The Reagan Legacy
Oh, you mean like arming Saddam?
The O'Really? Factor
New York Daily News TV critic Jack Matthews on, shall we say, "'fair' and biased."
UPDATE: And here's more of the same. Okay, forget which "side," Democrat or Republican, you're on -- how can you not read stuff like this and say, "Gee whiz, the guy's a lying sleazebag"? (both bits via Romenesko)
Religion As A Campaign Weapon
Andrew Sullivan quotes Bill Clinton's remark last week, "What separates us is that we haven't tried to have our politics driven by religion." (I assume Clinton means what separates us from the barbarians in the Middle East.)
Wait. Politics not driven by religion? Where's Clinton been? Like me, Sullivan sees an "uncomfortably sectarian cast to this election":
There is strong Republican pressure on the Catholic bishops meeting last week to criticize John Kerry for his permissive stand on abortion. The Catholic bishops in Massachusetts have sent letters to all parishioners urging them not to vote for state legislators who support marriage rights for gay couples. Various Catholic bishops have said they will not give communion to politicians who support the right to an abortion - forcing the governor of New Jersey, for one, to withdraw from the Communion rail. Some bishops have even said that communion should not be given to lay Catholics who vote for such politicians - ruling out a whole swathe of the Democratic party from the Catholic church.Last week, president Bush addressed by satellite the annual convention of the Southern Baptists, the same week they pulled out of the international Baptist organization because they feared it was becoming too liberal. They returned the favor by promising to rally support for the president's proposed Constitutional amendment to deny gay couples any legal protections for their relationships. The Texas Republican party recently passed a platform making it a felony for anyone to perform a same-sex marriage in the state and were addressed by a pastor who said, "Give us Christians in America who are more wholehearted, more committed and more militant for you and your kingdom than any fanatical Islamic terrorists are for death and destruction." Virginia recently passed a law invalidating even private contracts between two people of the same-sex - an attempt to strip gay couples of even the most basic protections for their relationships. And the National Catholic Reporter informed its readers last week that George Bush, in his recent meeting with the Pope, had complained that some American Catholic bishops were "not with me" on social issues. By that he was understood to mean that they had not sufficiently condemned Kerry for being a bad Catholic for his support of legal abortion.
...In the recent Bob Woodward book, Bush famously denied that his own father was a source of political advice. What mattered was the advice of his "Heavenly father." Bush knows not to push this too far: "The best way for faith to operate in somebody is, as I said, to let the light shine as opposed to trying to defend or alter or get my job mixed up with a preacher's job. And the only way you can do that is just be yourself, without crossing any lines of politics and religion. Separation of church and state [is] important in America. And by that I mean the people of faith should participate in the state, and there's a difference." That difference may not be so apparent in the White House itself. The former speech-writer, David Frum, observed that one of the first things he was asked when he got his job was whether he was going to Bible study.ÝHe's Jewish.
How can it be, in the 21st Century, that the guy running our country is not only open, but brags about, having frequent chats with an extremely well-placed imaginary friend, and we keep him as president instead of keeping him in a padded room?
Link To The State Or Federal Pen
A Fly On The Wall sneers at the going away present Republicans and Democrats alike are giving "doddering thug" and retiring movieland mouthpiece Jack Valenti:
Under a measure sponsored by Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, which sailed through the Senate unanimously last Friday, you could be sent to jail if you're caught with a camera in a movie theater.Yes, you may just have it in your purse to take photos at a birthday party later. No matter, it's three years in jail for you.
Oh yeah...and be sure to toss that camera phone in the wastebasket on your way in, or it's into the slammer for you...whether or not you're the next William Link. (See Link's famous photo taken at the drive-in over there in Fly-land.)
Signs Of Unintelligent Life
Dr. Bruce Grant reviews Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross' book, Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge Of Intelligent Design, starting with a quote from the philosopher who actually coined the term "survival of the fittest":
ìThose who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.îóHerbert Spencer, 1820-1903
The High Price Of Taking Out Saddam
Osama Bin Ladin's boys take out the WTC, and we respond by putting our all into going after...Saddam! According to an article by Julian Borger in The Guardian, the Iraq war will cost each US family $3,415...not including funeral costs if you're one of the underclass with a kid who joined the military to pay for college.
