We Won't Let It Go Dark

CP can't stand to see the Power Liberal go dark. We won't stand for it. In the Power Liberal meantime, we kindly ask that you put up with our crap. Here's a post we were saving for CP. We humbly offer it up for the Powers...

It is getting close. On October 18th, CP's All-Time Favorite Band, the Silver Jews, will release their brand spanking new CD, Tanglewood Numbers. We here at CP have already pre-ordered our copy from the Fetus. We have also managed to come across an advance copy of the album. It. Is. Amazing.

We will hold off on an official review until the release date, but we would like to leave you with a small sampling of Mr. Berman's outstanding lyricism. This snippet is from a song about settling down called "How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down"

Fast cars, fine ass
These things will pass
It won't get more profound

Time is a game
Only children play well
How can I love you
If you won't lie down

Berman keeps the humor rolling with another song called "I'm Getting Back Into Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You". You can listen to it here. Here are some of the (once again) outstanding lyrics:

I guess over time we became dust
I never seemed to see you much
Then the world turned, pride got away
We fell out of touch

I've been working at the airport bar
It's like Christmas in a submarine
Wings over Indy on a winter's night
I guess you wouldn't call it a scene

Now my ex-wife's living in the suburbs
With her guru and her mom
Now she finds her consolation
In the stardust of a bond

You can call it a spin-off
Call it a knock-off
Title it part two
But I'm getting back into getting back into getting back into you

We should mention that Mr. Berman has walked back from the edge to make this album. He spent the last 4 years on the rebound from a Xanax/Crack suicide attempt (some of which was spent in Minnesota at Hazelden.) The whole album is about getting back on the horse and trying again.

Go reserve your copy...right now.

You should also keep tuning into Power Liberal. We won't let it go dark.

It's the end of the blog as we know it

but I feel fine....

Going dark for a while. Cable cuts off in a few hours, and will be reinstalled sometime Wednesday (hopefully).

MNObserver may stop in and drop off a word here and there, otherwise, the power is out for the Power Liberals.

For those looking, we will definately be at Lyle's on Wednesday, but no emails will be going out as a reminder.

Y'all are on your own. Be good.

The Power House

If you need us, this is where we'll be all day...


Living Room  

Kitchen 

Backyard 

and of course

Packing 

The Re-Education of Karen Hughes

Ms. Hughes is learning quite a bit on her trip.

Tuesday:

The audience - 500 women covered in black at a Saudi university - seemed an ideal place for Karen Hughes, a senior Bush administration official charged with spreading the American message in the Muslim world, to make her pitch.

But the response on Tuesday was not what she and her aides expected. When Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her.

"The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn't happy," one audience member said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The roomful of students, faculty and some professionals resounded with applause.
...
Hughes, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, is on her first Middle East trip. She seemed clearly taken aback as the women told her that just because they were not allowed to vote or drive that did not mean they were treated unfairly or imprisoned in their own homes.

"We're not in any way barred from talking to the other sex," said Dr. Nada Jambi, a public health professor. "It's not an absolute wall."

The session at Dar Al-Hekma College provided an unusual departure from the carefully staged events in a tour that began on Sunday in Egypt.

As it was ending Hughes, a longtime communications aide to President Bush, assured the women that she was impressed with what they had said and would take their message home.

Wednesday:

A group of Turkish female activists confronted Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes on Wednesday with emotional and heated complaints about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, turning a session designed to highlight the empowerment of women into a raw display of anger at U.S. policy in the region.

"This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.
...
Hughes, who became increasingly subdued during the session, defended the decision to invade Iraq as a difficult and wrenching moment for Bush but necessary to protect the United States.

"You're concerned about war, and no one likes war," she said. But "to preserve the peace, sometimes my country believes war is necessary." She also asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

"War is not necessary for peace," shot back Feray Salman, a human rights advocate. She said countries should not try to impose democracy through war, adding that "we can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another."

Tuksal said she was "feeling myself insulted here" by Hughes' response. "In every photograph that comes from Iraq there is that look of fear in the eyes of women and children."

So, where are we going today?

Nightcap Recap

Good Drinking Liberally tonight, with a large group of newcomers. A few people from vista, a a highly involved local politico, and a Centerist (See, Flash, you're not the only one.).

Tonight we prepare. Tomorrow we close. And, if not too tuckered, maybe make Keegans.

DeLay Indicted!

Couldn't happen to a nicer bugman.

Shall we create a "indicted pool" at DL tonight? Who's next? Frist? Rove? Libby? Cheney? The most corrupt administration of the last hundred-odd years certainly doesn't lack for entrants. And does impeachment count as an indictment? We need rules, man!

UPDATE: I don't read NRO's The Corner often enough. That place is a laugh-a-minute. For example, this:

AUSTIN, A DEFENSE [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Your emailer anticipates a Delay conviction on the grounds that the "Austin jury pool will be made up of the most wacked-out liberals in all of Texas." While Austin has more than its share of this ilk, they are a minority (albeit a very loud and visible one).

I learned this first hand as a conservative campus activist at the University of Texas in the early 1990's. A local Baptist minister had managed to place a proposition on the ballot to repeal the domestic partner benefits which had just been granted to Austin city employees.

[story snipped for brevity]

In the end, Austin voted 2 to 1 against domestic partner benefits.

Austin's takedown of the gay lobby Goliath was Bill Schneider's political "play of the week" on CNN's Inside Politics. The lesson according to Schneider had something to do with how political arguments are framed. The lesson I learned was that Austin was not nearly so liberal as many of us had believed it to be.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the risible idea of a "gay lobby Goliath" I wonder if this emailer (or Goldberg, for that matter) stopped for a moment and actually read what that message said. To paraphrase: People are claiming Austin is a bunch of hippies and that is why DeLay was indicted, but I'm here to tell you that it's actually mostly conservatives...which means DeLay was indicted on the evidence and not some kind of partisan grudge, right? So this actually makes DeLay look worse.

You want something even funnier? Go down a couple of more posts to where they rip into that hotbed of liberalism: Country Music Television.

Being Zarqawi's deputy is like being a drummer for Spinal Tap

That quote shamelessly stolen from the first comment here. Seriously, it might not be "body counts", but that doesn't mean the good news isn't ridiculously inflated.

Link found via Blog of the Moderate Left. (I feel like I owe Jeff a beer for all the great stuff going on over there in the last week.)

Yes, Please

An open letter to all Republican State Congress Persons:

Please please please call a special session expressly to ram down our throats a couple of sports stadiums and Bachmann's anti-marriage amendment.

I would love to hear the justifications for that.

While you're at it can somebody explain to me why it is that the State took over education funding years ago, yet all the school districts have to raise their local property tax levies to keep their schools open?

A New Frontier in Victimization

Find something that has nothing whatsoever to do with you, not to mention going on half-way across the country, and still make the claim that you are somehow also affected.

It always amuses me when I hear right-wingers claim that Democrats revel in a culture of "victim hood". At least we have actual, you know, grievances. As opposed to made up ones.

Not that this kind of made up grievance is anything new to the Right. Anybody remember those really bizare "they can't steal the election if it's not close" arguments from '04? You know, the ones where they acted like we were the party that rigs elections (or has the Supreme Court do it for us). Hey, I guess it worked then. Why not now?

Drinking Liberally Tomight

Get your drink on at Lyle's, 2021 Hennepin Ave South

6-9 pm

I'm hoping to be on time, but it's my last day of work for a long time, so there may be some issues.

Smartie will be there from the begining, for sure.

Shall we play Find the Brownie?

Free beer to the winner. Yep, even your Two Hearted, Wege.

Push Polling in St. Paul?

Via the First Ringer:

"Chris Coleman's record reveals a flip-flop approach to the issue of taxes. On the other hand, he proudly says that he helped balance the city's budget without raising the city's levy. On the other hand, he also states that he advocated increasing the levy. Does that give you any doubts?"

"While Chris Coleman says it is better to use public, big tax subsidies for companies that pay living wages such as Lawson Software, he also has defended deals that do not pay high wages. Do you say no real doubts on that one, too?"

