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Some photo fun today over at Illinois Review.
Question: Who holds the pencil, drives the car, lifts the spoon … and pulls the trigger? Is it some magic force? Perhaps invisible leprechauns or even fairies?
Or is it real, live people?
For a country that isn’t fighting a war inside its borders, didya ever wonder why America is home to the highest number of gun fatalities in the world? It’s because you and I can type in a URL and buy a gun and ammo over the ‘Net sight unseen, or head over to the local gun show and pick up whatever we want nigh scot free — essentially, because our gun laws are so liberal. Heaven forfend the gun industry not sell so much product. E gad.
Spelling bees and Rosie O’Donnell have nothing to do with it.
No one with any power wants to take guns away (as Bruno Behrend points out), but a lot of folks do wonder why there’s this obsession with being able to buy stuff for which the sole purpose is to kill things.
Guns don’t kill people. People shooting easy-to-get guns kill people. And it’d be a heckuva lot more difficult to kill people without it.
Ed Murnane posts at Illinois Justice blog that Illinois is among the “worst” states as considered by corporate lawyers. Corporate attorneys such as those which help defend Exelon as a result of the water they poisoned in central Illinois. Corporate lawyers such as those who defend the hospital and the doctor which accidentally amputates the wrong limb from your body. Corporate attorneys who are employed by the companies which fund the US Chamber of Commerce, the organization that gave Madison County, Illinois the oh-so-flattering pejorative moniker “judicial hellhole” and set up a silly propaganda paper replete with an editor from the big city to keep pumping that perception out.
Those corporate attorneys.
I wonder what a poll of folks who are hurt by corporate malfeasance, negligence or downright ineptitude would show… (In his defense Mr. Murnane almost asks that same question, but clearly doesn’t care to know the answer since he so quickly dismisses the thought.)
Is the lawsuit climate out of whack? Perhaps. But remember that everyone hates lawyers til they need the best one they can afford — and corporations can generally afford much better attorneys than the rest of us. And Erin Brockovich is still considered a hero among the “little guys” … and a nemesis among the corporate elite.
COMPLETE TANGENT: I wonder if such comments make Mr. Murnane an “Illinois hater”. It’s clear that he thinks our Prairie State is one of the “worst” among the 50. Under the partisan conservatives’ logic, questioning (let alone disparaging) any aspect of a given country or state or person earns one the label “Bush Hater” or “America Hater”. Hmm… see how ridiculous such hyperpartisan name-calling is?
Seeing as how today sort of turned into John Ruskin Day here at Illinois Reason (hey, we can’t help it that most of his comments are beyond goofy)…
Not sure if this means John Ruskin agrees with the rest of his fellow Americans, but he at least does everyone the honor of repeating a recent Gallup poll on the war with little editorial/partisan comments on the findings.
The 10 points Mr. Ruskin echoes from that poll are all things I and a good many other mainstreamers have been saying for some time as proof that conservative partisans are now outliers on the war (yet it continuously seems to fall on deaf partisan conservative ears).
Mr. Ruskin says it well simply by reiterating his fellow citizens’ ideas:
- The Iraq war is an extremely high priority for Americans
- A majority of Americans feel it was a mistake for us to get involved in Iraq
- Americans perceive that the war is not going well
- Americans do not believe the troop surge is having a positive effect
- Americans perceive that the benefits of winning the war do not outweigh the costs involved
- Most Americans support a timetable for removing troops from Iraq within the next year, but not immediate withdrawal
- A majority of Americans are against cutting funding for the war
- Democrats are better positioned than Republicans on handling the issue of Iraq
- Views on the war are highly partisan
- A gender gap exists concerning views on the Iraq war
Mr. Ruskin reaches a valid conclusion. He says: “It would seem that now is a time for leadership on the part of the Administration. But I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for that folks.”
And this is why folks are attracted to the Democratic candidates — their ideas are aligned. To date, the Republican candidates are still supporting the Bush strategy of never-ending battle in Iraq. Sen. McCain even goes several degrees further by one-upping the president’s current surge plan (Sen. McCain doesn’t really explain from whence these extra troops will magically appear to round out his hyper-surge strategy).
In all honesty, the Republican candidates are stuck. The clear majority of Americans are both highly concerned about Iraq and want our brave troops home, yet (as Mr. Ruskin notes above) desires on the Iraq War are highly partisan and the Republican/conservative base wants the war to continue.
(Delving deeper, McCain’s promotion of a hyper-surge is, IMHO, another half-measure. If the strategy is a surge, make it an actual surge instead of just a bump. Pentagon wargames demonstrated a need for roughly half a million troops. While this is unsustainable without a draft or a significant increase in allies, instead of the current continuous decrease, it is what is required to meet the president’s currently stated goal of stability in Iraq.)
And apparently we now know its name.
So John Ruskin finds a photo of the Democratic presidential contenders’ debate (which shows a few spouses’ rear views) and says “Nice Ass-es” (yes, I get the lame double-entendre about the butt-shot and the Democratic donkey). Is it just another laughless Illinois Review joke or something else?
Pantsuit profiles notwithstanding, perhaps the truth behind the post is that Mr. Ruskin must be envious that Democrats have (from their perspective at least) a pleasantly difficult choice between very reasonable candidates who reflect the values of not just their party and its current spate of rationality but also our nation which has clearly grown weary of Bush- and Ruskin-style uberpartisanship and wants to head back to the mainstream.
Or perhaps Mr. Ruskin, who doesn’t seem to like Illinois’ front-runner* for GOP nomination Sen. McCain (*-according to the recent Rich Miller poll), is envious that the Democratic candidates have been attracting audiences upwards of 10x the size of their Republican equivalents.
Pure class, Ruskin style.
John Ruskin had a busy weekend of trying to find things to write that make no sense, even in his bizarro world of hypocrisy and made-up malarkey…
On Saturday he made up stuff about the Trib’s article on a Gilead Center study which found there are a growing number of uninsured citizens in Illinois.
Guess what Mr. Ruskin — neither the Trib nor the Gilead Center made anything up in their reports on the matter.
To follow Mr. Ruskin’s format…
First: There are more people who lack health insurance in Illinois, just like throughout America. How’s that the fault of a governor who is trying to solve the problem? Businesses, the main provider of such a benefit, are slowly but surely peeling away layer after layer of health care insurance (if not dropping it altogether). This is an effect of ever-spiralling costs and waste systemic to the current healthcare, pharmaceutical and payment coverage (HMOs, insurance, etc) systems.
You may not like the governor’s solution or the organizations which support his solution (it’s clear that you do not — that is your right), but that does not give you the magical right to make stuff up in a weak effort to boost your side of things.
Second: Anti-choice solutions? Sure, that’s why others on the opposite end of the political spectrum are complaining (not quite as ridiculously as Mr. Ruskin) that the governor’s plan is market-based and does not eliminate built-in corporate waste.