INDUCE Vomiting Now
Orrin Hatch has a brand new bill -- the INDUCE act -- supposedly "for the children," that magic term that's supposed to make all of humankind melt and suspend all logic. (What a load of crap.) What it does, as Metafilter points out, is introduce "broad, vague" parameters on who can be sued for copyright infringement. Watch out iPod owners (like me)! Be sure to check down Ernest Miller's hilarious breakdown and comments on what Hatch says, and what he really means.
The Nudity Police State
At what point do people who think of themselves as real conservatives start getting worried about the government becoming the police dog of everything? The Senate agreed on Tuesday to fine broadcasters as much as $3 million a day for airing "indecent entertainment":
Faced with public uproar stoked by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlakeís ìwardrobe malfunctionî at this yearís Super Bowl, the Senate rushed the bill through on a 99-1 vote without floor debate.GOP Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said the issue has been debated enough. Lawmakers have continually criticized broadcasters for airing what they say is increasingly coarse programming that can be seen or heard by children.
You know what? If you have a child, how about you parent it instead of expecting the government to do it? Didn't anybody else grow up with the iron fist of mom guarding the on-off button on the TV (keeping it in the off position except when "The Wonderful World Of Disney" was on)? Maybe your kids should watch a lot less television, via a whole lot more parenting, and maybe we should have a whole lot less government, huh?
A Few Words About Jack Ryan
Get to know the Illinois Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate:
You have a chance to vote for a Republican who represents your Christian values in key moral issues like protecting our unborn babies and defending the traditional family by opposing abortion and gay marriage. And, you have an opportunity to vote for a Republican who represents real progressive change in the Black community, having actually become part of the community as a teacher at an all-black high school. That Republican is Jack Ryan.
And now, a few more words about Jack Ryan, from The Smoking Gun:
In what may prove a crippling blow to his U.S. Senate campaign, divorce records reveal that Illinois Republican Jack Ryan was accused by his former wife, actress Jeri Ryan, of pressuring her to have sex at swinger's clubs in New York, Paris, and New Orleans while other patrons watched. The bombshell allegation is contained amidst nearly 400 pages of records ordered released yesterday by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge who ruled on media requests to unseal documents from the Ryan case. The salacious charge leveled at the politician was made by Jeri Ryan, who has starred in TV's "Star Trek: Voyager" and "Boston Public," in a court filing in connection with child custody proceedings (you'll find a portion of that heavily redacted September 2000 document below). The performer alleged that she refused Ryan's requests for public sex during the excursions, which included a trip to a New York club "with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling." While Ryan confirmed the trips with the actress, he described them simply as "romantic getaways," denying her claims that he sought public sex. The politician has repeatedly claimed that his divorce file--portions of which were sealed in 2000 and 2001--contained no embarrassing information that would harm his chances against Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The Ryans were married in 1991 and, in November 1998, Jeri Ryan filed for divorce citing "irreconcilable differences."
Excuse me, but why is it always the guys trying to force their wives into public sex in a variety of international dungeons who rail against how two guys hanging up his and his dishtowels will be the end of society as we know it?
The Rest Of The Story
The Associated Press sues to get the copy of Bush's National Guard service record released by Texas, in hopes in seeing if there are a few pages missing in the one they already have:
Controversy surrounds Bush's time in the Texas Air National Guard because it is unclear from the record what duties he performed for the military when he was working on the political campaign of a U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama.There are questions as to whether the file provided to the news media earlier this year is complete, says the lawsuit, adding that these questions could possibly be answered by reviewing a copy of the microfilm of Bush's personnel file in the Texas archives.
The Air National Guard of the United States, a federal entity, has control of the microfilm, which should be disclosed in its entirety under the Freedom of Information Act, the lawsuit says.
Not a problem! They'll have it to the AP by, say...November 5?
Military Homo-noia Hits Hard
In case you forgot, we are actually so backward as a country that we are continuing to dump military talent who happen to be gay:
A week after the Senate authorized adding 20,000 new soldiers to sustain military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a new study published Monday has analyzed one place where the military keeps losing men and women -- the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.One of the soldiers discharged, Brian Muller, 25, was an Army bomb squad team leader who served on a security detail for President Bush. In an Associated Press report, he explained why he told his commander he's gay.