I'll admit, I'm pretty naive on local election issues, so I don't feel too embarrassed to ask, is this normal? Do mayoral elections often involve such tactics? I don't ever recalling hearing about these kind of dirty tricks on anything less than a state level before. Is this the brave new world of American politics, or is it the influence of "Rove's people" that we keep hearing about? Anyone? MNObserver? Anyone?

Also, I find the end of Ringer's post interesting:

If the Kelly campaign or its allies wish to gain ground for the Irish Terrier, then why not go after Coleman's tax plans for St. Paul which have been about as visible as Harvey the Rabbit. St. Paul property taxpayers could get hit with anywhere between a 12% to 24% increase between all the various taxing authorities with jurisdiction in St. Paul.

I don't know if it was his intention or not, but the first time I read that I thought he meant that under Coleman's plan taxes would go up 12-24% and he wanted a justification for that increase. Instead, it's under Kelly that taxes are going up that much. Point being, Kelly saying, "Sure I've raised your taxes 20%, but who knows how much Coleman will raise them," doesn't seem like the best line of attack.

Update: Great minds thinking alike? MNObserver posted on this very same topic over at The All Seeing Eye at almost the same time I posted this.

In Case Anyone had Any Doubts

I am totally a bitchy little girl with a chip on my shoulder...

and proud of it!

(Tild, will you make me a t-shirt?)

Now That's Scary

North Star Politics points to a story I missed this morning that sends little shivers up my spine reading it.

President Bush wants to expand the Army's ability to operate on domestic soil. You don't have to be much of a conspiracy theorist to see why that's a bad idea. Despite what he says, the Posse Comitatus Act doesn't prevent the Army from operating in limited disaster relief roles or to fight an enemy on our soil-it exists to prevent the imposition of martial law or the creation of a presidential "Praetorian Guard".

Why on Earth would he want to change that? This is either a ham-fisted power grab or (more likely) yet another bungled attempt to appear to be "doing something" about the disastrous response to Katrina (or maybe both).

You want to "do something" about inept disaster response? How about doing something to ensure that the National Guard is available for disaster relief? I think you have that in your power, Mr. President.

Morning Geek Content (read at your own risk)

Microsoft & Intel support HD DVD technology over Blu-Ray

SAN JOSE, CALIF. -- Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., the leading suppliers of chips and software for most of the world's personal computers, are throwing their support behind the next-generation DVD standard known as HD DVD.

After taking a neutral stance for months in the battle between the competing HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats, the companies said Tuesday that they have joined the HD DVD Promotion Group that includes Toshiba Corp., Universal Studios and others.

Unfortunately, of course, Blu-ray is the superior technology. So why would Microsoft decide to back HD?

The decision by Microsoft and Intel pits the two largest makers of equipment for PCs against many of the companies that build and sell computers. Blu-ray's backers include Sony, Apple Computer, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

Ah. All the Mac fanatics out there probably think that Apple's backing had something to do with this decision. Get over yourselves. The real enemy in that lineup is Sony. It's pretty firmly established that the Playstation 3 will come equipped with a Blu-ray DVD drive. Microsoft, by backing the opposition, is hoping to diminish the value of the PS3 by scuttling Sony's favored format. So really this whole move was done to try to pump the Xbox. But did you note the other Blu-ray backers in that list? HP & Dell. The two biggest sellers of Windows based PCs. Is Microsoft really so determined to corner the console market that they would risk hostilities with their biggest distributors? Is this a monumental cutting off of the face to help the nose?

And how the heck did they convince Intel to go along with this? Even more than Microsoft, Intel has a lot to potentially lose on this deal. AMD is emerging as a serious competitor in the CPU market. If Intel antagonizes Dell and HP into pushing AMD cores in their CPUs it could have a very noticeable effect on Intel's bottom line. Did Microsoft have pictures of Intel with Sun's wife or something?

I've maintained ever since the Xbox came out that Microsoft was overreaching. They were moving so far from their core competencies that they were going to kill themselves through a thousand little missteps. I think that prophecy is largely coming true. Firefox and other alt browsers are eating up much of IE's market share. Longhorn is legendary for development problems and delays. Microsoft has to force users off of older Windows OS versions because there is no compelling innovation driving them to upgrade. I have to look at this backing of the inferior HD technology as evidence of another misstep in the making. How long before someone in Redmond wakes up to what is going on here?

The "C" stands for Catfight

My favorite ladies turn a beautiful bunch of phrases:

Lately, there's been a rash of female balderdash coming from women who sound like they're thinking with their ovaries. And for post-menopausal women, that's especially fruitless. What else can we conclude when every other sentence is peppered with "concern" for "reproductive rights"? Enough already.

Were this article published by a man, this would be the most sexist piece of drivel ever. Oh, wait...still is...

Nothing here is intended as a personal attack.

You know, except for all of the personal attacks.

Be sure to check out the whole article, especially to hear about O'Conner's "bright-line count-the-reindeer-Santa-Claus-candy-cane rule."

Jealousy, Thy Name is Powerliberal

I'm sad. Spotty has the best troll fan ever.

Mr. Thul, call me!

Sigh

Supreme Court May Hear Abortion Case

The case comes to the Supreme Court from Nebraska, where the federal law was challenged on behalf of physicians. Doctors who perform the procedure contend it is the safest method of abortion when the mother's health is threatened by heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer.

Until they can write a partial birth abortion ban that exempts women's health, is there any reason for us not to feel like this is a battle where women's lives are unimportant?

Something a little different

This morning I'm in the process of making banana bread in an attempt to get rid of a few odds and ends.

Original recipe here. Adaptation as such:

Ingredients:
2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
2/3rds of 1/2 cup of apple sauce (I don't have any butter, and I don't do math well enough to figure the real measurement, but I took the 1/2 cup and filled it up 2/3 and considered it good)
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
3 med. ripe bananas
a few shakes of both nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice

Directions:
Cream butter or margarine & sugar together, add eggs, one at a time beating well after each. Add mashed banana & blend, Sift dry ingredients together & stir in gradually. When well mixed, add nuts. Pour into well oiled 5 x 9 x 3 loaf pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

I'm more of a dumper than a stir in gradually, but I mix a lot longer so I think it works out.

I'll let you know if it's at all tasty. The smell is good, though.

Edited to add: No, I did not try adding Yellow Jello....

Yellow Jello

I'm just wild about Tild....



Sorry about the non-posting thing, my bloggers been uncooperative.

Yes, Nanny

MNPolitics Guru reminds me of something that irked me in the paper on Friday:

Dave "Smokeout" Thune Wants St. Paul bars to close at 1:00 again.

Like the Guru, I find most liquor regulations ridiculous. I can't believe, for example, that ultra-liberal Minnesota still has a no-liquor-on-Sunday blue law on its books. What year is this? Anyway, Thune's proposal would essentially roll back the 2:00am closing time for all bars in St. Paul other than a handful downtown. (Anyone who has been to downtown St. Paul at 2:00 AM would probably be surprised to hear that the bars are open that late now.) But what really got me wasn't so much the boneheaded proposal itself...it was this little gem:

"I've never been a fan of extending the liquor hours," he added. "It just consolidates the problem drinkers. There's no need to be out between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. unless you've got a real problem."

Wow. My social better has spoken. If I'm out past 1 a.m. I have a problem. Thanks, Dave. It's guys like you that give liberals a bad name.

To any non-liberals who happen to be reading this blog: we're not all like this. Really, we're not. Some of us don't think we have the right to control your lives or the slightest desire to do so. In fact, some of us became liberals precisely because we didn't want other people controlling our lives and we don't condone these forays into social engineering. Plus, we like our booze.

Of Blowholes & Blowback

Via the Observer Online, quite possibly the strangest story to come out of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy:

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

by Mark Townsend Houston
Sunday September 25, 2005
The Observer

It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Dolphins have been trained in attack-and-kill missions since the Cold War. The US Atlantic bottlenose dolphins have apparently been taught to shoot terrorists attacking military vessels. Their coastal compound was breached during the storm, sweeping them out to sea. But those who have studied the controversial use of dolphins in the US defence programme claim it is vital they are caught quickly.