Third: Any person can walk into a hospital and, so long as they need care, the hospital must give them care. Doesn’t matter if their great-great-great-great-grandfather rowed across the Delaware with Washington or if they came here illegally last week… It also doesn’t matter if they are a millionaire or out-of-work homeless person with nary a penny… hospitals by law must give them care.
It’s only logical that the Gilead Center study would include all people eligible for care in Illinois (everyone in Illinois). Your hyperbole sounds like quite the whine.
Fourth: What part of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness does Mr. Ruskin not understand? Yes, health care is considered a right in these United States. This is why, by law, we as a society say that anyone who walks into a hospital and needs help must be given that help. We don’t leave our people to just die in the streets. We are not that country, no matter how much whining partisan conservatives do to promote the notion that we should be.
Kind of strange for an anti-abortion conservative to now speak out of both sides of his mouth by railing against health care, eh?
Yet more hypocrisy from partisan John Ruskin.
We know John Ruskin hate-hate-hates liberals, but is he really this desperate to throw another slab o’ hate on the barby?
Racial Profiling - Liberal Style
by John Ruskin
Notice anything similar between Virginia Tech murderer Seung-Hui Cho and Cary-Grove High School senior Allen Lee? …
The Illinois educrats did. Seems they’ve been doing a little racial profiling — and ruining a kid’s life in the process.
(It actually gets worse, as Mr. Ruskin compares progressives to the Klan… Yes, really, he did go there.)
Teri O’Brien, well, she was as Teri O’Brien as she could be, saying basically the same thing (sans the racial profiling angle) as Mr. Ruskin in her slightly earlier post on the topic at Illinois Review. And Cal Skinner complained that the Tribune gave this issue front-page coverage a few times over the course 3 days — which is interesting since Illinois Review has now covered the Allen Lee story 3 times in 24 hours.
Back to Mr. Ruskin. What sort of goofball looks at what Mr. Lee wrote in the days after the Virginia Tech massacre and then thinks that his school administrators and the police are committing racial profiling?!? Read the text, Mr. Ruskin.
While yes it was for a creative writing class and, by all appearances, Cary-Grove Trojan Allen Lee appears to be a very well-rounded, upstanding student and citizen, the text of his essay is disturbing and should give anyone pause. And while I think the police overreacted certainly some sort of consequences were appropriate (the area’s police are known for that — don’t drive 31mph in a 30mph zone…. I’m just sayin’). My preference, though I don’t know all the facts — only the text of the essay, would have been for a detention or two.
It may have been a creative writing class, but restraint is also an important lesson.
Given that the school turned the matter over to the police and it is the police who brought the charges (and thus are hampering Mr. Lee’s plans to join the Marines) it would seem to be the police, not the teachers, with whom Mr. Ruskin ought to take up his complaints of racial profiling.
Obviously, none of this explains where Mr. Ruskin came up with this kooky theory of his … especially seeing as how he himself is a profiler. (Mr. Ruskin was all too happy to promote the conservative Christianists’ idea that the VaTech killer was Muslim.)
The only logical explanation? John Ruskin hates public school teachers and/or the unions that support them (ie, them thar “educrats” as Mr. Ruskin puts it).
Here’s a wee li’l crack at creative writing of my own:
Hypocrisy: Thy name be John Ruskin
and thee be blinded by partisan hate.
Hope you drop those scales from your eyes
‘fore the hour grows too late.
Again we head to Capitol Fax blog to find our quote of the day. Here is Rich Miller in his newspaper column, repeated at CapFax blog, describing findings from a presidential poll he had done for his own edification:
Meanwhile, the poll also showed that Illinois’ Republican presidential primary appears to be wide open.
Based on the polls results, that’s an understatement. The two jockeying for “front-runner” label nationally are also 1-2 in Mr. Miller’s poll — Sen. John McCain comes in at a weak 26.1 with former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani nipping at his heels with 25.7.
But it is the bronze finisher that piqued my interest. Former Senator and current TV actor Fred Dalton Thompson (who is also battling cancer) came in with as solid a third place as any at 17.4.
As Mr. Miller and others note, a very interesting point about Sen. Thompson’s showing in this poll is that he has not announced. In terms of presidential campaigning, he has a lot of the same things as Sen. Obama going for him. (Sen. Obama was the first placer — with a clear majority, not just a plurality — on the Dems’ side of Mr. Miller’s poll.)
Sen. Thompson has a bit of noteriety — Sen. Thompson from acting, Sen. Obama from his “hit” DNC speech in 2004. Both are getting attention via the media, boosting their bio and name recognition nationally. The pair also have wives from Illinois — Michelle Obama from Chicago, Jeri Kehn from Naperville (though, only Sen. Thompson is a divorcee having left his first wife, Sarah Elizaebeth Lindsey).
Politically and civicly, both of course are/were Senators and have been involved in promoting the common good (Sen. Thompson famously vis a vis Watergate and other corruption investigations and Sen. Obama through his community activism). Both have strong and growing grassroots contingents (the door-to-door, shoe leather type of support). And both are still relative unknowns to most of the nation meaning they will each be able to fill in the blanks, lest others start to do it for them.
I wonder why Mr. Miller chose to add an undeclared candidate to a poll of what are otherwise declared or exploring candidacies.
UPDATE: Duh. I thought I had linked to the post but I must’ve misclicked. Here it is:
As Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott said, the old Scottish proverb is “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Progressives in general and Illinois progressives in particular need to stop fighting the drivel from the Diersen’s of the Land of Lincoln on their turf.
One thing Illinois Republicans clearly lack is imagination. I mean, the party of George Ryan, Jim Ryan and then Jack Ryan needs to branch out once in awhile. They did, of course, think outside the box once with the whole Alan Keyes thing but, um, that one didn’t work out very well.
Having no native imagination, they rely too much on sound bites and allegedly catchy phrases from HQ. “Tax and spend liberal” is never far from their keyboard, for example, even though the Bush Administration and Karl Rove’s Republican Congress clearly never met a spending bill or pork project they didn’t like. Bush still has yet to cast his first veto about spending our money. Democrats, now in control of Congress, silly us, are advancing they pay-go idea as a step toward, you know, actually having the money for stuff before spending it. But that inconvenient truth hasn’t kept troglodytic Republicans from hauling out the old lumber. Maybe if we explained that it’s like the I-Pass…
Read the rest of this entry »
At that same post in which George Dienhart dances a little jig over the delayed news release of the capture of al-Iraqi, he also makes a point to again blame President Clinton for 17-year cicadas 9/11 despite the fact the man hadn’t been in office for 9 months and National Security Advisor Condi Rice ignored every single warning she was given.
He calls it the “Clinton Doctrine” — which is apparently a reference to Clinton’s retaliatory strike in Syria, etc. I seem to recall that at the time Republicans went bonkers that Clinton was wasting time and missiles, just putting on a show, and wagging the dog — essentially that he did too much for little reason. But now those strikes are considered to be not enough.
Maybe all conservatives are forced to take a Hypocritical Oath before they can join their little club.