"I didn't do it to get out of a war -- I already served in a war," Muller, 25, said in an interview published by the AP. "After putting my life on the line in the war, the idea that I was fighting for the freedoms of so many other people that I couldn't myself enjoy was almost unbearable."
Among those discharged are 90 nuclear power engineers, 150 rocket and missile specialists, 49 warfare specialists, and 88 linguists (including at least seven Arab language specialists). Genius.
Girls Gone Child
This time it's Demi. As usual, A Fly On The (I.M. Pei-designed) Wall had it first.
Fahrenheit 911-dering
Philip Shenon, in The New York Times, wonders if Michael Moore's facts will check out:
Mr. Moore is on firm ground in arguing that the Bushes, like many prominent Texas families with oil interests, have profited handsomely from their relationships with prominent Saudis, including members of the royal family and of the large and fabulously wealthy bin Laden clan, which has insisted it long ago disowned Osama. Mr. Moore spends several minutes in the film documenting ties between the president and James R. Bath, a financial advisor to a prominent member of the bin Laden family who was an original investor in Mr. Bush's Arbusto energy company and who served with the future president in the Air National Guard in the early 1970's. The Bath friendship, which indirectly links Mr. Bush to the family of the world's most notorious terrorist, has received less attention from national news organization than it has from reporters in Texas, but it has been well documented.Mr. Moore charges that President Bush and his aides paid too little attention to warnings in the summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to attack, including a detailed Aug. 6, 2001, C.I.A. briefing that warned of terrorism within the country's borders. In its final report next month, the Sept. 11 commission can be expected to offer support to this assertion. Mr. Moore says that instead of focusing on Al Qaeda, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation; the figure came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post.
The most valid criticisms of the film are likely to involve the artful way that Mr. Moore connects the facts, and whether he has left out others that might undermine his scalding attack. A great many statistics fly by in the movie ó such as assertions that 6 percent to 7 percent of the United States is owned by Saudi Arabians, and that Saudi companies have paid more than $1.4 billion to Bush family interests. But Mr. Moore doesn't explain how he arrived at them, or what these vague interests comprise. Mr. Moore and his team say they have news reports and other evidence to back up the numbers and that it will be posted on his Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) after the film's release.
Mr. Moore may also be criticized for the way he portrays the evacuation of the extended bin Laden family from the United States after Sept. 11. As the Sept. 11 commission has found, the Saudi government was able to pull strings at senior levels of the Bush administration to help the bin Ladens leave the United States. But while the film clearly suggests that the flights occurred at a time when all air traffic was grounded immediately after the attacks ("Even Ricky Martin couldn't fly," Mr. Moore says over video of the singer wandering in an airport lobby), the Sept. 11 commission said in a report this April that there was "no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace" and that the F.B.I. had concluded that no one aboard the flights was involved in Sept. 11.
In conversation, Mr. Moore defended the scene, saying his goal was to show how the White House was eager to bend and break the rules for Saudi friends ó in this case, the extended family of the terrorist who had just brought down the twin towers and attacked the Pentagon. And as reporters have found, the White House still refuses to document fully how the flights were arranged.
Moore shoots himself (and those of us who support the removal of the fundamentalist, anti-science George Bush from office) in the foot if he includes distortions and apparent lies like he was shown to in previous pictures.
Then again, you can't beat footage like this -- the president really showing his presidential stuff. (I guess Cheney and Co. weren't close by enough to pull the strings.) In Shenon's words:
For the White House, the most devastating segment of "Fahrenheit 9/11" may be the video of a befuddled-looking President Bush staying put for nearly seven minutes at a Florida elementary school on the morning of Sept. 11, continuing to read a copy of "My Pet Goat" to schoolchildren even after an aide has told him that a second plane has struck the twin towers. Mr. Bush's slow, hesitant reaction to the disastrous news has never been a secret. But seeing the actual footage, with the minutes ticking by, may prove more damaging to the White House than all the statistics in the world.
Beautiful Corps
Bill Moyers critiques government by the (rich) people for the (rich) people:
The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand." This is a lie. What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us.To create the intellectual framework for this takeover of public policy they funded conservative think tanks -- The Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute -- that churned out study after study advocating their agenda.
