You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2007.
Sometimes when various organizations want to make information public, but want the press to wait, they will release the information to the media but “embargo” it until the appropriate time.
I wrote a rather involved post last night detailing conservatives’ pentient for creating scenarios in which they come off appearing as martyrs for their causes — a sort of self-flagellation you might say. But, out of my concern for ethics, I’m going to embargo the post until a later date. So stay tuned… I’ll clarify this rather ambiguous post, and explain the reason for my own personal embargo, soon enough.
Robert Shirtliffe must have a big ego. He thinks this blog exists solely because of the blog he contributes to (Illinois Review).
Wrong, but par for the course from a group of bloggers so loose with what they call “facts”. And, again par for the course, a little actual reading and research would’ve let Mr. Shirtliffe know he was wrong.
Take a look at the first 5 posts. The first is a welcome. The second an introduction (with references to several conservative bloggers). And then one post, just one, about Illinois Review followed by two more posts not about Illinois Review.
In the process of inflating his ego, Mr. Shirtliffe came up with a giggly li’l nickname for this blog: Illogical Reason. And here I thought for sure the cons would go with Illinois Treason instead. Oh well.
Mr. Shirtliffe is apparently surprised that “others” would want to actually point out the errors and misstatements overflowing from Illinois Review’s trough. Well welcome to America, where the speech is free and the democracy worth fighting for … and any old soul can come along and call someone else out on the carpet for constantly distorting the truth.
Funny thing is, labeling the conservative crossroads “Illogical Review” works just as well as Mr. Shirtliffe’s little razz about Illinois Reason.
And in comments does George Dienhart mourn that Mr. Shirtliffe has just cut another nick in the civility of our discourse with his kindergarten name calling? No. Instead he’s giddy as a jaybird that he has his own “catagory“. Guess that means we’ve both made it to the little big leagues George, you with your “catagory” and us with our very own post on the mother of all Illinois conservative misinformation blogs.
(Now I’ve got to go look up who had the March 28th, 10-10:30am slot in the office pool…)
UPDATE: Thom Yorke writes in comments on Mr. Shirtliffe’s post:
Wow. Thanks to Robert’s post here, those fellows over at “that other blog” have demonstrated just what we all knew: that most liberals, especially those in the blogosphere, just don’t have a sense of humor. Or a grasp on any interesting literary device.
This comment, as with Mr. Shirtliffe’s post (and just about 99% of the other posts over at “that other blog”) actually induced howls of laughter over here on the other, other blog. No sense of humor my pinky toe. Illinois Review’s a joke-a-minute. 
Over amongst our friends at Illinois Review, George Dienhart laments that he misses the 80’s. He longs for the days of Ronny Raygun and “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall”. He waxes poetic about how Hollywood’s “uber liberal environment” had to be entertaining in its subversiveness and references M*A*S*H as an example.
Problem is, Mr. Dienhart is ignoring a lot of recent history which makes his point a completely hollow one.
Read more “The Beam in George Dienhart’s Eye” after the flip…
I admit it was with reluctance that I put pen to paper and voted for Mr. Giannoulias last November. I also admit my wife and I made fun of the fact his mom lent him money for his campaign, among other things…
But maybe, just maybe, the reluctance and the joshing were ill-founded. Sure, some conservatives can’t stand the guy — how dare he be the progeny of a Chicago banking family … making loans to people, even if they have a criminal past … a Dem?
But in just a few short months he has already enacted commitments that he made on the campaign trail and, with former Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, worked out a very smooth R-to-D (or is it Czech-to-Greek?) transition in the Treasurer’s office. Both “big picture” items which have a net effect of benefitting Illinoisans of every stripe overall.
Others are taking notice too. In January, Rep. John Fritchey posted about Treasurer Giannoulias keeping his promise by way of an executive order putting stronger ethical guidelines in place at the Treasurer’s Office. A few weeks back Illinois political journalist/columnist/blogger Rich Miller touched on the newly elected Treasurer’s work to finish cleaning up Cellini Hotel scandal and tune up the Bright Start program — both tasks that JBT initiated and worked to transition into Treas. Giannoulias’ hands. Miller follows up on that earlier post today by writing that Mr. Giannoulias is quick to share the credit on that work with Judy Baar. Even the generally conservative Chicago Tribune is today giving him laurels for his work on finishing the improvements to Bright Start (which, the Trib notes, has til now been woefully unimpressive at a time when college costs are soaring).
Now I don’t know if, like Judy Baar Topinka and myself, Mr. Giannoulias is a coupon-clipper given that is family is fairly wealthy. But he does look to be getting off on the right foot in his post as a gentleman and a Constitutional officer. As citizens who daily feel the effects of his actions and programs, let’s keep an eye out to make sure things stay that way.
John Ruskin has another wacky post up at Illinois Review lamenting some war protest in Portland, Oregon. While many others have noted that a great many war protesters are actually grandparents and parents, Mr. Ruskin ignores all that to highlight a relatively rare but sensational snippet — Americans displaying their first amendment rights.
He then goes on to complain — in that wacky, reality-ignoring way of his — that Illinois’ Democrats (with Illinois’ Republicans sitting idly by) somehow voted for Oregonians to use their first amendment rights 2100 miles away.
No, Mr. Ruskin, that’d be the ratifiers of our U.S. Constitution who voted to give our fellow Americans the right to do these things. It happened in 1787 which may be why you don’t remember it.
No matter how much it may turn our stomachs (and I agree with Mr. Ruskin’s premise that this burning is simply not right), their ability to burn our flag is what our soldiers fight and die for and what our Constitution’s ratifiers, our nation’s Founding Fathers, gave us.