Mr. Dienhart continues on with a heckuva whopper:
If anything, President Bush’s administration has proved that the best defense is a good offense. There have been no domestic attacks since 2001. If we had just bombed some aspirin factories in retaliation, we would have been hit again. (emphasis added)
Mr. Dienhart, I know Londoners who were steps away from the bus that exploded on that bloody Thursday in 2005. And perhaps you’d care to explain your claim to the families in Madrid who lost loved ones in 2004. While you’re at it, talk to the Jordanians, Australians and others who have also had to bury loved ones (if their bodies were found) as a results of other terrorist attacks since 2001.
These bombings may not have happened here in the “domestic” US… but they have happened. Qualifying your phrases to gloss over reality doesn’t change that fact.
Our good pal George Dienhart is excitedly wagging his finger over at Illinois Review on the occasion of a news release about another terrorist capture. This time, it is one Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi (aka Abu Abdallah). I agree — good for the CIA for reeling in this monster.
Interestingly enough, al-Iraqi (as his name implies) was an Iraqi before becoming an international outlaw. In fact, he left Saddam Hussein’s army (al-Iraqi was a major at one time) in order to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the 80s. But to conservative partisans, this retroactively proves that Hussein again had direct ties to bin Laden because… they say so. (Actually, it proves that Presidents Carter and Reagan made a strategic blunder in funding and training the pre-born al Quaida in Afghanistan in order to “get back” at the Soviets. Very short-sighted given Middle Eastern fundamentalists’ acts of terror even before that point. Hindsight’s always 20/20.)
Al-Iraqi went on to become a director for al Quaida training camps that were destroyed in the invasion of Afghanistan. News reports indicate he was most recently coordinating terrorist activity at least in Iraq if not also in Europe and that he was the one who, after the US invaded Iraq, eventually convinced now-killed Zarqawi (a Jordanian terrorist who set up operations in Iraq after the US invaded) to join forces with al Quaida. Again, all this after the US invaded Iraq.
Not to discount the significance of any capture of actual terrorists, but it appears as though al-Iraqi had been captured previously in Afghanistan in 2001 or 2002 after our initial invasion to retaliate for 9/11, remove the Taliban and al Quaida, and capture bin Laden. If he was so important, how did he get out that we had to then capture him again?
Further, the man has apparently been in custody since last year (caught by the CIA in late ‘06). Why spill the bean’s of his capture now and possibly imperil on-going stings or other counter-terror ops? Of course, as many conservatives have already noted, there was that vote in the Senate yesterday…
It’s odd and not the least bit disturbing that conservatives such as Mr. Dienhart and others would hold up the news of a single individual’s capture (even though the capture apparently happened last year) as proof that our troops must continue to act as target and training practice for terrorists in Iraq, whether afiiliated with al Quaida or not. This flypaper strategy does just as much to draw out terrorists as it does to create them (let alone give them live-action training that they are now exporting out of Iraq). Why can’t the few partisans still supporting this war that was based on lies from the start comprehend this?
The Iraq War is spawning an ever-growing number of al-Iraqis… not killing them off.
As for al-Iraqi himself, put the guy on trial and, if found guilty (likely), hang him from the nearest gallows — but don’t let him out again as apparently happened at some point a few years ago. And all this again begs the question, where is bin Laden?
Conservatives enjoy railing against what they see as a bloated pension system among government employees. Said conservatives also fail to mention that those same government employees would have typically earned much more salary-wise throughout their career had they been employed by the private sector — you pay for what you get.
And while Bruno Behrend does his fair share of such ranting, he also is rather disillusioned by the current state of overcompensation among the corporate CEO set even though they are typically a staunch ally (not to mention funder) of conservative candidates and causes. So while it may raise an eyebrow or two for those who haven’t been reading or listening to Mr. Behrend, it comes as little surprise that today he joins with libertarian-leaning liberals who fight for fairness and have long decried the huge and growing gap between the haves and the rest of us (ie, the CEO-to-employee income gap).
Here’s Mr. Behrend on the recent announcement of AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre, Jr.’s retirement. (He cross-posts at both his blog and Illinois Review which I take to mean Mr. Whitacre’s wheel of fortune winnings really get under Mr. Behrend’s craw):
Speaking of Obscene Pensions…
AT&T CEO Whitacre may end up being the biggest Pension Pig of all. As an aggressive (and accurate) critic of the obscene pensions showered upon “public servants” (quotes indicate sarcasm & irony), I find corporate retirement packages - along with the often unwarranted ‘parachutes’ they get for bankrupting their companies - just as vile, but for different reasons. [emphasis is original to BB's post]
Come now Mr. Behrend, when’s the last time a public school CEO … I mean superintendent … received a retirement package that included $25,000 per year for a country-club membership? 
Now Hascat at Illinois Review gives Mr. Whitacre the benefit of the doubt in by commenting some of that jackpot will be spent on charities, goods and services and in the long-run benefit the economy. Pres. Reagan tried trickle-down voodoonomics. It didn’t work back then either. Based on the history of such wealthy individuals it is much more likely the bulk of the money will be divvied up between political contributions, some charitable giving (which could also mean deductible political-philosophy contributions), and any heirs.
Mr. Whitacre, by the looks of his past donations (which, while bipartisan, skew Republican) is Mr. Behrend’s political ally, whether Mr. Behrend likes it or not. Perhaps if he finds Mr. Whitacre’s pension jackpot to be obscene he ought to speak a little louder and a little more often to his fellow conservative friends, many of whom seem to buy into the goofy notion of socio-economic darwinism which would dictate that Mr. Whitacre has earned such an “obscene” retirement package by virtue of being better than all the rest of us (ie, a somehow more ‘evolved’ citizen-worker).
COMPLETE TANGENT: Maybe our state legislators will be reminded of all this when they settle on voting for or against AT&T’s “TV 4 us” malarkey.
“TV 4 us” is the shell political organization set up by AT&T to introduce a false sense of competition to the near-monopolistic cable industry. This group, oddly enough, runs the exact same TV commercials across a great many states, not just Illinois, to chide citizens to call their legislators and “support HB such-and-such” (check out all those yellow, “non-video choice” states on their website’s map). Go figure.
I’ve always wondered who they consider to be the “us” in their group’s name? Is it we the people, or is it AT&T and their jackpot-winning CEO retiree? And I’ve always wondered why they consider more of the same (albeit with a different name, and a cell-phone contract as part of the bundle) to be “choice.”
True choice in cable TV would involve a la carte channel options so that folks with, say, tots could pick Nick, Disney, Noggin, etc. and avoid F/X and the other basic cable channels ill-suited to kids. It would also work for home-improvement fans who could pick every DIY channel under the sun while foregoing the channels they don’t want, etc. Bachelors could get all 19 ESPNs, plus the Golf Channel, Bowling Channel, and Squash Channel — while not having to buy Lifetime, Oh! or the Hallmark Channel (vice versa for the gals).
Then again, who would watch all 500 channels with nothing on them if we weren’t forced to buy them all at once? (Gee, maybe that’s why there’s no a la carte basic cable.)