To put political muscle behind these ideas they created a formidable political machine. One of the few journalists to cover the issues of class -- Thomas Edsall of The Washington Post -- wrote: "During the 1970s, business refined its ability to act as a class, submerging competitive instincts in favor of joint, cooperate action in the legislative area." Big business political action committees flooded the political arena with a deluge of dollars. And they built alliances with the religious right -- Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition -- who mounted a cultural war providing a smokescreen for the class war, hiding the economic plunder of the very people who were enlisted as foot soldiers in the cause of privilege.
In a book to be published this summer, Daniel Altman describes what he calls the "neo-economy -- a place without taxes, without a social safety net, where rich and poor live in different financial worlds -- and [said Altman] it's coming to America." He's a little late. It's here. Says Warren Buffett, the savviest investor of them all: "My class won."
Look at the spoils of victory:
Over the past three years, they've pushed through $2 trillion dollars in tax cuts -- almost all tilted towards the wealthiest people in the country.
Cuts in taxes on the largest incomes.
Cuts in taxes on investment income.
And cuts in taxes on huge inheritances.
More than half of the benefits are going to the wealthiest one percent. You could call it trickle-down economics, except that the only thing that trickled down was a sea of red ink in our state and local governments, forcing them to cut services for and raise taxes on middle class working America.
Now the Congressional Budget Office forecasts deficits totaling $2.75 trillion over the next ten years.
These deficits have been part of their strategy. Some of you will remember that Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to warn us 20 years ago, when he predicted that President Ronald Reagan's real strategy was to force the government to cut domestic social programs by fostering federal deficits of historic dimensions. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, admitted as such. Now the leading rightwing political strategist, Grover Norquist, says the goal is to "starve the beast" -- with trillions of dollars in deficits resulting from trillions of dollars in tax cuts, until the United States Government is so anemic and anorexic it can be drowned in the bathtub.
There's no question about it: The corporate conservatives and their allies in the political and religious right are achieving a vast transformation of American life that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest economic inequality in the advanced world, they have saddled our nation, our states, and our cities and counties with structural deficits that will last until our children's children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions except rewarding the rich and waging war.
And they are proud of what they have done to our economy and our society. If instead of practicing journalism I was writing for Saturday Night Live, I couldn't have made up the things that this crew have been saying. The president's chief economic adviser says shipping technical and professional jobs overseas is good for the economy. The president's Council of Economic Advisers report that hamburger chefs in fast food restaurants can be considered manufacturing workers. The president's Federal Reserve Chairman says that the tax cuts may force cutbacks in social security - but hey, we should make the tax cuts permanent anyway. The president's Labor Secretary says it doesn't matter if job growth has stalled because "the stock market is the ultimate arbiter."
You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.
A Complete 9-11 Timeline
It starts December 26, 1999:
Soviet forces invade Afghanistan. They will withdraw in 1989 after a brutal 10-year war. It has been commonly believed that the invasion was unprovoked. But in a 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, reveals that the CIA began destabilizing the pro-Soviet Afghan government six months earlier, in a deliberate attempt to get the Soviets to invade and have their own Vietnam-type costly war: ìWhat is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?î [Le Nouvel Observateur 1/98; Mirror 1/29/02] The US and Saudi Arabia give a huge amount of money (estimates range up to $40 billion total for the war) to support the mujaheddin guerrilla fighters opposing the Russians. Most of the money is managed by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. [Nation 2/15/99]
It continues...on, and on, and on. Fascinating. Could eat your entire Saturday afternoon. (Don't say I didn't warn you!)
Pickup Line Of The Day
"Can I impregnate you with my demon spawn?"
Heard any good ones lately? Comment below!
Did Cheney Lie?
Sure looks like it. And Halliburton got a sweetheart of sweetheart deals.
"Free Speech?...Yeah, Whatever."
Reason's Matt Welch slaps the blasÈ journalists who aren't all that worried about current and impending curbs on freedom of speech.
North American Free Breathing
NAFTA means smog for Californians, write Jody Freeman and Kal Raustiala, in the LA Times:
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last week allowing Mexican trucks into the United States has inflamed environmental groups. The diesel exhaust from these trucks is a major public health threat, and many of them will have difficulty meeting U.S. safety requirements.But the case is not notable simply because the court once again ruled against environmental interests. The case is also significant as the most recent and vivid example of national policies ó on trade, homeland security, immigration and drug policy ó that burden California disproportionately even as they benefit the nation as a whole.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, for instance, which requires that the U.S. allow the Mexican trucks to operate here, may on balance be good for the U.S., but it is not good for California's air quality. The same is true of homeland security requirements that, though necessary, impose huge costs on states like California, with major ports, borders and cities to keep safe. It's also true of national drug policies, which have stemmed trafficking in Florida, only to shift it to California.
