Sunday, February 27, 2005

Stoopid

Doug Schmitz, MichNews.com:
Recall the hissy fit the media leftists threw about Fox News White House Correspondent Carl Cameron when he was traveling with the Kerry campaign: Cameron, who's one of the best White House correspondents in Washington, referred to John Kerry as a "metrosexual" in a private e-mail about Kerry’s over-the-top grooming habits. But it was inadvertently posted on Foxnews.com and, subsequently, the pro-Kerry media pounced.

But these same leftist reporters never said a word when New York Times reporter and Bush-hater Adam Nagourney posted, in his "personal diary" on his Web site, false allegations about Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.
Wanna see Nagourney's "personal diary"? It is here.

As Atrios says, this guy's dumber than dirt. Probably reads The Onion for its investigative journalism.

Avoiding the "Reality-Based Community"

Der Spiegel:
During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans. But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice. ... Bush's strategists felt an uncontrolled encounter with the German public would be too unpredictable.

To avoid that messy scenario, the White House requested that rules similar to those applied during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit two weeks ago also be used in Mainz. Before meeting with students at Paris's Institute of Political Sciences ... Rice's staff insisted on screening and approving any questions to be asked by students. ... In the end, the town hall meeting was never officially dropped from the agenda of the trip -- instead it was dealt with in polished diplomatic style -- both sides just stopped talking about it.
Thanks to "Are We Still A Democracy?" ... And to answer the question posed by that blog title -- going by what Bush told Putin this past week: "Democracies have certain things in common; they have a rule of law, and protection of minorities, a free press, and a viable political opposition" -- I'd say No. Four strikes and you're out.

Support Tax the Troops

Military.com:
Republican majorities on the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees have voted to impose an enrollment fee of at least $230 a year on 2.4 million veterans - one of every three now eligible for Veterans Affairs Administration health care.
But don't blame Bush, this is (somehow) all Clinton's fault.

New York Times:
With little fanfare, the Bush administration is proposing to stop financing the construction of new housing for the mentally ill and physically handicapped as part of a 50 percent cut in its housing budget for people with disabilities. ... [T]he federal government would discontinue financing housing for people with spinal cord injuries or psychiatric illnesses who are not necessarily homeless but may live in nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals.
On the plus side, these cuts will save approximately $120 million -- less than one day's cost for the Iraq occupation.

Damn, if this is "compassionate conservatism," I'd hate to see what they do when they get mean and vindictive.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

My Name Is ...

For awhile, I've known that "This Blog Needs No Title" or "Untitled" simply wasn't going to cut it as the name of this blog. So I'm complaining about it tonight and I look over to the book shelf and spy a Truman Capote spine. "How about I call it "In Cold Blog'?" ... Hmmm, that's actually not too bad. And it makes both my blogs (The Joy of Sox being the other) slight takeoffs of book titles. I like that. ... Then, of course, I start scanning the titles on every shelf:
The Blog Also Rises
Portnoy's Blog
Blog-22
Blogs of Grass
Nicholas Bloggerby
Lady Chatterley's Lover's Blog
As I Lay Blogging
Of Mice and Blogs
Blogeo and Juliet
So many possibilities ...

... that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded

From the Guardian:
On February 9, 1963, William Zantzinger, a rich young farmer, struck Hattie Carroll, a black barmaid, with his cane. She died that night; he got six months.
The crime was immortalized in song by Bob Dylan in 1964. And Ian Frazier wonders: Where is Zantzinger now?

Friday, February 25, 2005

Ha!

Could this be the start of a new trend?
Ashcroft's Name Substitutes For Obscenity In Movie
Richard Leiby, Washington Post
Feb. 24, 2005 02:41 PM

You're an Ashcroft! No, you're the Ashcroft!

Imagine hearing that exchange in a movie - you'd think that Hollywood had come up with a crazy new insult. Well, it turns out that some airline passengers watching the Oscar-nominated film "Sideways" on foreign flights are, in fact, hearing "Ashcroft" as a substitute for a certain seven-letter epithet commonly used to denote a human orifice. ...
Flashback: A picture of Ashcroft, made entirely of little porn people.

Koufax Awards

The best of the lefty blogs from 2004. Two winners:

Best Post: Juan Cole -- If American Were Iraq, What Would it be Like

Most Humorous Post: The Poorman -- Poker with Dick Cheney

Monday, February 21, 2005

"Brooklyn's Abu Ghraib"

New York Daily News, February 20, 2005:
On the ninth floor of the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park, terrorism suspects swept off the streets after the Sept. 11 attacks were repeatedly stripped naked and frequently were physically abused, the Justice Department's inspector general has found.

The detainees - none of whom were ultimately charged with anything related to terrorism - alleged in sworn affidavits and in interviews with Justice Department officials that correction officers ... shackled their hands and feet before smashing them repeatedly face-first into concrete walls - within sight of the Statue of Liberty. ...

The Justice Department's inspector general has substantiated some of the prisoners' allegations - and some incidents were captured on videotape. But the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any federal correction officer at MDC.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Out of Town

Back on Saturday.