-I-N-I…
AP says Jeffrey Jordan, 3-year starter at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, announced today he’d like to play as a walk-on at U of I.
Should be interesting to see how that works out as Coach Weber continues to rebuild. I also wonder if it will help recuitment at all. If his dad continues to watch games from the stands as he did at Loyola Academy … it should.
Congrats to the Jordans. Illinois is a good school, then again I’m biased.
Libby Gray Macke, director of a Glenview outfit called “Project Reality”, has a letter in today’s Tribune promoting abstinence-only education. Ms. Macke is herself an abstinence educator and, as such, has a reason to continue to promote such folly as abstinence-only which has been proven time and again to simply not work as intended.
Ms. Macke refers to an earlier Trib article (originally from the Associated Press) which reported on a Mathematica Policy Research study that showed students in abstinence-only programs had their first intimate experience at the same average age as students who were not in such classes — 14.9 years old (which is younger than the national average of 16). That study conducted research in areas as varied as Milwaukee, Miami, and rural Virginia and Mississippi. Others have questioned the implications of the study’s release, given that so many Federal tax dollars are given to such programs under the direction of the conservative Bush Administration.
Unfortunately for Ms. Macke, the program she runs (Project Reality) is misnamed. In her letter defending her livelihood of abstinence-only education, Ms. Macke refers to not just one but three other studies as proof the Mathematica Policy study is wrong.
But she avoids reality by failing to name any of her referenced studies so we have no way to gauge their accuracy or relevance. She might as well have told us that an increase in cricket chirping helps promote abstinence… that’s just as helpful.
Ms. Macke also seems to have ignored reality by griping about what she claims is a flaw in the Mathematica study’s methodology. She says the study cannot be trusted because the abstinence-only study subjects and the control group subjects were all in the same schools, and could thus talk to each other, presumably about sex ed.
News flash to Ms. Macke: kids talk to each other whether they go to the same school or not. Welcome to the electronic age where a kid isn’t a kid without cell phone ears and keypad hands.
And lest ye think I’m simply tearing hole after hole in Ms. Macke’s weak, self-interested arguments… there is plenty of evidence from other legitimate research to bolster the Mathematica study Ms. Macke is disingenuously trying to critique.
Finally, Ms. Macke says only ‘just say no’ to sex programs come under attack (the good ol’ woe-is-me-I’m-such-a-lone-martyr defense) and that people don’t question the effectiveness of ‘just say no’ programs against drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Which, like so many other aspects of Ms. Macke’s letter, is also just plain wrong. There are plenty of folks who question the effectiveness of those programs, but given Ms. Macke’s conservative leanings it’s unlikely she would agree with them either.
Now don’t get me wrong. I firmly believe abstinence education ought to be a major component of any comprehensive sex ed class. Abstinence from all forms of sexual activity is the only way to completely avoid STDs, pregnancies, and emotional harm. Parents also ought to play a much larger role in teaching their children the responsibilities and possible results of intimacy so their children (even if “mature”) can be truly expected to be accountable for their actions.
More to the point, I am certain Ms. Macke has what she considers to be the best interests of our youth at heart. She has every right afforded her as a citizen to believe what she wants to believe, ignore what she wants to ignore and promote what she wants to promote. But, she also has a responsibility, as an educator of our children and a recipient of our tax money, to be accurate, honest and open. Sadly, she is so clearly not.
If you’d like to help clear the air and demonstrate the lack of reality in Ms. Macke’s claims, write the Trib: ctc-tribletter@tribune.com
Actually, this is now from yesterday… (Thought I hit “publish” but I must’ve hit “save”.)
Ladies and gentlemen, this may be Bill Baar’s first appearance on Illinois Reason. He earned it with this whopper. In response to another George Dienhart screed on how Democrats are evil and all wrong and to blame for everything bad ever… Mr. Baar tells us his thoughts on Sen. Obama’s vote and press release against the Iraq War. Bill Baar says:
This poor foolish man has no idea how much tougher this war is going to get with America flinching like this.
It will get bigger, costlier, and bloodier. American’s [sic] will rightly blame Democrats for this failure of will. It’s going to be a hell of way to learn the lesson though.
Neomeme did a little digging after we all learned that Karl Rove had been using a Republican National Committee email account to conduct quasi-government/quasi-political work from the West Wing. The account Mr. Rove was using was on a little RNC-owned domain called gwb43.com (Pres. Bush being the 43rd president, “43″ is also his family nickname with his father being called “41″ — cute, no?).
In doing the digging, Neoneme found what he calls several “Strange Domains Registered by the RNC“. One of the more curious domains discovered is one called “democratflipflops.com”. As we all know, in 2004 the Republicans’ knock against Senator John Kerry was that he somehow flip-flopped on legislation and policies. Kerry-Edwards events often had goofball protesters running in giant flip & flop costumes, though even Sen. Kerry shot himself in the foot by saying he voted for the Iraq war before he voted against it (which, in Senatorese, is technically true since there were several bills related to the Iraq War, some worse than others).
But Neoneme explains why that particular domain name is so interesting in light of the 2004 presidential campaign:
democratflipflops.com is particularly interesting, because it was registered in 2002, suggesting the Republican war machine for labeling Bush’s 2004 opponent a flip-flopper was working long before the election.
This makes sense: write the script long before you need to act out the play. Had the primaries produced a candidate by the name of Howard Dean or John Edwards … why they too would’ve had the “flip-flopper” label thrown at them.
Karl Rove has a history of plugging pieces into a puzzle whether they fit or not. We saw him do it time and again to Vice-President Gore in 2000, labeling him a fibber (at worst) or exaggerator (at best). One of the most famous 2000 lines is that VP Gore claimed to have “invented” the Internet. He, of course, never made such a claim. It was then-candidate Bush who twisted Gore’s words … in order to fit the script that had already been written.
Unfortunately, it’s apparently easier for the national media to buy into a storyline — even a made-up political storyline — than it is for those journalists to actually, you know, do journalism. Even worse… some folks sadly lap it up like cats to milk.
McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington Bureau (the former Knight-Ridder group) reported yesterday that “U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence.” Now why on earth would they do that?
President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.
Huh?
Haven’t we been told that ending the violence is in fact the administration’s current goal? Isn’t “security” the reason our troops are being kept in Iraq despite the fact they’ve gone above and beyond every other command they’ve been given (Hussein was deposed, WMDs were found to be myths, Iraq has had two elections and now has a Constitutional democracy, etc.)?
A few weeks back conservative partisan George Dienhart stole a photo from the NY Times Magazine in order to “prove” Sen. Obama was talking politics in his Senate office (a tax-payer government office). The article itself gave no such indication, so it was simply Mr. Dienhart’s gotcha-game assumption readers were left to rely on as “proof” — and we all know what happens when one assumes something (they end making an a-s-s outta u and m-e).
I wonder if he’s as apoplectic over today’s news that the Bush Administration, under the supervision of chief Political Adviser to the President Karl Rove, has been coordinating Federal activities in order to bolster Republican incumbents and candidates and exclude Democratic elected officials. In fact, there are at least 20 instances of such political activity across 15 White House-led agencies.
