Every year we make predictions
Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 12:17:48 AM PDT
In my family, we have a tradition of making written predictions every Christmas. It started when my father used to write down in a little notebook his guess for when the spring peepers (frogs) would start making sounds from the ponds behind our house. Then it grew, and we'd sit around making predictions about family and about politics. One year we predicted my sister would have a boyfriend, and she did.
We lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, so even though our house was in a semi-rural part of what is now an absurdly overdeveloped concrete jungle, we subscribed to the Washington Post, and politics was huge. At Christmas 1973, when I was nine, we made predictions about what would happen to Nixon (nobody was right). The 1976 presidential elections were a big deal, and we made predictions for both the primaries and the general. In 1979, my dad correctly predicted Reagan's win, and we tried to make predictions for the decade of the 1980s. My grandfather even predicted his own death during that decade, but was wrong (he got it right the next time).
This year, my brother made a prediction that both of us want to see proved wrong.
Did Rudy get the letter from Rupert? (was it ever sent?)
Fri Nov 16, 2007 at 05:15:45 AM PDT
There's a little uncompleted work between good newsblogs.
On October 25, the NY Times blogger Jim Rutenberg reported that Fox News had sent a cease and desist letter to the McCain campaign, telling them not to use Fox News footage on the McCain campaign web site or advertisements. A day later, TPM's Greg Sargent followed up
with the story that the Fox News letter was sent only to the McCain campaign, despite Fox News footage plastered on the Romney and Guiliani web campaign sites. Just another day in the Rudy-Rupert lovefest.
But is this all just cover for Rudy? Did Fox even send a letter, or did they send it with a wink and a kiss?
Creationist "Dr. Dino" busted on 58 federal charges
Fri Jul 14, 2006 at 08:08:35 AM PDT
Kent Hovind is well known in evolution/creationism battles for (i) running a young earth creationism theme park in which dinosaurs and humans live together ('like the Flintstones?', as Tony Soprano asked) (ii) calling himself "Dr Dino" because he bought on a phony Ph.D. from a degree mill, and (iii) offering $250K to anyone who can prove (to his satisfaction) that evolution happened. Not surprisingly, the terms of his offer show such a basic misunderstanding of evolution that it's pointless.
If you are willing to risk wanting to tear your eyes out of their sockets, you can find a FAQ on him here.
Anyway, Hovind is going to need his money. He and his wife were just arrested on multiple federal charges, including tax evasion and making threats againt investigators. This is the latest, but perhaps most significant, chapter in a long running saga: Hovind has been battling the feds for almost two decades.
God rewards Kansas with enormous space-rock (with poll!)
Fri Nov 11, 2005 at 04:58:31 PM PDT
The Mysterious Intelligent Designer knows on which side his divine bread is obediently buttered. And it ain't Dover, PA. It's Kansas, of course. So naturally, said Designer delivered a trophy to the evolution-skeptics of Kansas: an
enormous rock carefully placed and oriented seven feet under ground.
Now I know some of you are scratching your heads, thinking "maybe it is just an oriented pallasite, a rare kind of meteorite that doesn't tumble as it falls to earth".
In fact, that's exactly what the MSM wants you to believe:
The meteorite is classified as an oriented pallasite, a type noted for a conical shape with crystals embedded in iron-nickel alloy. Only two larger ones of that type are known to have been found: a 3,100-pounder in Australia and a 1,500-pounder in Argentina.
But that's just your fucking naturalistic worldview religion talking. Did I mention oriented pallasites were rare? That's right! RARE. And it was found THIS WEEK! So just try to explain them without an Intelligent Designer. You can't! HA! ID triumphs!
</snark>
Cooney quits; time to rub their noses in it
Sun Jun 12, 2005 at 06:43:39 PM PDT
As covered in
The Guardian
Philip Cooney, who was chief of staff of the White House council on environmental quality, quit his job two days after a report released by a watchdog group, the government accountability project, showed he had deleted some paragraphs and edited others drafted by government scientists.