The story sounds like a joke, and maybe it is (towards the end of the article they admit that the evidence for this is largely speculative) but it's entertaining none the less.

Morning Notes

[groan]

You finally turn in a half-way decent performance and then promptly turn around and get arrested hours later. Nice.

Pat Reusse, still a waste of column inches? Check.

Why does the liberal media create false headlines? Tens of thousands join in one voice: Get out of Iraq "Tens of thousands"? The article clearly states that there were more than one hundred thousand protesters. Why doesn't the MSM ever properly report the "good news" out of our nation's capital?

More later.

Wow

I followed this link from the Wege today, and this bit was a shocker:

Inflation is one reason Hill expects gold to hit $500 an ounce in coming months.

$500 an ounce? I haven't even checked for a very long time, so I went to a former favorite of mine, and saw the bid/ask closed at over 463.

So I'll share with you a little story you would probably never expect to hear form the likes of me.

Once upon a time (almost two years ago, to be exact), I did a brief stint of freelance work getting media interviews for a precious metals broker. It didn't work out for a variety of reasons (one of which was that he couldn't pay me until "the Lord gave him His blessings," which is a vague form of payroll I grew tired of quickly). But at the time I began, which was December of 2003, gold was hovering at about $400, and the idea of it ever making it to $425 had them salivating over the improbable possibility.

Going up $65 dollars an ounce in less than 2 years is amazing to me, especially since at that time they said the $400 dollar mark would be unsustainable.

I guess my old boss would say his blessings from the Lord finally came in.

Even if we don't get the touchdown, they're looking much better

I would pick this game to give my ticket to someone else...

Sigh.

Maybe for the good of the Vikings I should give all my home games away.

Many days late, 15 dollars short

By a random bit of searching off a random referrer, I just realized that we crazy lefties lost a challenge:

MOB 1 Local Lefties 0

Take this Moonbats.

Amount: $200.00 USD
Shipping & Handling: $0.00 USD
Item Title: Operation Katrina Soldiers' Relief Fund
Quantity: 1
Total Amount: $200.00 USD

OK, I forgot to ask around, but after Mitch said that they'd done that in the Spring, I realized my bleg fell on deaf ears.

But I did get one guy at the end to cough up some $, and the 2 of us together we beat the moonbats. Thanks Ecker

Kudos on the raising, Triple A and Kevin, even if you had to pay for it all yourself... :-p

My soydiesel feels properly kicked.

Possibly my most unpopular post ever

Today we went to see PZ speak at the Minnesota Atheist's society meeting. He was fantastic, and I managed to follow most of what he was saying, which is pretty good for me, since my ability to understand science pretty much stopped at my high school physics class teacher's explanation of how cosmically nothing ever really touches. My mother the math teacher desperately wanted me to be an astronaut when I grew up. Instead, I got a C in college biology.

My problem was that I find Atheism to be as much a religion as any theology out there. It takes the same step of faith to say that there is no God because there is no need for one as it does to say God does exist and it does not require any act of proof.

PZ used a great example of the various bits of scientific knowledge being like pieces of the most complex puzzle ever made, and that slowly the scientists are able to find out the places that the pieces fit together to begin to make the actual picture that is the orgin of life.

But a puzzle is created out of a whole picture that is cut into pieces. Otherwise, you can't create a finished product. If you take out the idea of a greater power, you have a bunch of scientists putting the pieces together while no one is addressing where the actual puzzle came from and how it got cut into pieces in the first place.

I don't know if I got out of it what the rest of the audience did, but I've now spent the last 3 hours thinking about both science and my own theological beliefs. So I guess that makes him a damn good speaker.

I Should Have Linked To This Yesterday...

When I first saw it, but I got busy and I got forgetful. Anyway, if you haven't seen it already, go check out Blog of the Moderate Left's musings on hurricanes and global warming.

If it's fiction, it's beautifully written fiction. If it's not fiction...well, let's hope it's fiction.

Juxtapose!

Even better, it's in the same article:

"The next nominee should let the political branches make political choices and should have a record of devotion to life and liberty that our Constitution protects," the Kansas Republican [Brownback] said at the hearing held just before the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Roberts on a 13-5 vote.

and

Brownback said he was satisfied that Roberts understands the limited role of judges --- to rule on the legitimacy of the law without making law...

So which is it, make political decisions or not make law?

I'm currently in the middle of "What's the Matter With Kansas," so I'm not feeling terribly Brownback friendly right now.

I'll let you know when I'm finished if anyone wants to discuss.

What, No medal of Freedom?

FDA commissioner steps down

While Rew and Smartie visit the Atheists...

I figured I'd keep track of our New Christian Overlords on Rew's behalf. Seems that Rew's favorite gals, the Concerned Women for America, is expecting a full-bore Yellow Jello attack on the confirmation of John Roberts as Chief Justice:

CWA Expects Yellow-Jello Attacks

Washington, D.C. - Concerned Women for America (CWA) anticipates that Thursday's hearings for Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts will consist of improper questioning and groundless accusations from the Left.


"We expect leftist opponents of Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts who will begin testifying at today's hearing to throw baseless and scurrilous accusations and distortions of his record against the Judge and see if anything sticks," said Jan LaRue, CWA's Chief Counsel.

Search as I might, I simply cannot figure out what a "Yellow Jello" attack is. Maybe it's a regional slang term, but I'm hoping our friends at the Ladies Auxiliary -- who are much more tight with our New Christian Overlords than I'll ever be -- can give us some help.

Saturday Fun

We'll be seeing PZ at the Roseville Library at 1:30 for the Minnesota Atheists Society.

If you're looking for us, I'll be the one in the back yelling "Praise the Lord!" and "Amen!"

Rebuttal in Two Sentences

As residents of Houston and Galveston are finding out, just because you have a car doesn't mean you can get anywhere. Also, have you seen what they call a "car" in Europe and Japan? [Link]

Friday Morning Cat Blogging

"Morning, Sunshine!" 

New Orleans Shall Rise Again!

Like the Swallows returning to Capistrano, they come:

NEW ORLEANS - By the wee hours of the morning Tuesday, if you looked past the rotting mounds of garbage on the sidewalk and the fact that most of the customers were carrying firearms, the city - right or wrong - looked a bit familiar again.

For a while, it was just another night at a Bourbon Street strip joint, a little exhilarating and a little depressing at the same time.

Up on stage was Britni Carrubba, who fled Hurricane Katrina with nothing but the clothes on her back. For three weeks she had waded through hell, shuffling from shelter to shelter, sleeping in her car. She was separated from her family. Her home was destroyed. But by Monday night, she had figured that if she didn't get back to work, then the storm had won.

So she found a ride into New Orleans and walked through a door beneath a neon depiction of crossed legs and high heels. At a club called Deja Vu, Carrubba became the first exotic dancer to return to New Orleans.

Admit it. It kind of makes you feel all warm and tingly.

Return of the MEME THAT WOULDN'T DIE

From today's Strib:

The Minnesota Vikings and Anoka County want to deny citizens the right to vote on a stadium tax. Hennepin County and the Twins want to do the same thing. Yet there's a state law in place requiring voter approval of all sales tax increases.

Hmmm. Wasn't there some tea tossed in a harbor over this very same issue?

Jerri Johnson, Minneapolis.

AGGGGHHHHHH!!!! This is the third time this year that someone has compared a tax proposal they didn't like to the Boston Tea Party.

Look, I don't like it either. So you know what? I'm going to take down the name of anyone who votes for it...and vote against them. That's kind of the point of that whole "representation" thing.

If you want to go dump wild rice into Lake Minnetonka in protest, you go ahead and do that. Just please don't write to the paper about it.

As long as we're bashing on the Strib, was anyone else annoyed by the high-handed tone of this editorial? How much money has the Strib taken from Ballpark Minnesota (or whatever the hell the Twins' lobbying arm is called)? I mean, let's count the lies in this paragraph alone:

Of the three, the Twins' need is most urgent. Their open-air ballpark requires no state money and competes with no state need. It is financed through a Twins-Hennepin County partnership based on $125 million from the team and a tiny slice (fifteen hundredths of a penny) of the county sales tax with no referendum. The infrastructure -- roads, parking, transit, hotels, restaurants -- is already in place. All that's needed is a legislative blessing.