Oops.
(Gee, I wonder if I’m white enough…)
More Obama Myths again today from former Alan Keyes activist Fran Eaton, who promotes a Patrick John essay at Illinois Review blog. Mr. John writes:
Is Obama Black enough? Is he militant enough? These are some of the questions that Obama’s Black detractors ask publicly. This is not the first time Obama’s Blackness has been questioned.
I remember when Obama ran against the conservative Black Republican Alan Keyes for the US Senate seat in Illinois in 2004. Keyes questioned Obama’s ability to understand Black America, given that his father is a Black African, his mother a White woman, and that his upbringing was far from any inner-city experience.
Mr. John seems to think one has to be militant, or have two black parents or be raised in the inner-city to be “black enough”… Funny, aren’t those some of the same things Ms. Eaton and other partisan conservatives claim are good reasons to vote against Obama for any office, let alone prez?
I’ve always thought the phrase “politically correct” was so much hollow spin, especially in light of the fact that conservatives have their own “political correctness thought police” roaming the streets of America’s rhetorical outposts telling us how they think things ought to be said.
To me, even the recent Don Imus flap was much more about the free market than it was ever about “political correctness”. Others, including several conservatives, agree. The free market explains why Mr. Imus would be fired for making essentially the same comments rappers (black and white) make all the time. Mr. Imus’ revenue sources (corporate advertisers) abandoned him; hip-hop artists’ revenue sources (music consumers) have not.
It also explains why Rush Limbaugh still has a job given his repeated airing of the highly racist song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro” — sung to “Puff the Magic Dragon”.
Rush’s “Dittoheads” (his listeners, and the people Rush’s advertiser pay to reach) could care less about racism, thus they continue to support his show even after he had proven himself hypocritical in other areas such as, ahem, the “OC”.
Don’t get me wrong. Racism is one of the malignant cancers infecting our society — it has been for centuries and until segments of society such as Rush Limbaugh and his Dittoheads choose to grow up it will continue to be so. But, our Constitution also gives racists the right to promote scummy songs like “Barack the Magic Negro” so long as they don’t harm another citizen — physically, economically or otherwise.
To keep America the great, free nation it is we as a society have to endure this sort of rubbish; but there’s also no reason (as with Don Imus) why we can’t call conservatives out for it to show our fellow Americans just how disgusting Rush and his ilk’s trash is.
(Hat tip: Town Called Dobson.)
Apparently on ABC’s “This Week” Newt Gingrich blamed not timidity (as fellow conservative pundit Mark Steyn did) but liberalism for the massacre at Virginia Tech. Carpetbagger Report takes note.
This sort of blame-anyone bullcrap falls right in line with local conservative partisan George Dienhart’s screed in which he blames Democratic Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for “killing Iraqi children” (nevermind that the President started the war and the Vice President and former Secretary of Defense were the ones to so poorly plan it).
It also falls right in line with Mark Steyn, Gary Bauer and the other conservatives who lamely climbed on top of the dead Hokies’ bodies to spew out a bucket of partisan vitriol to ‘put down’ whomever they saw fit (whether it be Geraldo Rivera, ’sissy America’ or Muslims). It’s weak.
Unfortunately, in blaming liberals Mr. Gingrich neglects to include any mention of the liberal gun laws that would allow a madman to buy a gun and ammo over them thar Internets.
And some people want Mr. Gingrich to clean up the Bush Administration’s mess by running for president himself? Great idea — replace one President who clearly has no concept of reality with another.
As Ethel-to-Tilly at Carpetbagger report says, one wonders if Mr. Gingrich also blames the high divorce rate on cancer*. (This guy once taught history? Maybe conservatives do have a point about bad schools.)
The Other Anonymous, over at Capitol Fax blog, says:
Unfortunately, too many do believe in the prejudicial stereotypes that IFI sells.
TOA writes this in response to Rich Miller’s question on whether or not folks buy into the over-the-top rhetoric that groups like Illinois Family Institute promulgate. The original post is in regards to IFI’s bizarre diarrhea of the mouth over a proposed state bill which offer same-sex benefits to certain school employees. Oh dear, we can’t have “the gays” treated just like … just like … like every other American?!! Preposterous!
Yet lo and behold, we see a plethora of other gay-hatin’ going on this very same day from among the Midwest conservatives’ ranks:
- Illinois Review all but announces its “watch list” of gay folks supporting Sen. Obama. (Who cares which gay people support Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain for that matter?)
- The despicable cult leader Rev. Phelps is headed to Indiana today to spout hatred during another military funeral. (Thank God for the Patriotic Guard riders. I encourage all Illinois Reason readers to join PGR and attend as often as you’re able.)
- “Culture” Campaign’s first link on their homepage is still a discussion of why folks like Petey LaBarbera ought to keep their kids tucked away at home lest they get any ideas about “the gays”. Maybe they’ll update that after reading about IFI’s strange interpretation of this proposal since anything related to sex and schools seems to immediately pop up on Sandy Rios’ radar.
When conservatives finally get over their hatred of gay Americans it will be a good day in this country. I’m not holding my breath.
UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Illinois Review copied its list of Sen. Obama’s gay supporters from Rod 2.0 blog wherein blogger Rod discusses the political ramifications of not only Sen. Obama’s gay and lesbian supporters but also those of Sens. Clinton and Edwards (Rod found the list via the campaign). Illinois Review chose to remove that discussion in favor of repeating only the list, changing the emphasis entirely.
With the exception of a single Chicago art student, conservatives are the only ones calling Sen. Obama the “Second Coming.” Fired conservative talk jock Teri O’Brien has been doing it for a while now (though she’s apparently been cleansing her site of such references, perhaps because Illinois Reason has called her out on it). This week, conservative cartoonist Chuck Asay joins the flock and Illinois Review kindly displays it for the world to see.
Normally when people collectively despise and/or fear someone this much, they don’t equate him to the Son of God. But so be it, maybe reverse psychology works for partisan conservatives.
The rest of us? We either see Sen. Obama as nothing special or as someone with great promise, especially when compared to the current administration. But it’s only conservatives who are calling him a “man-god” (that’d be your warrior princess, Teri O’Brien’s doing).
UPDATE: The Super-Duper Friends depicts Sen. Obama as “Captain United” — a la Superman (not exactly “The Messiah”, though the original Superman storylines do allude to godlike aspects). To be honest, I didn’t need to see Sen. Clinton in Wonder Woman garb, even if as animation. (h/t Austin Mayor.)
And Now… Heeerre’s Geeoorrggiiee: George W. Bush Wet My Bed
Since George Dienhart didn’t bother to link to an actual report or make any cites to anything in print, it’s unclear why Mr. Dienhart’s panties are in a bunch, other than he apparently doesn’t like that the shock and awe of war is causing Iraqi children to stutter and wet their beds. Ok… If you can’t take the consequences of a war then don’t be a cheerleader when your president starts one, Mr. Dienhart.