The White House said his departure was "completely unrelated" to last week's disclosure. "Mr Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration," said White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino. "He'd accumulated many weeks of leave, and decided to resign and take the summer off."
Mr Cooney, a lawyer with no science background, previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil firms.
A small victory eeked out over a weekend. But we need need to make sure this gets the coverage that it deserves as the tip of a melting iceberg of science policy manipulation
I suspect it won't get much coverage during the news week, but is a good basis for letter writing. Please god, let somebody do a good investigative followup in the MSM
Abramoff pays for Delay trips --- again (with poll)
Tue May 03, 2005 at 10:15:57 PM PDT
Today's New York Times
reports that Jack Abramoff paid directly for trips to the Marianas, in violation of House Rules.
The lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, submitted bills to his law firm for more than $350,000 in expenses for several trips to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in 1996 and 1997 on behalf of the congressmen, as well as several others including Edwin Buckham, Mr. DeLay's former chief of staff, and Tony Rudy, his former deputy chief of staff.
In letters and e-mail messages to the Marianas, Mr. Abramoff acknowledged that he had paid for the trips and asked the island government, which had hired him to lobby against proposed labor measures that would have affected the islands, to send him checks.
Terrorism update: "Last year was bad. This year is worse"
Wed Apr 27, 2005 at 02:37:45 AM PDT
So says Larry Johnson, former counterterrorism official at the State Department, of the statistics compiled but not released in this year's State Department report to Congress on international terrorist incidents.
What's an order of magnitude between friends?
According to today's Washington Post, the number of significant attacks worldwide grew from a record 175 in 2003 to about 655 in 2004. The number of significant attacks in Iraq grew from 22 to 198 over the same time period.
Next up Syria: More Bolton shit hits the fan
Tue Apr 26, 2005 at 12:06:22 AM PDT
Today's NY Times has more on yet another example of Bolton trying to misrepresent intelligence views to fit his policy agenda. This time it's
Syria
One newly declassified message, dated April 30, 2002, and sent by a senior State Department intelligence official, dismissed as "a stretch" language about a possible Syrian nuclear program that had been spelled out in a draft speech circulated by Mr. Bolton's aides for approval. In the speech itself, delivered five days later, Mr. Bolton made no reference to a Syrian nuclear program.
Until now, Senate Democrats leading the opposition to Mr. Bolton's nomination have focused mostly on a 2002 dispute related to Cuba, in which Mr. Bolton has acknowledged seeking the transfer of two intelligence officials with whom he had differed. But a top Democratic staff member on Monday described the clashes over Syria as "an example, perhaps the most serious one, not of Mr. Bolton's abusing people, but of trying to exaggerate the intelligence to fit his policy views."
Suicide is more than FOX News can handle
Thu Dec 23, 2004 at 08:57:37 PM PDT
When the US Military announced that the attack on mess hall troops in Mosul was likely a suicide bomb, FOX News
described it as a "homicide bomb". A Google News search indicated that FOX News was the only news site describing it in these terms, compared with the thousands accurately describing it as a suicide bomb.
But that was at least under their own byline.
Today the AP has a story entitled US: Mosul Bomber Wore Iraqi Uniform. FOX News carries the same story, under an Associated Press byline, with every reference to "suicide bomb[er]" changed to "homicide bomb[er]".
Don't they even bother to hide their tracks?
Dante says "GOTV" (Get up)
Sun Oct 31, 2004 at 07:22:24 AM PDT
My brother reminded me of this great passage from Inferno (Canto XXIV). Read it aloud, and GOTV!
"Now you must cast aside your laziness"
my master said, "for he who rests on down
or under covers cannot come to fame;
and he who spends his life without renown
leaves such a vestige of himself on earth
as smoke bequeaths to air or foam to water.
Therefore, get up; defeat your breathlessness
with spirit that can win all battles if
the body's heavines does not deter it.