"requires no state money"-bull. I guarantee they'll ask for a retractable roof as soon as the plan is approved. Where's that $100 million going to come from?

"tiny slice of the county sales tax with no referendum"-if it's so "tiny" why aren't they willing to put it to a vote? Do I need to go throw loons into the Mississippi in protest?

"the infrastructure is already in place"-anybody know how to get to HERC area? No? Think they might need to build a little bigger road to get to the stadium? Maybe new freeway ramps on to and off of 394 and 94? How about extending the light rail line down to the stadium? Do none of those items count as building new infrastructure?

Why must they turn my paper into a house of LIES?

Seriously, though, I think I had a momentary flash of what it's like to be a conservative. Here's the Strib telling me, quite snootily, that I should just give them my money and be quiet about it because they knew better than I did how to spend it. Thankfully, that moment passed quickly.

Who the hell are all you people?

Strangeness at the JackPineSavage. There's a million people writing posts. I'm terribly confused. But happy, because someone gave the password to FormerRoomieJosh, who jumped right in with a post that would be straight up Smartie's lane.

Still I wish they each had their own color text or something.

Harmonic Convergence?

Holy cow. Here I go around saying I could be a better Vikings columnist than anyone currently hacking away at it and lo and behold, I get my shot:

Columnist contest for readers returns

Average Joe is back.

Only this time, with a Vikings bent.

[snip]

Here are the rules:

To enter, submit a 300-word writing sample on any NFL-related topic by Sept. 25. E-mail it to sports@pioneerpress.com, subject line "Average Joe columnist." Published submissions will not be edited for spelling or grammar, but might be edited for content.

Up to 16 finalists will be announced shortly thereafter. Each week, finalists will compete head-to-head in the Sunday Vikings section.

The Pioneer Press will contact the finalists, who will need to provide a short biography and be available during the last week of September to be photographed for a head shot that will accompany each article.

Pioneer Press sports columnist Bob Sansevere and senior editor/sports Mike Bass will critique the stories and vote for their favorite in each competition. Samples also will be posted on www.twincities.com, and readers also can vote for their favorite. The readers' vote will serve as a tiebreaker.

Contestants will be given a subject on which to write and have two days to submit 300-word articles.

The deadline will become tighter in the final round.

The overall winner will write a live column for the Pioneer Press from the Dec. 18 Vikings-Pittsburgh game at the Metrodome.

The winner also will receive a Vikings jersey and a framed copy of his or her column.

The runner-up will receive a Vikings sweatshirt. All finalists will receive a Pioneer Press hat.

Pioneer Press employees and professional journalists are prohibited from entering. Journalism students are eligible.

I guess I'd better get writin'. Anyone else think they've got the stuff?

Won't someone please think of the penguin children!

This just in: Gay penguin marriage threatens straight penguin traditional marriage.

And please, don't let them be parents.

You may have heard by now that Silo, one half of the allegedly homosexual penguin couple at New York's Central Park Zoo of Roy and Silo, has left Roy for a young female named Scrappy. This is not a hoax. The New York Post broke the story on September 16 in an article titled, "Chilly Willies."


Before reporting this to you, I wanted to make sure the story was true. Sure enough, Fox News confirmed it, although Newsweek and The New York Times had yet to weigh in.

Obviously, the penguin was successful in his "Love Won Out" session.

Warning: May Induce Thinking

Don't ask me exactly how I ended up over here, Pokemon - Innocent child game or ?, one of the wonders of Interweb, I guess. Anyway, yadda yadda yadd everything is evil; everything will get you sent to hell; blah blah blah...Pretty standard, right? Sure, except for the BIG FRICKIN' DISCLAIMER in it's own green box at the beginning of the page:

Note to non-Christians: This page does NOT apply to you. Since you are not under the headship of Jesus Christ, this page will make no sense to you, since the Holy Spirit is not active in your life. Don't assume that you are a Christian because you go to church or have Christian parents. YOU personally must make a decision to follow Jesus Christ in order to be a Christian.

Heh. I wish all webpages came with disclaimers. It would save a lot of time.

The title of this post is what I would add to Power Liberal. Anyone else think of a disclaimer they would to their site?

BTW-Note to PZ Myers-apparently you've been going about this whole "teaching evolution" thing wrong. In order to convert children to godless heathenism, all you need to do is give them a deck of Pokemon cards. Observe:

Many Pokemons evolve "naturalistically" to become other Pokemons (note "Evolution Stage" on image to right). In examining the cards, it is apparent that macroevolution is being taught, since "species" that have evolved from other species are similar in appearance.

Who knew?

Presidentin' is Hard

Presidentin' is hard like math.

But now, both have been made easy!

With the National Budget Simulation you can figure out how to balance the budget yourself! Don't like federal education spending? Gone! Think the rich get all the tax breaks? Tax the hell out of them! Sick of all the poor people sucking up welfare cash? Put 'em all on the streets. It's all just that simple.

And when you're finished you get a handy report showing much you've raised or lowered the federal budget which you can then forward on to your do-nothing congressperson with a Post-It note that says, "See, I can figure it out. What's your problem, jerkweed?"

Then you get put on the "Persons of Interest" list and can never fly again. So you should probably disregard that last sentence.

Roberts

The always excellent Digby has a post about why he is opposed to John Roberts' nomination.

It has been something of an article of faith amongst many on the Left that Roe v. Wade has been such a great recruiting tool for the Right that they will never actually allow it to be overturned. Amongst his other points, Digby makes the case that we shouldn't be too sure about that.

Something other than football

Dear women, your life is worth less than an unborn fetus...

You want to know where you stand with conservatives? That's where you stand.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

And the best part is, the jokes are right in the story. This blogging thing is easy...

Recruits Sought for Porn Squad

By Barton Gellman

The FBI is joining the Bush administration's War on Porn. And it's looking for a few good agents.

Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III.

Mischievous commentary began propagating around the water coolers at 601 Fourth St. NW and its satellites, where the FBI's second-largest field office concentrates on national security, high-technology crimes and public corruption.

The new squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against "manufacturers and purveyors" of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults.

"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."

I think this is the easiest anti-war stance ever. "Nudity and justice for all!"

Seriously, though, Gonzales must really be bucking for that Supreme Court spot if he's trying this hard to burnish his conservative cred.

Morning Football Notes

Item One: Holy crow! The Strib actually published a decent commentary in the paper today. How did the editors let that one slip by? Jim Souhan, my hat is off to you.

Item Two: Even though it goes against most every desire in my alcohol addled mind, even though I look at it and find that I am filled with wanting it, I have to state for the record that I'm absolutely opposed to the current plan to build a football stadium. With all of the money sloshing around professional sports a one-third contribution by the team ownership is unacceptable. Asking for tax increases for this when they won't even raise taxes to pay for transportation or law enforcement or higher education is insulting. I don't think I'd mind if State contributions were limited solely to capital improvements (such as adding capacity to 35W) but to ask the State to pay for any portion of the stadium itself is wrong. As for the voters of Anoka County, raising their local taxes without referendum is equally wrong, not to mention unconstitutional. C'mon, Vikings, you can do better than this.

Drinking Liberally (I'll be there with bells on)

The day is perfectly balanced, and so are we.

Come celebrate the equinox with the right lefties.

What: Drinking Liberally
When: Wed., Sept. 21, 6-9 pm
Where: Liquor Lyle's, 2021 Hennepin Avenue South

Do it now, the days will only get shorter....

and if you haven't yet, be sure to fill out the survey if you are a DLer.

Striking Twice

So, if Rita, now a Catergory-1 Hurricane (and about to get stronger as it passes over the Gulf of Mexico), continues on its projected track it will make landfall at Galveston, TX. Galveston is just a few miles down the coast from Houston...home to tens of thousands of refugees from New Orleans, many of whom are staying in the Astrodome.