[UPDATE: Mr. Dienhart has now linked to a Fox News transcript of a Harry Reid speech. Sen. Maj. Leader Reid makes note of the fact 70% of Iraqi children are suffering from trauma and that this is the generation of Iraqis we are counting on to bolster democracy there into the future. So essentially Mr. Dienhart is mocking Senate Leader Reid for pointing out the fact Pres. Bush cannot bring himself to face reality. Again, Mr. Dienhart, if you don't like the consequences of a war, don't grab the megaphone and pom-poms to cheerlead for that war. Even the Iraqis want Americans to stop with the president's plans and just leave even while also being almost universally opposed to al-Quaida.]
Mr. Dienhart then blathers on and on, trying to blame Democrats for everything. Maybe he even blames Dems for 17-year cicadas. I’m not sure, I was too busy laughing at his hysterical comedy routine.
Go read it for yourself. It’s kooky at it’s finest.
Earlier I commented that Mark Steyn was a jackass for penning a column whining that America has too many sissies and using the occasion of the Virginia Tech massacre to do so (here and here).
Hypocritically, conservatives are jumping all over presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama for also discussing the tragedy in a speech earlier last week. Greg Blankenship refers to Ann Althouse who bases her Obama-hate on the same unofficial speech text Charles Krauthammer uses in this week’s column.
I agree that the Senator shouldn’t have made the stretch to weave a “violence” theme through his speech. But let’s get real. The man is running for president, folks are going to expect him to discuss the shootings on some level — which he did by expressing his condolences. His mistake, in my view, was in stretching it into a theme, just as Steyn did, before all the facts were out and before the mourning loved ones had even had a chance to bury the dead.
Unfortunately for conservatives, they seem to think it’s ok to step on dead bodies to whine about their perceived sissification of America (does that make them “America-haters”?). Bottom line for conservatives: it’s ok to call Americans cowards, but not ok to talk about racism, misogyny or even outsourcing.
That’s called hypocrisy (based on gasbaggery and tasteless comments from one of their own to boot) and it’s unfortunately served daily by these partisan conservatives.
(And Mr. Blankenship, there are only two groups of people who repeat the Sen. Obama is “cooler-than-cool” meme — conservatives who hate him and those mainstream Americans who choose to be uplifted by his rhetoric after years of disappointing malarkey from the current administration. The rest of us realize he’s a politician and a human just like every other candidate for prez, from both sides, though perhaps with a bit more talent for speaking and writing… usually.)
Dear T. Mannis,
Over at your Rogers Park Bench blog you took offense that I pointed out your “friend” John Ruberry didn’t do homework before calling someone a “moron.” Mr. Mannis, you miss that point in favor of throwing the book at me in your rage (which is strange because even reliably conservative “Skeeter” points out Ruberry’s error, yet you give him and others who echoed the same point a pass.)
Here’s a hint Mr. Mannis: I called it a “moronic post by John Ruberry” because it was play off his post’s title, “A moronic statement from Ald. Joe Moore.” My point was that Ruberry failed to prove his point by both deliberately taking Ald. Moore’s statement out of context and then failing to back up his (Ruberry’s) claims with any sort of research. Joe Moore and Don Gordon were side characters; my post was about Mr. Ruberry much more than it was about them. Any rational person gets that. You calling me an idiot doesn’t change that.
Mr. Mannis, as for your thoughts that there’s any sort of “machine” in the suburbs… you’d have to look to the conservatives for that in these parts. With rare exception, that Chicago “machine” stops working in the land beyond O’Hare. In fact, our own local Dem committeeman out this way was one of the few to have voted against both the unheard-of Lisa Madigan endorsement before the 2003 primary (when M. Madigan coerced the other Dem committeeman across the state to endorse her) and the 2006 nomination of Todd Stroger as replacement nominee for county president. He’s even recently been labeled “Mr. Outsider” by the Sun-Times. Can’t get much more un-machine than the ‘burbs. (Our local Republican committeeman, on the other hand, has been labeled a “star conservative” by the Illinois Review.)
Smells like sour grapes that your boy Mr. Gordon lost, Mr. Mannis, and those sour grapes make for an upset stomach and may even lead to diarrhea of the mouth.
Sincerely,
Rob “The moronic, machine cog, political hack idiot” Nesvacil (aka, “Nescavil”)
UPDATE: I comment on the Rogers Park Bench remarks in comments here and also above in a newer post.
Mr. Ruberry over at Illinoize calls recently re-elected Alderman Joe Moore “moronic” and a “liar”. (Ald. Moore, you may recall, is one of the more liberal aldermen, having led city council acts to protest the Iraq War, provide a living wage to big-box employees, and, infamously, ban duck liver.) Says the Rubester:
Yesterday afternoon I watched WGN-TV’s midday news, and Joe Moore made this comment about Tuesday’s’ election:
Whenever you fight for the common guy, people are going to fight back. My opponent was very well funded by some very powerful special interests, Republican interests….
Lies. Gordon did receive multiple contributions from the Illinois Restaurant Association, as well as the group Chicago Chefs for Choice. The last one must’ve had something to do with Moore’s anti-foie gras legislation.
To be sure, both candidates received money from those big bad restaurant special interests (Ald. Moore did receive a check from a Dunkin Donuts, after all, according to his latest D-2). But Mr. Ruberry you know as well as I do that those are not the “very powerful special interests” that Ald. Moore was discussing.
For instance, his opponent, Don Gordon, received at least $60,000 in donations from just one “special interest”: David Herro who helped fund the Swift Boat liars (unclear if that total is $2500 or $5000), the 43rd Ward Republicans ($2500), Ron Gidwitz for Governor ($6500 total), and even losing GOP candidate for Cook County President Tony Peraica ($50,000 total). (To be fair, Mr. Herro has also donated to Democratic candidates and committees, though much, much less relatively speaking — such as the $5000 to Forrest Claypool.)
But Mr. Ruberry wouldn’t know all that because… he doesn’t like to do research to actually base his remarks in fact instead of baloney:
I haven’t [had?] [taken?] [made?] the time to add up Moore’s and Gordon’s contributions
Even Rich Miller (who technically ‘owns’ the Illinoize blog) decries Mr. Ruberry’s lack of research to back up his rhetoric.
Another John Ruskin post, another baseless claim. Today Ruskin copies and pastes an email apparently sent out by Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families in which CFW sensationally claims:
“Cho Seung Hui’s videotape, made during an “intermission” in his murder spree, is filled with hatred toward American culture, wealthy people, and Christians. At one point the killer says, “Jesus loved crucifying me…he loved inducing cancer in my head, terrorizing my heart and ripping my soul…”
He signed his written letter and had written on his arm “Ishmael Ax,” [sic] a Muslim spelling, many believe, for the son of Abraham. Moreover, he also referred to the “martyrs like Eric and Dylan.” That would be Columbine murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher this same week in 1999. Only one faith embraces this perverted view of “martyrdom” whereby the murderers are celebrated as martyrs, and it’s not Christianity.
