: What is a slingbox and a slingplayer

I simply do not understand what they are and how they work and what they let you do. So please enlighten me, and all the rest of us who love our TVs, love technology, but are slightly clueless.

Thanks, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

US Embassy in Iraq says situation is getting worse

Oh well, time for them to look for a new job. I understand "body guard" and "IED detector" are quite in demand nowadays in Baghdad. Read the rest of this post...

11 more executed Iraqis found, 10 kidnapped

So how bullish is the administration now that their propaganda campaign is biting them in the ass? Sure, they sort of moved on from the "Mission Accomplished" and "Bring 'em on" bravado, but not by much. Their not so subtle PR campaign is receiving a not so subtle response. Read the rest of this post...

DC Catholic Cardinal McCarrick now trying to pretend he didn't just support gay civil unions

Sad. Pope Nazinger must have bashed the cardinal pretty bad over his comments. Read what the cardinal said last week. It's unequivocal. He supports civil unions for gays. This article is a bit old, but worth reading. Cardinal McCarrick's original comments are at the end of the article - read them, they are unequivocal. He supports civil unions. Read the rest of this post...

White House spokesman Tony Snow says media is wrong to care about kidnapped US soldiers in Iraq

You can take the boy out of Fox News, but you can't take the Fox News out of the boy. And let me say one more time, if you're a current or former US service member, or the family or friend of a US service member, once again take note. It's the Democrats and the liberals and the traditional media that are concerned about the well-being of US soldiers in Iraq. Whether it's body armor, kidnappings, having sufficient manpower, having a plan for success, it's the folks on the left and the traditional media who are always the one actually concerned about our troops. And it's the Republicans who don't give a damn.

Well, that's not totally true. The GOP does love a good photo op with US soldiers. Read the rest of this post...

Is long hair on guys "a black thing"?

This article, on first glance, strikes me as kind of stupid. If a business wants guys to have business length haircuts, whatever. But then again, it is possible that the business sees a lot of its black male applicants with long hair and has adopted the short-hair standard intentionally to screen out blacks. If so, then that's illegal. But if they simply are a public business, dealing with the public every day, is there something wrong with them wanting their employees to be clean cut?

Is long hair on guys "a black thing"? I'm serious. I didn't realize this would somehow disproportionately affect black men. Is this true? Read the rest of this post...

Sunday Morning Open Thread

My laptop died so I'm blogging from my TREO. On the advice of all my tech gurus -- John, Kyle and Rob -- I am taking the Mac plunge.

It's brutally hot in DC today....and I need some news. Read the rest of this post...

Should Blair be made an honorary Republican-American?

This guy is a wingnut suckup, extraordinaire. We all know the little lapdog can't get enough of Bush and has been an active participant in King George's madness, but now he is using those silly (not to mention outdated) honours to heap even more praise on friends of George and the GOP such as Tommy "Nothing to see at Tora Bora" Franks and Riley "Do you wanna buy a nuclear reactor" Bechtel. I can already see Blair doing TV adverts for the GOP in 2008. How, honourable. How, Republican. How, revolting.

Read the rest of this post...

ING loses personal data on DC workers

Lucky, lucky...only 13,000 people had their Social Security numbers stolen this time. ING is taking action to help those people (according to the article) but why is such private data once again being casually taken home, without any serious data protection? It is unfortunate that businesses and government can't be proactive with protecting personal data but with few exceptions, they just don't move until they are forced to do something. It may be late, but it is definitely time to start forcing them to protect this data. How can it be that Hillary is the only politician in DC who is seriously talking about this common problem? Read the rest of this post...

Ugh. Now Joe's computer is dead

And it's a Windows system, what a suprise :-) Well, I'm lobbying heavily for him to get a Mac laptop. Rob has one. Geek wonderboy Kyle has one. Markos and Jerome have 'em. Stoller has one. I sem to recall Josh Marshall got one too. It seems to be the computer of the liberal blogosphere, geeks that we all are. Tomorrow Joe is going to decide - he can still check the blog via his treo, feel free to give him lots of unsolicited advice :-) Read the rest of this post...