If you don’t like America, Mr. Ruskin, you are free to go and live under some other Constitutional authority in which freedom of speech may only be an idea to be squashed rather than the penultimate law of the land.
Even that American icon Sears, venerable catalog and department store enterprise, has noticed the odd obsession social conservatives have with sex. Yet when confronted with the obvious, conservative Illinois Review contributor George Deinhart doesn’t jump to the obvious conclusion. Instead, he hops in the conspiracy theory cab with “Jerry Fletcher“.
Mr. Dienhart was on a recent excursion to a Sears Grand location (I’ve never been). While there he took a break from commercial activity to use an Internet kiosk. Let’s go now to read his story:
Ever tried to view the Illinois Review at a Sears Grand Internet kiosk? If you had, you would have found out that the Illinois Review is banned. The blocking software is also kind enough to notify the user that the Illinois Review is banned for sexual content. This doesn’t really seem right. I know that not all typepad accounts are banned- I am at the main web domain now as I type. I also tried the Huffington Post. The liberal blog clearing house was NOT blocked …
Mr. Dienhart, have you ever tried to do a search for “sex” or “pornography” at Illinois Review? A ton of posts come up. Not just from IR Editor Fran Eaton, but from several other contributors and commenters. That conservative site is rife with sex-talk: Technorati finds more than 250 references to sex, porn and pornography at Ill Review.
So, Mr. Deinhart, Sears is simply trying to protect itself from the inevitable conservative backlash if the letters “S-E-X” were ever to appear on one of their public Internet kiosk screens. Conservatives can’t want to both talk about sex ad nauseum and then not want others to even appear to allude to it (coincidentally or not).
If you don’t like the sex talk Mr. Dienhart, stop your fellow conservatives from posting about it.
Yet more misinfo and spin from Fran Eaton about a Christian pastor.
No sooner had I posted my comments about Fran Eaton’s “anti-Christian” rhetoric regarding Sen. Obama and his church’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, than she has a post up over at the Ill Review saying Rev. Wright “can’t take the heat” and has written an “angry” response to the recent NY Times mountain-out-of-a-molehill misinfo-pimping article by Jodi Kantor.
One wonders if the Illinois Review Editor knows how to read, let alone put two-and-two together.
Continue reading “Faster than a speeding bullet…” on the flip.
Skeptical Brotha posts both the recent NY Times article on Sen. Obama’s church and pastor (turning even more non-issues into “Issues” and “Controversy”) and Rev. Wright’s subsequent response to the reporter. A little background…
For months now, a former worker for Alan Keyes for Senate (Illinois edition) and all-around go-to conservative uber-activist by the name of Fran Eaton (aka, “IR Editor”) has been on a crusade against Senator Barack Obama’s church and, in particular, his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.
ArchPundit noted the current non-issue masquerading as controversy months ago.
Continue reading “It’s not Obama doing the dissing. It’s the cons.” after the jump.
Rich Miller often sets up a Question of the Day over at his Capitol Fax blog.
Yellow Dog Democrat offers what may be the Quote of the Day in response:
I’d much rather have my kids observing a moment of silence than spend another moment learning reading, science or math.
There it is in a nugget, no? How can conservatives on the one hand continue calls to take time away from education for a moment of silence or whatever the phrase du jour is but then on the other hand they rail against public education “failures” til they’re blue in the face?
In Springfield we see that the commonly-held “roles” for the parties are switched a bit: a Democratic legislator, Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood), is sponsoring the moment of silence bill while Republican Sen. Dan Rutherford (R-Chenoa) is opposing it.
I fail to see how my marriage is at all harmed if two gay people are in love and also want to get married. Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s Bay State has had legal marriage for all consenting couples for a few years now. The Mass. Supreme Court correctly saw it as a fundamental issue of liberty and equality in the eyes of the law.
Continue reading “My Wedding Ring’s Still On… Is Yours?” after the fold.
Jack Roeser has another project underway to rejuvenate the Illinois GOP. How many has he had? List em in comments.
It’s all about being clubby with the gang.
Brad Cole, the mayor of Carbondale, struck a home run with me on my show last night. One of the classiest guys around, he refused to gut his old boss George Ryan…although it would be popular to do so. That kind of guy deserves to be reelected…
The fine folks at Illinois Review are referring to the newest Insight Magazine for the reference to how ‘wacky’ Obama’s church is.
Yes, the magazine run by a right wing cult leader who declared himself the Messiah is trying to criticize a UCC church. Fantabulous. The article is an AP based story, but the notion that one would treat a cult’s magazine as reputable while criticizing Obama is just hysterical.
As Larry notes in the ‘inaugural’ post just below: Welcome. While we have high hopes for high-falutin’ discussions of policy, current events and the values or lack thereof underlying such we also expect this blog to occasionally have a bit of locker-room talk — much like its pull-no-punches counterparts throughout the political blogosphere.
That said, I thought I’d beat our friends over on the ultra-conservative side of things to the punch by calling my first post “Illinois Treason”… It’s practically a given that people who are so full of baloney that they run around calling teachers “pigs“, claiming Christian pastors are “racial supremacists“, and mocking legislators by calling them “Reverend” and “the Second Coming” will sooner or later mislabel this site “Illinois Treason” simply out of spite (if not to cover-up their own lack of rational points). If name-calling were an art form, political bloggers of all stripes would likely be among the select few on permanent display in the Guggenheim of Obloquy. So have at it, friends.
Feel free to lurk or comment. We’ll be getting into the swing of things around these parts shortly. Just be ready to take some heat if you start dishing it out — that’s why Illinois Reason exists… And have a happy first day of spring while you’re at it.
Welcome to this new site and please come back often.