(Clarification: CFW spells it wrong. According the Chicago Tribune, the words were spelled “Ismail Ax”. More on that in a bit.)
This is a bizarre, needlessly partisan reaction to Monday’s massacre — claiming this was all the act of a radical Muslim — but it falls directly in line with the groupthink of a great many other conservative partisans like Jerry Bowyer and more who apparently look for any excuse to do a little hatin’ on Muslims.
But there are several issues with this baseless theory.
Illinois Review contributor John Ruskin (not the dead English guy) joins fellow Illinois Review contributor Bruno Behrend (who posted about it at his own blog, Extreme “Wisdom”) in promoting Mark Steyn, jackass.
Why is Steyn a jackass? He feels a need to turn a 32-person massacre into a debate over whose balls have more brass — instead of a soapbox to promote his partisan conservative agenda, he climbs on their dead bodies (some of whose families have yet to bury their loved ones).
The truly funny thing? They’re all grown men whining about what they think is some sort of a “loss of manhood” in this country. To be honest, they sound just like my pre-schooler when she can’t find her dolly. Seriously. (Though, in all fairness, my girl has yet to quote Shakespeare, let alone esoteric pundit Kathy Shaidle, while searching for Cinderella).
Guys, it’s ok. You don’t need to worry about the rest of us — we are fine. But really, this continuing questioning of others’ manhood … well, it’s starting to look like maybe the problem is with the guy staring back at you in the mirror. Steyn, and his parrots Behrend and Ruskin (among others), seem to want to join the league of those like Petey LaBarbera who is so uncomfortable with his own manliness he had to keep his son home from school lest he get ideas about “the gays”.
If you’re not comfortable with the status of your own manhood, fine. Figure out a way to deal with it on your own. Leave us out of it because, as for all us regular guys over here in the real world, we’re jim-dandy with the level of testosterone flowing in our own red-blooded, flag-waving manly man selves.
You want evidence of America’s manliness (ie, bravery)? Don’t look to the partisan conservatives in the 101st Fighting Keyboardists. Look to these guys and gals instead:
- Heroes in uniform
- NY City hero, saved a man’s life by protecting him from oncoming subway train … then dusted himself off and went to work
- And, of course, the hero professor who sacrificed himself to protect his students and the heroes in Room 207 who at first protected themselves and then blockaded the door to prevent the gunner’s return (including the guy who had already been shot)
And there are plenty more right here in these United States, so quit whining like girly-men.
And here those crusty ol’ partisan conservatives thought we Illinois Reasoners didn’t have a sense o’ humor. Here’s hoping your GOPUSA Illinois editor David John Diersen got some friendly giggles from it too. (By the way, beyond being a precinct captain in Wheaton, I don’t think Diersen actually has any affiliation with the actual Illinois GOP. In fact, in reading his daily alerts, he’s often barred from attending GOP functions such as fundraisers, campaign events, etc.)
Unwisely, the Extreme Wisdom headine reads: “I Felt Compelled to Simply Reprint This Without Comment…“
Disgustingly, Extreme Wisdom blog writer Bruno Behrend copied wholesale (feeling “compelled” to post it in an apparently approving fashion) a disgusting column by conservative writer Mark Steyn in which the conservative Steyn bemoans what he apparently considers some sort of sissification at VT in particular and America in general.
Hypocritically, Extreme Wisdom blog writer Bruno Behrend claimed just one day earlier (the day after the Virginia Tech massacre) that:
I wasn’t there, so it may sound somewhat fatuous to say that I’d have “done something.” I might have been crapping my pants.
OTOH, I think I would have done something. I believe it is fair for me to say that because I’ve actually thought about such situations, and though never being in THIS TYPE of situation, I am the type of person who has taken action in other stressfull circumstances. (emphasis his)
Nes points out Extreme Wisdom blog writer can’t decide if he would have been crapping his pants or would have done something. Nes points out the Steyn column has an answer for Extreme Wisdom blog writer (in quoting Kathy Shaidle):
When we say “we don’t know what we’d do under the same circumstances”, we make cowardice the default position.
Nes points out that contrary to the fatuous crap conservative-pundit column the Extreme Wisdom blog writer repeated from Mark Steyn, many professors and students at Virginia Tech did not crap their pants and instead literally sacrificed themselves in order to barricade doors and protect others from harm, not just the one professor Steyn decided to include as NY Times notes.
Nes points out that by Steyn’s own logic (vis a vis the Shaidle quote), Behrend is a coward by default.
Nes points out Steyn is a jackass, and Extreme Wisdom blog is not so wise for echoing Steyn’s fatuous crap.
UPDATE: Mr. Behrend tries to defend the whining by calling me a “self-appointed righ[t]er of all Illinois conservative wrongs” (which is funny since he thinks he’s “righting” what he thinks are liberals “wrongs”) and saying I’m “hot and bothered”… My reply:
As for being hot and bothered? Yeah, jumping on 33 dead bodies to debate testosterone ought to bother any rational person (before most of the families have buried their loved ones, no less).
You want to pee on fire hydrants, fine, I’ll debate this with you (as I am). And I’ll point out just how disrespectful and creepy you’re being by promoting your fake-manliness agenda by jumping on the dead instead of a soapbox.
Illinois Reason is happy to bring you today’s festivities free of charge and without advertising. Illinois Reason introduced today as a special day earlier this morning.
Consider this Illinois Reason’s first-ever “Open Thread”…
Nes Headline: More un-Christian Behavior from Conservatives Who Hate Gay People
Family Taxpayers Network Headline: LaBarbera: “Day of Silence is Educational Malpractice“
Heterosexually, FTN’s Political Radar notes their belief that:
Like it or not, how a person responds to inner impulses and how they choose to behave is and always will be an appropriate subject for moral judgment.
Nes finds it bittersweet that he passes FTN’s immoral social test. Nes is sad to see FTN has such a discriminatory, hate-filled test in the first place — let alone such a bigoted social test coming from a group professing a higher moral ground. Nes remembers reading in history books of social and civic tests and other discrimination against citizens of color during an earlier point in our nation’s history.
Nes points out that FTN and gay-bar “investigator” Petey LaBarbera choose to be hate-filled heterosexuals.
Outrageously, FTN calls on state legislators to do something to end the “Day of Silence” but with the other side of their mouth FTN claims it should not be a matter of public policy:
How a person prefers to have sex is their problem — not a matter for public policy and certainly not an appropriate subject for propaganda purposes in taxpayer funded classrooms.
Your Illinois Reason blogger fails to see the “Day of Silence” as propaganda. Your Illinois Reason blogger explains that it is actually a day to remember those who have been discriminated against by hate-filled anti-gay radicals; some of whom have even killed gay folks simply because they hated them so much. Sadly, FTN and Petey LaBarbera encourage such acts against gay people with their vitriolic rhetoric.
Your Illinois Reason blogger points out that most of the public policy in this country and the various states discriminates against gay people (at least in terms of those laws which the Supreme Court has not struck down).