How unlucky can you possibly get? And if, God forbid, there is serious damage to Houston which results in a sustained loss of power or minor flooding, will the city be able to deal with that crisis and still provide shelter for the folks from New Orleans? I think everyone will join with me in hoping the response to disaster, if there is one, will be better this time around.

Evolution in Action?

Billmon. Heh.

It's about time. Now if only we could all be working towards the same goal, Donna Brazile, I'm looking at you.

That was Fast

In my post yesterday I predicted (not that it was much of a stretch) that Pat Reusse would call Vikings fans racists. Looks like I was right, I just didn't think it would happen the next day. Slow down, there, Pat the Hack, you've already used all your big guns now and it's only the second game of the season. What are you going to do for the next fifteen weeks?

ps. To anyone not masochistic enough to read his column regularly, "The anti-Daunte crowd" is his code phrase for "racist rednecks". If you think I'm making that up check back on his column in a few weeks. He'll have made it quite clear by then.

Our two minute hatin' on Pat is now over for the day. Carry on.

Crikey

It's often been said in the last couple of years that the Democratic party doesn't stand for anything. I've been making a lot of jokes lately about how the Republicans don't have any good ideas that they didn't steal directly from us. Well, ladies and gents, I think I have just seen the point at which those two statements intersect.

Doug links approvingly to this truly jaw dropping article at RedState.org. Here's a little sample:

Here's why we don't have small government: People don't want it. They say they do, but when you threaten to give it to them, they vote for the Other Guys. It took Republican politicians decades to figure this out, and most Republican voters still haven't figured it out. The fastest way to become the minority political party in the United States is to become the party of government frugality and fiscal discipline. Let the Democrats do that. We've been there, done that, and have Bob Dole to prove it.

This article is a truly amazing piece of wankery. Don't be fooled, Doug!

First off, it's a big "f%$k you!" to the libertarians, the anti-taxers (I'll get to that in a second) and the small government conservatives who traditionally are the base of the Republican party.

Second, it's dumb. If we're worried about China buying battleships to use against us, shouldn't we be equally worried about giving them all of the tools they could possibly need to wreak havoc with our currency and our country's financial markets? By dumping parts of the debt load or flooding the market with cheap dollars, even by threatening to do so, China can have extremely serious impacts on us. This is a situation that is only getting worse as we spend our way into penury.

Third, later in the article he talks about spending money to bolster society as though this is a new concept. I'm curious if the author is unaware that there is another political party out there which has been talking about something similar for a long time now? What exactly makes spending money on abstinence only education a better investment than spending money on comprehensive sex ed? (Other than the fact that one makes cons happy and one is designed to actually work.)

Fourthly, despite the author's contentions, some percent of these debts will come due eventually. Ask anyone who thought they can roll balances between credit cards forever or scrape by making minimum payments. Once you have leveraged all the credit that the financial world is willing to give you, you'd better have some means of paying them back. Payments can be ducked and deferred, but they can also be extracted in bankruptcy court. Go look at the budget of the State or the Feds and find out what percent of the GNP goes to "debt service." That's the "minimum payments" we make each year on all of these debts. Notice that that number always seems to be increasing. Eventually that leads to the governmental equivalent of bankruptcy court. And what is the governmental equivalent of bankruptcy court? Tax increases! And massive ones at that.

Fifthly, the author repeatedly compares the investment strategies of Japanese companies favorably with those of American companies. Need I mention that Japan is in a decades long recession? Or that their economic system is quite different than our own with more public/private interaction so it's a poor basis of comparison anyway?

And that's just off the top of my non-economist head. This whole article smacks of something written in the late 90's, when it seemed like the money would never run out. Or perhaps the author sells Option ARM's for a living. Sure it works in your favor...so long as the market performs exactly the way you want it to.

Apparently, the major difference between the fiscal policies of Republicans and Democrats is that they both like to spend, but Democrats like to actually finance their spending while Republicans think they can get by on little more than hope and sunshine.

Hey, sound finance might not be as sexy as "squirting" money at your problems, but it makes a lot more sense in the long run.

(On a personal note: REW and I went for a 30 year fixed-rate mortgage on the Powerhouse. We were scoffed at by finance people who insisted that we would be better off with a 5 year interest-only mortgage that we could refinance if we decided to stay in the house longer than that. Why? Because we could get by with a smaller downpayment, roll the principle money into higher grossing investments over the next five years and ultimately sell the house for more than we paid for it creating "phantom equity", so it would be a double gain-twice as good as simply amassing equity. Sound familiar? Let's check back on this post in five or ten years and see who ends up having made the smarter investment.)

This Isn't the Minnesota I Know....

Update: Looks like I have been spared the horrible fate of having to read KK, MWW in depth because Spotty, being the good dog that he is, chewed up that part of the paper this morning.

To that I'd just like to add two quick thoughts.

At the national level, said Kelly in a guest column, "I am sure that continuity of government will produce better results than an anger-motivated transition of power."

And how's that working out for the country?

Kelly didn't lose the endorsement because of lack of tolerance amongst the DFL, he lost it because of boneheaded idiocy. If you are driving a car which is hurtling towards the edge of a cliff it isn't an act of diversity of thought or strength of character to think that a long fall would be best avoided by driving straight over the precipice. That is an act of stupidity. The DFLers saw it coming and were trying to turn the car around. Kelly was wrong. Horribly, totally and gruesomely wrong. That is what he is paying the price for.

In the St. Paul DFL, heavy hitters include public employees, teachers and abortion-rights supporters. These groups impose litmus tests: Candidates must support abortion rights and be dovish on foreign policy. Randy Kelly -- abortion opponent, strong on defense, and fairly fiscally conservative -- is out of step.

So, Kelly is being politically harmed because he doesn't represent his constituents. And she says that like it's bad? Isn't that kind of, you know, the point of voting? To put into office the candidate we feel best represents our beliefs and interests? Guess what, I didn't vote for George W. Bush because he didn't pass my personal litmus test. Ooooh! Does that make me a one-man special interest group? Can I get tax-exempt status?

Oh, one more thing:

Yet it tolerates mavericks such as John McCain, and liberals such as Sens. Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee.

If the GOP "tolerates" these mavericks by personally attacking their families and destroying their political ambitions so that their anointed candidate would never have to be challenged (McCain) or publicly threatening and humiliating a sitting Senator and forcing him to beg and plead for his political life (Specter) or by having groups within the party itself mock and actively campaign against their reelection (Chafee) I think the DFL can do without "tolerance", thank you very much.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: added a sentence to the second point to make it more clear. Also added in the bit about Chafee to the third point. I was going to before, but was writing over my lunch break and had to quit early.

Deja Vu

N Korea to 'give up nuclear aims'

North Korea has agreed to give up all nuclear activities and rejoin the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, in a move diplomats called a breakthrough.

In return, the US said it had no intention of attacking the North, which was also promised aid and electricity.

Are they going to call this the "Framework Agreement"? How about the "Agreed Work Frame"? Do any of those names have a nice ring to them? Hmmmm, they both remind of something, but I just can't remember what....

So the foreign policy masterminds at the White House managed to almost push the Little Dictator into total nuclear freak out for three years...just so they could restore the status quo from the Clinton administration? The same status quo that all the right wing hacks derided as giving aid and comfort to the enemy? The status quo that effectively serves to prop up one of the worst regimes on the planet?

Is this foreign policy wingnut style? Just like their domestic issues (gay rights for instance) they talk a big game about attacking it but when push comes to shove they don't actually really want to do anything about it. After all, they might need to pull the "national security" talking point out of mothballs in, say, 2008 or 2012. Hey, at least their planning for the future in some way, I guess. Certainly unrestrained deficit spending doesn't have the same kind of forward-looking air to it.

Try to Control Yourself

The Vikings might not be doing too well so far, but at least one person is having a good time: Patrick Reusse. Yes, good ol' Pat, the Katherine Kersten of the sports pages, is in hack columnist heaven as he gloats about the Vikings losses. Even better, he gets to rip football fans and our "alcohol-addled minds". Nice. The only thing that could possibly make him happier is for the Metrodome crowd to boo Daunte so that he could get on his soapbox and pontificate about what a bunch of racist rednecks we are.