Double Exposure

Headline at BradBlog: "CNN's Nuke Plant Photos Identical for Both Iran and N. Korea!"
Two stories posted in the last week on the CNN website, one on nukes in Iran last Wednesday, and another on nukes in N. Korea on Saturday, both use the same aerial photograph of the same purported nuclear power plant!

But one is supposed to be in Iran and the other is supposed to be in North Korea!

Saturday, February 12, 2005

The Liberal Media Strikes Again

Associated Press:
"... 54 percent disapprove [on Bush's job performance in January] ... The number who think the country is headed down the wrong track increased from 51 percent to 58 percent in the past month. ... Only four in 10 said they approved of Bush's handling of domestic policy in general, and a majority of people disapproved of his handling of the economy. ... Some 42 percent said they approved of the president's handling of Iraq, while 57 percent disapproved.
The headline for this? "Poll Shows Optimism About Iraq."

The apparent reason for the positive headline is that 51% of those polled "think a stable, democratic Iraq is likely"; the number had been 46% before the Iraq elections. ... 51%? Sounds like another mandate.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

More 9/11 Lies Exposed

From today's New York Times:
"In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission. ...

The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable." ...
But but but we were told by Condi "Perjury" Rice that NO ONE could have imagined such a thing. And for months after the attacks, the Administration swore up and down that there had been absolutely no warning of anything.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system.
Five months? ... Let's count backwards? January, December, November, October, September ... Why, that's right in the thick of the campaign season and just before the debates. How about that? Just another coincidence.
The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.
Two weeks ago? And we're just hearing about it now? Ah, that ol' liberal media -- always on the Junta's heels ... begging for a biscuit. Actually, one of the more amazing aspects of this story is that it wasn't part of the usual Friday 4:30pm news dump.
Among other things, the report says that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time. ...
I suppose all 52 of those reports were "historical" in nature, as Rice described the August 6, 2001 PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US."
The F.A.A. "had indeed considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon," and in 2001 it distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking ... Aviation officials amassed so much information about the growing threat posed by terrorists that they conducted classified briefings in mid-2001 for security officials at 19 of the nation's busiest airports to warn of the threat posed in particular by Mr. bin Laden ...

The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat ...
Wait a minute. We were just told a few paragraphs ago that the FAA "warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if 'the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners ... a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable.'"

Right now, with all that we know (despite the Junta's herculean attempt to block, hide or destroy any and all information related to the attacks), the best thing you can say about the Bush Administration and 9/11 -- the best thing -- is that they knowingly sat on their asses and allowed the terrorist attacks to go forth.

You really have to wonder what it will take for the general public to wake up.

Saturday, February 05, 2005

My Head Hurts

Some of the "Latest Breaking News" threads at DU:

US "in for a shock" (Shiite cleric trouncing Allawi in early results)
690,000 US servicemen to land in Korea in case of war
Marine general: It is "fun to shoot some people." (Audience applauds)
Journalists paid to write for military website
Documents reveal CIA recruited five of Eichmann's associates
Rumsfeld Debating Whether to Avoid Germany (may be arrested for war-crimes)
Tapes reveal Enron's secret role in California's power blackouts
Bush Budget Would Cut Law Enforcement Aid
Bush tells CBC he's "unfamiliar" with Voting Rights Act
GOP fundraiser for "Adopt a Sniper" shut down at college
Destroyed Embryo Deemed Human
Canada Geese Falling Out of the Sky in Oregon
Western State Hospital said to free psychotics

Thursday, February 03, 2005

Stop the Insanity

Pandagon:
If Peter Orzag's calculations are correct in this New York Times article, in the first 20 years of privatization, it would cost $4.5 trillion dollars to shore up a system projected to run a $3.4 trillion deficit over 75 years. Bush wants to commit the government to an unnecessary extra $1.1 trillion of spending that will still result in my benefits getting cut when I retire.
Atrios agrees and spells it out in plain English: The Bush Administration wants to borrow an extra trillion so they can cut everyone's benefits by 40%.

Guess where all that money (yours and mine) is gonna go?

And Bush's quote in the previous post about passing the money on to your children and grandchildren -- it was a bold-faced lie. ... AP: "Any funds that remained available under these annuities after death would go to the Social Security program; the money could not be inherited."

Robbing Us Blind

Washington Post:
"You'll be able to pass along the money that accumulates in your personal account, if you wish, to your children . . . or grandchildren," Bush said last night. "And best of all, the money in the account is yours, and the government can never take it away."
Uh, not quite, Crusader Bunnypants.
Under the White House Social Security plan, workers who opt to divert some of their payroll taxes into individual accounts would ultimately get to keep only the investment returns that exceed the rate of return that the money would have accrued in the traditional system. ...

If a worker sets aside $1,000 a year for 40 years, and earns 4 percent annually on investments, the account would grow to $99,800 in today's dollars, but the government would keep $78,700 -- or about 80 percent of the account. The remainder, $21,100, would be the worker's. With a 4.6 percent average gain over inflation, the government keeps more than 70 percent. With the CBO's 3.3 percent rate, the worker is left with nothing but the guaranteed benefit."
Each day, this gets revealed as the biggest fucking scam of all time.

SOTU

Count the lies. Some dandies here, here, here and here.