A longer ladder is still to be climbed;
it's not enough to have left them behind;
if you have undertood, now profit from it"
Then I arose, and showed myself far better
equipped with breath than I had been before;
"Go on, for I am strong and confident"
Thus inspired, I'm off to New Hampshire
State Department removes terrorism map?
Mon Oct 25, 2004 at 05:26:21 PM PDT
In November 2001, the State Department published a map of nations where Al Queda had been known to operate. This map, I believe located here, has since been removed.
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/12.htm
This map had shown that according to the State Department's own analysis, Al Queda had not been known to operate in Iraq to that date. Countries on the list include Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and the United States.
Have I just lost the link, or is this part of the administration's revisionist history, along with purging the White House site of politically damaging audio and video clips?
FDA Commissioner vacant since February 2004
Tue Oct 19, 2004 at 07:40:13 AM PDT
In February 2004, Presdent Bush appointed Mark McClellan, then FDA Commissioner, to run Medicare. McClellan, brother to White House Press Puppeteer Scott McClellan, had earned a reputation for modernizing the FDA and streamlining the drug approval process. Whatever one thinks of McClellan's priorities at the FDA, he was clearly a strong leader, and gave the agency focus and direction it had been lacking.
Since February 2004, the FDA has been run by Lester Crawford in the role of acting director. Crawford's priorities in August 2004 give no indication of the coming flu vaccine shortage, and are in many regards a restatement of McClellan's priorities. The FDA has had other issues to deal with, from the withholding of data linking antidepressant use in adolescents to increased risk of suicide, to conflicts of interest of FDA and NIH researchers, to the withdrawal of Vioxx by Merck. Even without these issues, an acting Commissioner is in no position to provide leadership the FDA needs, and Bush has been in no rush to nominate a replacement for McClellan.
Did Cheney actually say...
Wed Oct 06, 2004 at 05:20:32 AM PDT
...that Edwards was overstating the US share of the war burden by not counting deaths of Iraqi soldiers as part of the coalition? Geez, what a tool. Go to
CNN casualty figures or even Fox News. They all report similar figures for coalition fatalities, and don't include Iraqi soldiers.
Where do Fox News, CNN, and others get their casualty figures? The US DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, that's where. Dick Cheney might be have heard of that organization, having run it.
Now, suppose this is really what Cheney wants. Suppose he really wants to count every Iraqi military death alongside coalition deaths. Thats easy. The White House should get on the horn to DoD and say, "Hey, Rummy, you are massively understating coalition casualty figures. It's not 1066 US soldiers out of 1202 coalition soldiers who have died, the total is over 2000! Raise the damn body count so it looks like the US isn't shouldering so much of the relative burden".
Let's see it. Dick.
That $87B line
Tue Sep 28, 2004 at 05:06:04 PM PDT
Goddammit, it pisses me off that the press crucified Kerry for that line. I know it's his poor choice of words, etc, but jesus. Virtually every republican senator voted against the $87B before voting for it, and Bush threatened to veto it before he promised to sign it.
Every time the $87B comes up in conversation I ask, "why were there two votes?" Then I stand back and watch as the light bulb switches on. It works every time.
I wish Kerry would address this straight on. I want him to point out the obvious facts above, and drive it home. President Bush threatened to veto body armor for our troops if our richest citizens were asked to pay for it. President Bush threatened to veto troop funding unless the costs to support today's servicemen and women were paid by their own children, with interest. The republican congress, of course, dropped behind him in lockstep, and voted against the troops.
If bringing a country to war is anything, it is about shared sacrifice. LexisNexis would say for sure, but I would bet the words "shared sacrifice" have never crossed Bush's lips since he decided to invade Iraq. We all know what Bush thinks of foreign nations. Bush is a xenophobe, but the real foreigner in Bush's world is the idea of shared sacrifice.
This president is willing to ask our brave young working men and women die for his personal crusade, but unwilling to ask the richest few on the richest country of the planet to cut back on their canapes to help.