And by the way, Pat, you didn't predict anything. You've been writing the same column for twenty years. Statistically you were bound to be correct eventually. Please retire. Soon.

Okay, no more football for a couple of days. Back to politics as usual.

The View From Grumpy's in NE

Ouch. What more can I say? That loss to Cincinatti was like election night 04 all over again. I'll be a Daunte fan until the day I die, but even I was yelling for him to be replaced by Brad Johnson in the 3rd quarter. Daunte looked awful, he was taking sacks rather than throw to his wide open checkdown recievers, he was forcing throws into double and triple coverage, he was just having an all around horrible game. The O-line played poorly, but that can't be an all purpose excuse. It was poor quarterback play exacerbated by generally poor play at all offensive positions and perhaps even worse poor coaching. They finally FINALLY benched Michael Bennet for good after his second fumble...then gave up on the run. WTF?

I was willing to give Mike Tice one more year to get it together, but now I feel like he and his whole staff are making a fool of me. One bad game is one thing, two bad games is another. I think this is a team in need of some serious soul searching and maybe position shakeups. Even the defense, which looked decent last week, looked absolutely awful today. Corners were getting beat deep all day and safeties and linebackers were consistently out of position. I'm still hopeful...but worried...

What up with Bobby?

Is Robert Fitzgerald going to take an endorsement? Will I have to give up on calling him "i"ndependent?

Mark Yost Lies on The Taxpayer League

On today's Taxpayer's League, Mark Yost stated that LBJ said when he passed the Civil Rights bill that "We just won the vote of the _________ (yes, they danced around and said he said the word) for the next 40 years."

Actually, he stated the Democrats would lose the South for a generation.

Close enough, right?

Was going going to listen to hear Sticks, but can't after that.

Fiscal Conservativism at its Finest

Juxtapose!

President Bush:

As President Bush ruled out a tax increase, White House officials said Friday that the cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast will add to the federal deficit.

And it quickly became evident that the president will have to convince skeptical members of Congress to cooperate. "You bet, it's going to cost money," he said at the White House. "But I'm confident we can handle it and I'm confident we can handle our other priorities. It's going to mean that we're going to have to make sure we cut unnecessary spending."

Representative Kline:

As the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Reagan Revolution approaches, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., is proposing legislation to put the late president on the $50 bill.

"Not all of America uses Ronald Reagan airport, but all of America uses our currency," Kline said. "We have used currency to commemorate great leaders in our past. It seemed to me this was a good way to do it."

And I bet it won't cost a FDR dime. Way to cut unnecessary spending.

Sorry, Bob, I'm Convinced

I've been pretty apathetic about whether or not the smoking ban is really hurting bars. I hadn't seen much of a difference in the bars I go to. But tonight I met a friend for a drink at Nye's and saw something odd. It was after nine, and the piano bar wasn't filled. I was there for an hour, and I never saw the staple of the Nye's experience, the bachlorette party. In fact, the only party I saw was a self-proclaimed suburban mom "happy 50th brithday" shindig. Nothing going on in the basement. 10 people in the polka bar.

That's not the Nye's I've lived next door to for the last two years. I could actually talk above the patrons, something I've never been able to do. Usually, if I'm going to have a drink there on the weekends, I need to be there by 8 to grab a table by Lou and the piano.

Bad night? Maybe. The Times still looked packed. Maybe I need more nights to compare it to. Anyone want to pick up my bar tab tomorrow, say 9-ish? You can call it research.

Chick Fight!

MN Observer dubs them the MN Neocon Ladies Auxiliary.

Heh. That's kind of funny.

I think Sandy would look cute in a uniform. And stern.

I need to remember to go have another beer with them. I had my best Drinking Conservatively chat with her.

Go Figure

Kersten using other people's sources to write a column?

Never would have expected it.

Thanks, Spotty!

What you get when you limit the legality of abortions

A bunch of poor women in jail.

Via MNObserver, who's doing a fantiasic job filling in for the Wege while he's on "vacation".

Suddenly, Conservatives want more government regulation

Opponents of the legislation said that petitioners challenging government data are trying to delay or weaken government regulation — to the detriment of society as a whole.

What do they want so badly that they're willing to toss their small government mantra aside?

Why, misinformation in their abstinence only education classes, of course.

The groups claim that the curriculum used by most Community-Based Abstinence Education grantees contains false information. They called on the Administration for Children and Families to cease sponsorship of programs that fail to provide medically accurate information.

For example, dozens of grantees teach that condom use reduces the risk of contracting
HIV/AIDS by 69 percent to 90 percent. The two groups say that such instruction greatly underestimates the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV/AIDS, and the numbers result from a study that the department itself described as having conclusions based on "serious error."

"Never in recent history has so much government money been put into so many programs with so little oversight and so little proven impact," Wagoner said.

Friday Morning Cat Blogging

"June, where's Daddy?" 

June and I have a game that we play when Smartie's away called "Where's Daddy?" I get up and say "June, where's Daddy?" She runs to a room and howls and I come in and say, "No, Daddy's not in there. Where's Daddy?" She goes into another room and repeats. It was more interesting when we had more than two rooms, but it's a tradition.

Point being, here's a pic from this morning's latest and final round of "Where's Daddy?"

Grrr

Bad night. Bad morning. Going to be bad day.

Go read this.

Drinking Liberally - For those checking

Late night tonight. Be there when I can.

It's all the Rage!

Jambo just stumbled on the Right to Lifers' adoration of March of the Penguins:

I guess these guys are lucky that they didn't stumble into a nature film about infanticide in lions or the well documented examples of homosexual behavior in the marine mammal world. And suffice it to say that a documentary about those randy little buggers the Bonobo chimps would have sent them running from the theater in search of a holy water eye-wash sink. Stephen Jay Gould once said "We never should have sought either solace or moral instruction in Nature." I don't doubt that he may also have said "Never get your film criticism from morons."

Had he been as devoted a reader of LifeNews as I, he would have discovered their adoration long ago:

In early June, females lay one egg, and, as pro-abort actor Morgan Freeman narrated, "From now on the couple has but a single goal - keeping the egg alive...The tiny beating heart within the shell cannot survive more than a moment in the freezing air."

(Mr. Freeman, do you ever contemplate what you read?)

Kiddie movies appear to be just the right speed.

Edited to change to correct name. Stupid multi-person blogs....

Tom Earns Right to Say "I Told You So"

And so he does:

NWA to declare bankruptcy says the New York Times, after three articles talking about what a great job Northwest is doing in handling the labor dispute, and three months after it became totally obvious. Can't wait for The Times' next article about what a brilliant move bankruptcy was.

Well Minnesota, your "friend" just left you sitting there like a chump, with a $38 million dollar bar tab. We got screwed. Duluth, you got screwed. MAC, you got screwed too.

Tom pointed out that this was their plan way back here. Maybe the Times just got caught up. He does write a lot.

Things I never thought I'd see

President Bush admitting fault.

Swiftee and Rex on the same side of an argument.

Anyone got a weather report form Hell?

Who Woulda Thunk?

Via Wege, the Republican didn't get the DFL nom. Go Figure.

And MNObserver dances for joy:

This means nearly three quarters of the voters of the City of St. Paul resoundingly reject the politics of Bush and Rove. I couldn't be happier. Rumor has it that the Pioneer Press headline initially read "Stunning" but that the editors will take care of that.
...
In the next few weeks, expect Randy Kelly's boatload of money to investigate every fart Chris Coleman ever made. The Rove clones have been hired, and their plane arrives on the newly non-union NorthWest Airlines tomorrow morning.

Yee ha.

Just You and I

Smartie is heading out to Wisconsin for a work retreat and will be gone until the end of the week, so it's just me.

I'll try to keep up.

Unintentionally HI Larious!