Sadly, FTN and gay-bar “investigator” Petey LaBarbera are unlikely to realize mainstream Americans see their hate-filled rantings for the venom it is.
Illinois Review headline: GOP lawmakers to vote for tax increase
Sadly, many of the same people who claim to be conservatives are opposing both a 2% income tax swap (for individuals) and a few percentage point gross receipts tax (for businesses) yet are also bizarrely clamoring for a NEW 30% national sales tax which they mislabel a “Fair” Tax (it is actually an Unfair Tax). The conservatives’ Unfair Tax was also discussed by your Illinois Reason blogger earlier.
Interestingly, conservatives of this sort often claim to be in favor of fiscal responsibility yet in this instance they choose to oppose means of funding two fundamental functions the population has told government they want: education and healthcare. Reasonable blogger ArchPundit explains the rationale and the options behind the GRT in “When a Bad Tax is Worth Passing“.
* 0.00005% statistic based on GRT opponents’ claims of only 600 protest participants versus the most recent (2005) US Census Bureau statistics on Illinois population of 12.7 million. Nes points out this is no less a math game than the Illinois Review’s fuzzy math which turned 2% into 66% on a related tax topic.
EXTREME WISDOM blog headline: Is Climatology a Science?
Disconcertingly, conservative blogger and talk show host Bruno Behrend denies the scientificalitiness of a field of science. Your Illinois Reason blogger wonders if Behrend realizes Intelligent Design excuse-making is not a science, but Climatology is.
Strangely, Behrend doesn’t even seem to understand that the science of predicting the weather next week is called “Meteorology” (your Illinois Reason blogger wonders if the “meteor-” part throws Behrend off) and that the study of the weather patterns over time is called “Climatology”.
Dictionary.com explains “climate” is “the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, air pressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years.”
Your Illinois Reason blogger wonders why anyone would expect the study of weather averages to predict weather on a specific day instead of predicting weather patterns in general. Nes thinks this is because Behrend does not know what he is talking about — though Nes points out that denying reality helps promote Behrend’s agenda on this matter.
Discouragingly, denying reality through use of red herrings such as ignorance of words like “climatology” also leads to dismissal of other issues related to our shared atmosphere such as the increasing rates of asthma among children worldwide, which is ultimately likely a result of air pollution (dumping “garbage” into the air).
Nes points out that no matter what the cause of catastrophic global climate change, reducing pollution will also have positive effects on health (by reducing harmful material dumped into our air and decreasing rates of acid rain and the like) and the economy (by spurring competition and diversification in energy-production industries).
Chicago Tribune headline: Court backs ban on abortion procedure
Outrageously, the Supreme Court yesterday somehow upheld a 2003 law declaring a specific medical procedure illegal in a 5-4 vote.
Ostensibly, this law is supported by those who believe fetuses are babies and are thuse opposed to all abortion. Outrageously, following the conservatives’ logic, the implications of this could mean that conservatives will want to have vasectomies and tube-tying declared illegal (these specific medical procedures also prevent babies from being born). Illinois Reasons suggests readers think about it.
Even more outrageously, the Tribune repeats the conservative talking point “partial birth” abortion. There is no such medical term. It is a political term invented by conservatives to make this medical procedure sound horrific. The correct medical term is “dilation and extraction”. It is rarely performed (only 0.17% of all abortions as of 2000), often only in cases in which the mother’s health is at risk. Outrageously, the conservatives’ tactic apparently worked.
Outrageously, conservatives may soon want to shut down any and all shops which sell condoms or other contraceptives so that people think twice before having intimate relations. (Oddly, the conservative Discovery Institute — the same group promoting Creationism Intelligent Design — says “The old sort of natural lawyer reflects that it is wrong to use the sexual powers in a way which thwarts their built-in working–as, for instance, in the use of artificial contraception, which fights the design of the sexual powers instead of cooperating with it.”)
Even more outrageously, doctors may now be arrested for attempting to save their patient’s life.
Nes bets you’ll be able to soon figure out what today is. (Nes Hint: It’s in honor of a certain fellow blogger who took some offense that the Illinois Reason poster blogged about the other blogger a week ago even though said blogging was in the interest of full discussion of political topics involving civic proceedings to which all citizens are eligible to participate.)
Partisan conservatives choose to continue disgracing their cause by trying to pee on the memory of her through a steady stream of letters to the editor berating her columns (the Chicago Tribune has but a few examples).
Let her rest in peace.
Serial letter-writer Susan Petrarca of Lemont had another off-the-wall partisan conservative talking point published in the Trib over the weekend. Actually, it’s pretty much just another conservative lie but since lies can apparently be opinion too, it gets printed.
Now, I’ve written letters to the editor every now and again. A few have even been published. What I don’t understand is why a publication with as large a readership as the Trib would choose to publish material (no matter how good or, in this case, bad) from the same person over and over.
Give ‘em their own room in a column.
Better yet, when Tribune Letters to the Editor editor Dodie Hofstetter (who must have quite the thick skin to perform her job) gets a letter that is demonstrably false don’t repeat the lie by printing it. Given that the Trib receives several thousand letters per week, there must be someone other than Ms. Petrarca who can be published. (Or, are the other letters repeating her rants even more vitriolic?)
Ms. Petrarca’s letter is straight from the Rush Limbaugh Show: she attacks Speaker Pelosi for travelling to Syria. Most folks commenting about the letter try to set Ms. Petrarca straight, though a few partisan conservatives chime in to incorrectly gripe about the Logan Act, etc.
So, once again conservatives, here are the facts about Speakers of the House traveling abroad (courtesy of Think Progress … and common sense):
- Both Speakers Gingrich and Hastert travelled to foreign nations and both directly undermined stated policy of the Clinton Administration despite the Clinton Administration having instructed them not to do so. In other words, Speakers Gingrich and Hastert directly undermined the President of the United States during foreign excursions.
- Speaker Pelosi’s trip was approved by the Bush State Department and President Bush himself was informed of the trip before it was conducted. It’s a bit late to cry about something after the fact, and after giving approval. But far be it from conservatives to not act like hypocrites, eh?
- Speaker Pelosi’s group included Republicans. Why aren’t partisan conservatives complaining about them too?
- Speaker Pelosi’s trip was preceded by an all-Republican delegation which went to Syria (that means a Republican-only group of legislators went before she did, for those of you playing along at home). Again, why no whining about the Republicans from that earlier trip?
- Syria was not an “enemy” of the United States of America at the time of Speaker Pelosi’s trip, contrary to Ms. Petrarca’s lie. It still isn’t as of today.
Susan Petrarca must not enjoy the truth. Maybe it hurts her brain. Given that, it sure would be nice if she’d stop reading the Trib and make good on that hollow threat she made many moons ago in another whiney, shrill letter to the editor. She just might save a tree.
Maybe her fellow partisan conservatives can follow suit and just stop with the damn lies. They just might save our great nation from the partisan hell it’s enduring now.
Due to my involvement as a volunteer (for the incumbents: Dussling, Kruetzer and Zim