January, 2011 archive
Bachmann History Spurner in Overdrive 2
Republicans must make stuff up about our history because the facts indict their beliefs and policies:
Via TPM.
Facebook Frolics 0
Oh, for the good old days, when teepeeing someone’s front yard was the be all and end all.
Actually, the most ambitious stunt I remember was when some of my classmates stole an outhouse–yes, some country folk still had outhouses back then–and left it in someone’s driveway. Never did find out whose privacy they spirited away.
“All those calls resulted in a police response,” Dalton said.
On Oct. 16, the teen called 911 and reported that a gunman had shot and slashed several people at the Telford Inn on Route 45. Some people were dead, he said, and others were injured. There was a “massive response” as authorities from more than five jurisdictions flooded the area, closing down the normally busy highway shortly after 4 p.m.
On Oct. 18, Harrison Township police learned about the Clearview threats on Facebook and turned to the prosecutor’s High-Tech Crime Unit for assistance.
The teen faces seven charges, including bias intimidation, disorderly conduct, and conspiracy.
Net Neutrality 0
Shaun Mullen lays out the issue as clearly as can be. A nugget:
Comcast, for its part, has twice been caught red handed trying to choke off peer-to-peer traffic. It backed off both times, but is now suing the FCC for the right to control the Internet tap as it sees fit. And lurking in the background is the aforementioned threat to innovation.
Cable companies, phone companies, and other providers of the internet connection pipelines are utilities and should be treated as such.
Their job–and charges–should begin and end with making sure the pipes are working. End of story.
Sideshow 0
Having Republicans and Democrats sit side-by-side to hear the state of the union address is one of the sillier sideshows in this very new Congress.
Joanna Weiss envisions non-Congressional side-by-sides at the Boston Globe (registration nag screen may appear). A nugget:
Prediction: Oprah breathes deeply, sobs openly, and proclaims that the speech has given her a deeper understanding of her essential self. Palin posts an anti-Obama diatribe on her Facebook page and tweets: “Collabination is for wimps.’’
Sark of the Day 0
John Kass in the Chicago Trib:
Rahm Emanuel as a poor innocent victim of ruthless insider Chicago politics?
’nuff said.
Twits on Twitter 0
Phil Sheridan is writing about a football game. His words have wider application:
I wonder about the “genius” part.
Twitter is the pet rock of communications technology.
Facebook is its Cabbage Patch Kid.
(All that guff about “Twitter Revolutions” says more about media’s masturbatory fascination with gadgets than it does about Real Life.)
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The question:
(Follow the link for examples of politeness.)
The belief that more guns equals less crime is a faith-based creed.
Facts cannot sway its believers, despite the evidence of things seen.
The Mean Streets of Wall 0
Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe considers some reasearch:
Those attitudes, researchers say, stem from the way money translates into power, and power into “moral disengagement.’’ A CEO sees his salary as a measure of his worth, and views his employees as relatively worthless.
“You end up basically thinking of those at the bottom as numbers,’’ said Sreedhari Desai, a Harvard research fellow who co-authored the study. “You feel somehow that they aren’t even worthy of the normal people that you’d meet. They’re disposable.’’
The article is worth one’s while.
And it does seem consistent with observed behavior, does it not?
Wicked Leaks 0
On the Media takes a look at government use of leaks and the effects of mendacious government leaks on persons’ lives. From the website:
Brooke takes us on a walk down bad memory lane when it comes to the media and inaccurate sources.
Follow the link above to listen or read the transcript or listen here (MP3):
A snippet:
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The stakes can even be higher than that. Yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes for centrifuges, hidden biological weapons labs in the Iraqi desert, all sanctioned leaks or official statements, all policy-driven, all wrong, formed the pretext for going to war. And it has been forever thus.
CLIP: PRESIDENT LYNDON JOHNSON: My fellow Americans, as President and Commander-in-Chief, it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.
[END CLIP]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Gulf of Tonkin – epically bad official information. It’s exactly like bad food, sometimes deliberately poisoned, sometimes spoiled by accident or happenstance. And it should be treated like food, with some knowledge of its provenance and nutritional value, consumed only after judicious prodding and a good long sniff, because you need it to live but the bad stuff can kill you.
I remember Johnson’s lie statement about the Gulf of Tonkin attack and I remember my teen-aged boy reaction:
The U. S. Marines will show them!
Well, the U. S. Marines and Army and Navy and Air Force did not show them, and in the process of not showing them hundreds of thousands of persons died and were maimed. Friends of mine were scarred irreparably.
I no longer believe that solutions invariably lie with the fist.
Nor do I believe that politicians are necessarily truthful, though some are more truthful than others.