Via the Wege:

AmericaBlog also had something on Oprah, but the excerpt was totally confusing and so out of context I misread it entirely. Here is the real story:

Chat show host Oprah Winfrey is furious over the way the victims of Hurricane Katrina have been treated, and believes America owes the survivors an apology. Winfrey cut short her summer break to host special episodes of her The Oprah Winfrey Show from the nation's devastated Gulf Coast and was horrified by the scenes which awaited her. Referring to the amount of time survivors had to wait for help, and those who died as they waited for help, she fumes, "I think... this country owes these people an apology. This makes me so mad. This should not have happened." Winfrey wore a gas mask as she toured New Orleans' now-empty Superdome, which housed thousands of people in disgusting conditions for several days. She says, "Nothing I saw on television prepared me for what I experienced on the ground. I was sitting at home feeling frustrated and useless, like so many other people, so I came down to personally assess how I could best be of service."

Link

Write the jokes yourself, everyone!

Bush versus ...Everyone?

From Shakespeare's Sis:

The latest Zogby poll has Bush losing to every president since Carter, but in a match-up with Kerry, Kerry would still lose. Just a one-point difference, but still...

Kerry won the nomination because the primary voters decided he was "the most electable," and yet even after all of Shrub's flubs, Longshanks still couldn't beat him.

Note to Kerry: Don't run again. Because the Dems will either give you the nomination again, and you'll lose, or they won't, and it will be awkward and everyone involved will look stupid. It's a no-win situation (in a lot of ways). You gave it your best shot, but no more, okay?

Soemtimes I read things like this and wonder if the Republicans really think he's going to run again, or if they are really just that unwilling to let go of a bone.

Robert's Day One Recap

from Bush v Choice:

After attending the first day of Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued the following statement:
"Tomorrow, John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to Chief Justice of the United States, has an opportunity to give the public clear and direct responses to essential questions on fundamental freedoms, such as the constitutionally protected right to privacy. But will Americans get the straight answers they deserve? A troubling theme emerging from today's remarks included a number of anti-choice senators seemingly laying the groundwork for Roberts to evade or refuse to answer questions..."

They have a link to the full day's transcript at their site.

Huh

It's like a "Law And Order" episode waiting to be written.

The New Political Correctness?

This article at Pandagon got me thinking.

Attempting to regulate speech; shielding children from "incorrect thoughts"; trying to alter curriculums...aren't all of these hallmarks of the "Political Correctness" that the Right is always trying to accuse us of? It shouldn't amaze me anymore, but I still can't believe how morally and intellectually bankrupt the conservative movement is when they attack the left just so that in the moment of success they can adopt the very mindset that they've spent so much time railing against.

UPDATE: As Tom Swift has helpfully pointed out to me in the comments, this is not the same as old-fashioned political correctness. For all of its overreaching and misguided ways of going about things the original PC movement was an attempt to steer discussions in a certain way. In its own boneheaded way it was actually an attempt to foster discussion. This does not excuse any of the unintended consequences it brought about, just explains why it began in the first place. This modern "Moral Correctness" movement is an attempt to stifle thoughts it does not like. It is an attempt not to guide discussion, but to quash it. So, while the results are similar, the motives are wholly different. My apologies for comparing the two.

View From the Cheap Seats - Cheap Cheap Cheap

From the point of the second fumble/interception, I knew we were toast. Culpepper is a great quarterback, but once he gets in a funk, he tends to stay there. It didn't help having both of those touchdowns called back (and that pass interference was bunk, from what I could see in jumbo-tron mode, but I'd like to hear from someone who could see it on tv - preferably not a Packer fan, thanks). With the only touchdown coming from the defense, I felt like I was wathcing last night's Cornhusker's game over again, except with worse results.

The problem with such an awful day offensively is that no one is going to notice how fantastic the defense was. They really were amazing, especially for them. But when you're on the field all the time, you're going to get tired. And when they lost the whole thing in the end, they'd checkedout of of the game a few minutes earlier.

Next week we watch at Grumpy's in Northeast. I heard they have a mean Bloody Mary bar.

Still can't belive I was chearing for Sharper, though.

Puck You!

That's way more evil than I ever thought I would have. It must have been from taking the light bulbs out of the fireflies when I was a kid.

Puck You scored 36 evilness, 36 romance, 27 tragic, and 54 comic!

The mischevous attendant and jester of Oberon, the Fairy King, Puck (Robin Goodfellow) plays practical jokes on Titania and others in the woods and ends up having to make amends.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 75% on evilness You scored higher than 33% on romance You scored higher than 35% on tragic You scored higher than 67% on comic

Link: The Shakespeare Character Test written by mandi_g on Ok Cupid

Via Doug

I'm not sure I understand it

But I think we're pretty.


A moment of thanks to Scooter for showing us in our true "colors"?

Saturday Morning Cat Blogging

Nico The Narcissus 

When the Saints Go Marching...Somewhere

In keeping with our recent fascination with football, here is a post of Tom's about Red McComb's swooping in to try and bring the Saints to San Antonio. I was saddened to see that Tom didn't mention my unbelievably pithy insight I had at DL that this would be the time for LA to try and grab themselves a team, too, so they stop drooling on the Vikings. Sigh. I wonder if that means he forget to tell FormerRoomieJosh how hot I think he is, too.

Target Vs Walmart - Summertime Rematch

As should come to no surprise to anyone, CWFA is still mad at Target:

Target's Michaud noted that the company has contributed $1.5 million to the American Red Cross for hurricane victims, and was "offering real estate for command centers for rescue efforts in Louisiana. We're also looking for real estate available in Alabama and Mississippi," she said. Target has also expedited large-scale shipments of "food, water and bug spray" to the affected areas, she said.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart, which has contributed $17 million in direct aid to storm victims, has given an additional $4 million in cash to the Salvation Army for Katrina relief efforts through the Walton Family Foundation. Wal-Mart is planning also to allow the Salvation Army to set up kettles with bell-ringers at Wal-Mart stores during the Christmas season.

"Wal-Mart as a corporation has really lined up behind the Salvation Army, and they are giving us anything we need to be able to deliver services down there," Hood said.

Target was last Bandied about by those oh so Concerned Women back at Christmastime.

"Bell ringers outside of Target stores raised $9 million nationally last year. Target is now willing to allow hundreds of thousands of struggling American families to be deprived of this tremendous aid from the Salvation Army during the Christmas season," Knight said. "The company gives millions to charities, but only if the recipients are deemed 'politically correct' by the ACLU, homosexual activists and other bullies. Target routinely has been turning down church-related charities, apparently out of fear of offending the 'keep Christ in the closet crowd.'"

Their devotion to Walmart would make a certain Ms. Kersten proud.

My original Christmas comparison between Target and Walmart can be found here if you're feeling really bored.

Patriots V Raiders

Tonight is the first game of football season, and should be fairly predictable. After all, we have the Patriots, America's team. And they are playing the Raiders, which as we all know, is just another word for "Looters". There's no way anyone can support some nasty arrogant thugs and hope that they can beat the team that stands for all that is good in the mighty U.S. of A.

Seriously though, I'm excited to watch just to see how well Randy Moss can play with others. And to see if by the end of the game he still thinks Collins is a better quarterback than Cullpepper. I have a feeling that by the end of the game I'm going to be yelling at them to send Madden in. And he'd probably still go, the old fart.

Pizza, beer and football in the PL home tonight. Happy NFL opener!

Dan Nye - The Editorial Guy

When you read the Letter Section in the Strib enough, names start to become familiar to you. Such is the case today:

Blame the lawless

It was the arrogance of some of the impoverished that caused the chaos in New Orleans.

Those thugs could have acted differently -- most of the affected in New Orleans faced this devastation with courage and acted decently and nobly. It was the arrogance of the thugs who were trying to take advantage of the weak.

The relief effort failed in the early days because there were some who were trying to do harm to the first responders. I suspect that not many of us would be rushing into New Orleans to help when evil people were trying to kill you for sport.

How is President Bush responsible for that?

Dan Nye, Edina.

You may remember Dan from his previous incarnation, Dan Nye, the Anti-Science Guy.

President Bush thanks you for your endless and devoted support, Dan.

That's why he's never in charge of money

The Wege has a DL roundup posted already, unlike me, who gave to the Red Cross, tossed it up and quickly went to bed (when did I get older than the Wege?).