What happened?
I grew up.
On the topic of the military, our national leadership on either side of the aisle still thinks like teen-aged boys.
Marvelling at the Return of Beyond the Palin Origins Issue 0
Few things illustrate the foundation of Sarah Palin’s compelling appeal to certain elements of the Republican Party better than the illustrations at this link.
Via Balloon Juice.
At the Beck and Called Out 1
When Glenn Beck’s radio show was canceled in Philly, Beck ranted that Philly was some kind of post-Apocalyptic hell hole out of Grand Theft Auto.
Philadelphia is a big city. It’s got good parts and not so good parts, like any other city. When I worked there, I walked all over the Center City and University City areas without difficulty.
John DeBella, a local Philly radio host, calls out Beck’s lies.
By the way, the Indepence Hall area is just around the corner from where the Philly chapter of Drinking Liberally met for a while when I was there. Because street parking in Philly can be a nightmare difficult, I commonly parked two to four blocks away. Never a problem. (DL has since moved to a location closer to City Hall where street parking is in your dreams–most of the attendees walk or take transit.)
Via Glomarization, who provides more background.
Joe Sets the Example 0
In Delaware, he’s just “Joe.”
Joe Biden, a former Delaware senator, arrived just before 9:30 a.m. and sat in the jury assembly room amid all the other prospective jurors, answering when his name was called during the roll.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia:
But what about firefighters?
They’d be exempt too under a bill proposed by Del. James E. Edmunds II, R-South Boston, and endorsed last week by a House subcommittee.
HB1527 also would apply to emergency medical technicians, rescue squad members and arson investigators.
Edmunds said the bill is “a small token of appreciation for those who serve.”
Jury duty can be a chore, but it is also fundamental to our legal system and a duty of citizenship. No one ever said that duties should be fun.
Our system of justice is admittedly imperfect, but it’s the only one we have. Exempting persons from jury duty as a “token of appreciation” devalues it and says something about Mr. Edmunds’s opinion of the jury system.
A Nation of Killjoys 0
Don’t use a knife to slice that tomato. You might cut yourself.
Sleeping alongside your pets can make you sick.
It’s rare, but it happens. That’s why good hygiene means keeping Fluffy and Spot next to the bed, not on it, two experts in animal-human disease transmission say in a forthcoming paper.
In other news, cats creep up to you while you are sleeping and breathe in your spirit, then transport it to Ulthar.
I Won’t Watch the State of the Union Address 0
I’ll read about it later. That’s what newspapers are for.
Andy Borowitz reports that Republicans are getting ready for it.
For seven grueling days, GOP congressmen have been behind closed doors, refining their best winces, grimaces, and other sourpuss mannerisms under the tutelage of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“Looking like you’ve just sucked on a lemon is harder than it seems,” said Mr. Boehner. “It doesn’t come naturally for everyone like it does for Mitch McConnell.”
Follow the link for the rest of the report.
Untouchables 1
In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Gordon Adams and Matthew Leatherman of the Stimson Center, a think tank named after Henry L. Stimson, attack five myths which make defense spending politically untouchable.
I do not agree with all of them, particularly their implication that soldiers and sailors might be overcompensated in both pay and health benefits, especially when the mercenary corps, led by such noble corporate citizens as Blackwater Xe (Oh! I forgot. Blackwater Xe’s founder is now a noble resident of Dubai) are so handsomely compensated.
Nevertheless, the untouchable nature of the defense budget needs examined. I suggest that the examination start with giving DoD back its historical name: Department of War.
A nugget from the article:
2. The larger the defense budget, the safer we are.
Excessive defense spending can make us less secure, not more. Countries feel threatened when rivals ramp up their defenses; this was true in the Cold War, and now it may happen with China. It’s how arms races are born. We spend more, inspiring competitors to do the same — without making anyone safer.
For example, Gates observed in May that no other country has a single ship comparable to our 11 aircraft carriers. Based on the perceived threat that this fleet poses, the Chinese are pursuing an anti-ship ballistic missile program. U.S. military officials have decried this “carrier-killer” effort, and in response we are diversifying our capabilities to strike China, including a new long-range bomber program, and modernizing our carrier fleet at a cost of about $10 billion per ship.
This country has remained secure in eras of declining defense budgets, such as the postwar period of the Eisenhower presidency and the early post-Cold War years. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton reduced active-duty forces by 700,000, Pentagon civilians by 300,000, defense procurement dollars by 53 percent and overall national defense spending by 28 percent — and we were still able to carry out one of the Pentagon’s top planning scenarios: occupying Iraq in 2003.
Gunplay Draw (as in Football) Play 0
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