That "new person" he was talking to was Natalie, and I think she's made of tougher stock than most of us, as she managed to sit next to him for a full two hours, went to the rest room, and came back and continued to sit with him. I thought it was going to be a clever bolt, myself.

But all kidding aside, it was a great night. Liquor Lyle's was wonderful to us, and the best moment came when our waitress for the night took my payment for the tab, ran it up, cashed out her tip, and put it straight into the donation pitcher.

The manager at Lyle's told me she wants to hold a donation drive in a few weeks when she's back in town. I will let everyone know when I have more details.

Thank You to Everyone Tonight

Tonight, we contributed $184.70 for the Red Cross. I sent it in as $185.00, and it will be matched by my employer, giving us a total of $370.00

Thank you, everyone.

Dear Robin,

Thank you for your generous gift to the American Red Cross 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund. This fund makes it possible for the Red Cross to help nationwide Hurricane disaster victims of 2005 with critical needs such as shelter, food, clothing, counseling and other assistance. It's because of the 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund that our response can be immediate regardless of its location or the community’s ability to financially support our efforts.

Your generous support means the most to the families who rely on Red Cross to help them through some of the most difficult times of their lives.

Please continue to visit us at http://www.redcross.org/ to see how we’re using your 2005 Hurricane Relief Fund donation to make a difference, and for the most current disaster updates and stories about the people being helped.

Together, we can save a life.

American Red Cross

*************************************************

To verify that your company participates in a matching gift program, please contact your human resource representative.

Please print or save this message for your personal records.

Contact Information
Name:
Robin Marty

Address:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Minneapolis, MN 55413
United States

Email Address:
XXXXXXXXXXX


Donation Information
Donation Form:
CC_Hurricane Katrina

Donation Level:
Enter Amount

Gift Amount:
$185.00

Tax-deductible Amount:
$185.00

This organization's tax ID is:
53-0196605

Tracking Code:
1555-1161-1-582954-581732




This letter serves as the tax receipt for your gift. The American Red Cross is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization as described in section 501(c) (3) of the IRS Code for 1984, as amended. Our tax identification number is 53-0196605. Adequate records will be maintained and made available to the IRS upon request. In accordance with IRS regulations, no goods or services were provided to the donor by the American Red Cross as part of this contribution.

Your gift may be recognized in future Red Cross publications. If you prefer your gift to remain anonymous, or have questions about your gift’s designation, or would like to learn more about the services that the Red Cross is committed to providing, please call 1-800-797-8022.

Someone compare

This and this

I'm going to be too busy drinking at Lyles.

Vote for Pedro is over

Welcome, VOTE FOR MY MOM...

Just for fun, I'm going to take this sentence completely out of context:

If our mom is elected, you can count on us to be like the Kennedys.

Clip that out and put it on some campaign lit for her opposition, and I'm sure they'll get some votes.

UPDATE:Drinking Liberally, Wed. Sept 7th (Moved To Top Until Wed.)

This week at Drinking Liberally, I buy. Those of you who usually put in cash for the pitchers are out. All pitcher, individual beers money, etc., needs to go straight to the people who need it more. I suggest here, simply because this is where I sent our donation already. Choice is up to you.

For those of you who can't come, please consider donating a "pitcher" or "glass" on your own. They take donations as small as $5.

I'll get you drinks. Please get people help.

UPDATED to change the date and let everyone know that my firm has offered to match all contributions on Wednesday.

From Fecke

As we've seen far too often, if George W. Bush were caught having sex with dead bodies in New Orleans right now, the right wing chatterers would claim he was doing it for freedom, that the local authorities were really the ones at fault, and besides, it was all the fault of the dead people for dying in the first place.

whole post here.

Open Letter to the Strib Sports Page Editors

I know I'm not going to make any friends with this post, but this is something that I've been waiting to get off my chest for at least a couple of years now. Baseball fans and anyone not interested in American football feel free to skip this. rant/

RE: Football Coverage

Strib, could you please hire a regular columnist in your Sports section who actually likes football?

Reading Patrick Reusse is like chewing on mouthfuls of broken glass and salt. We get it. You like baseball. You hate football. You think baseball is pure and sublime and ennobling (especially outdoor baseball), but you think football is stupid and only ignorant and racist yobs could really find it interesting. Thank you for talking down to me.

Jim Souhan isn't bad, but his heart isn't really in it. Is a little hometown boosterism too much to ask? A little enthusiasm? I'm not asking anyone to turn a blind eye to the Vikings' problems, and certainly there are problems, but a little hint that you actually like them in spite of it would go a long way.

The only columnist to actually like the Vikes is Sid Hartman, but his column is really more "CJ-with balls!" than an actual sports column.

Look, you don't have to like football. You don't even have to understand why other people like it. Personally, I find baseball tedious and pretentious (St. Paul Saints excepted) but I accept that other people like it and I assume they have their reasons. Your average George F. Will wannabes will jump in here and rattle off all kinds of reasons why baseball is the "National Pastime" and "America's Game" and whatnot. Sooner or later someone is bound to point out all of the baseball themed literature and then, as though the point is proven, the case closed, they will turn their attention to some obscure statistic or another and begin an argument only slightly more boring than their favorite sport. Fine. I'm not asking anyone to not enjoy what they enjoy. All I'm asking is that you give me and thousands of your other readers the same courtesy.

It shouldn't be hard. Football is far and away America's most popular sport. For some people, this might be proof of its inherent inferiority. Nothing so loved by the masses could possibly be any good. Get me started, though, and I can rattle off a hundred ways that I believe football to the superior sport and football games to be a superior experience. Really. Hell, I feel strongly enough about it that I'll write your column for you and all you have to do is buy me a couple of beers during each game.

So how about it, Strib? I might not be your usual football columnist material, but I'm willing to give it a shot, and trust me, I can't possibly be any worse than your current coverage. Besides, this has the side benefit of freeing up your other columnists to write about the things they actually enjoy. It's a win all the way around. Think about it.

/rant over. We now return you to our regularly scheduled political nitpicking and hair-splitting.

Latest NOLA Roundup

The All Seeing Eye has been keeping his watchful gaze upon New Orleans for more than a week now. He was keeping watch on the tragic events unfolding there even before the President decided it was worth interrupting vacation for.

I probably don't need to tell you to go over there and read him. But if you haven't been keeping up, you need to at least go check out this thread.

Go read it and make sure to follow the links. All of them.

Freedom on the March, Republicans on the Run!

TBogg points out this story in the NY Times:

Same Sex Marriage Wins Vote in California

By DEAN E. MURPHY
Published: September 7, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 6 - California lawmakers on Tuesday became the first in the country to legalize same-sex marriage, with the State Assembly narrowly approving a bill that defines marriage as between "two persons" instead of between a man and a woman.

Unlike Massachusetts, where gay men and lesbians are permitted to marry because of court rulings, the legislators in California voted to amend the state's family code without the threat of legal action.

[snip]

The measure now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who has supported domestic partnership legislation in the past but has not taken a public position on the marriage bill.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Schwarzenegger, Margita Thompson, said after the vote that the governor believed that the issue of same-sex marriage should be settled by the courts, not legislators, but she did not indicate whether that meant he would veto the legislation. The bill did not pass with enough votes to override a veto.

[my emphasis]

Well, that was certainly an abrupt about-face wasn't it? Do Republicans ever get whiplash changing their positions so quickly? Or, as the ever pithy TBogg puts it, "Where's an activist judge when you need one." Heh. Indeed.

Amen, Moses, Amen

Moses over at Yowling has a great summary of five years of Republican dithering and outright malfeasance, and he ends it with a call to action.

It's time people. The country's tearing off in the wrong direction at breakneck speed, but we can still turn this thing around. Unfortunately, we can't do much about Bush for a few more years, but we can reduce his ability to do harm to the country by stripping his lapdog majority in congress.

We've got to get started now. The first goal is the midterms. It's going to take time, but they've had their chance and the results are all around us. Don't pay attention to anyone who says it's not the Republicans fault. They've held every lever of power for five years now. It's their fault.

Now, it's time to get this country going the right way again. We can do this.