Despite these unequal burdens, California often receives fewer per capita federal dollars than less-burdened states. California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein noted, for example, that the state, with its "target-rich" environment, receives only $1.33 per capita for homeland security, but Wyoming, with no high-profile targets, gets $9.78 per capita.
If we, in California, are going to have to suck all the black smoke from Mexican trucks, maybe the other states should at least have to pay us some pollution credits. That said, I still don't understand how North American Free Trade means North American free to ignore our state laws against pollution. If you drive a car that's pumping out a lot of smelly smog, the police can pull you over and cite you. Why doesn't the same go for a truck of watermelons coming across our border?
Love Knows No Boundaries
(Provided you aren't gay.) If you're an American man in love with a Canadian man, you've got problems, writes Ben Smith in Reason:
One of the reasons weíre supposed to care less about gay marriage than about black civil rights is that the stakes are so much lower today. Then it was about what might be called basic freedoms to live and work. Now itís about secondary rights such as inheritance and health care, things that can be addressed by contract law. As Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a February presidential debate, at the center of the gay marriage debate is "terminology."Tell that to David Kloss. In the summer of 2001, the 54-year-old oil exploration manager made a terrible mistake: He fell in love with a Canadian. Soon, he faced a choice shared by thousands of American citizens: Leave the man he loved, or leave the country.
The source of the dilemma is federal immigration law, which is based on the seemingly innocuous principle of "family reunification." Klossí partner, Remi Collette, 35, moved to San Francisco to join him. But Collette was officially a tourist. He couldnít work legally, and he couldnít stay indefinitely. If Kloss and Collette had been a straight couple, they would have counted as a "family." Getting papers and eventually citizenship would have been a routine, bureaucratic process. As gays, they faced a stark choice: break the law with illegal work or a sham heterosexual marriage, or join the diaspora of self-described "love exiles."
"You go through life, you think youíre American, you think youíre in the land of the free," Kloss says. "Then suddenly I come to a situation where Remi couldnít stay, and my country says you either have to give up the man you love or get out."
A group that represents cross-border gay and lesbian couples, Immigration Equality, estimates that there are more than 25,000 such couples in the United States. Many break the law. They place advertisements like this one in The Washington Blade, a gay paper: "Marriage-Minded GWM/GAM couple (1 American, 1 foreign), seeks lesbian couple (1 American, 1 foreign) for marriages of mutual interests."
Thatís a risky move, however, one that carries penalties of imprisonment and deportation. So in 2002 Kloss sold his beloved house in the center of San Francisco, with its view of the Marin headlands, and moved with Collette to Toronto. Last year they were married under Canadian law, which allows gays to bring in partners.
Kloss was lucky to have even that choice. If the partner doesnít hail from one of the countries with such a policy (which also include the United Kingdom, Israel, and several European states), gay couples find themselves perpetual tourists, insecure and unemployable.
Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has introduced a bill, called The Permanent Partners Immigration Act, to remedy the situation. In our current neo-Puritan landscape, I think saying it has a snowball's chance in hell of passing -- is exceedingly generous.
Dance In Your Pants?
Support a good cause, says my science-writer friend Gary Taubes:
This is my friend Robyn's website: cityballetofla.org. She is having a jazz cabaret ballet Saturday and Sunday at the Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. It's a sexy ballet and Robyn could use the help. She runs a not-for-profit ballet school and company for underprivileged kids in Korea Town and she needs the attendance and the money. It's a wonderful cause and I was wondering if perhaps you could either go or, better yet, pass the word around to everyone in Los Angeles. It couldn't hurt. It would support the arts in LA. I know it's not writerly but it's there and it's cool.
Vice Squad
Check out this new libertarian blog, Vice Squad, railing against all the nanny-state-ists, and their drug and prostitution wars.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
Just Say No To Drug War Policy
A gift from the Reagans. TalkLeft looks at where it got us:
Did the law nab Pablo Escobar? No. The law's first conquest was David Ronald Chandler, known as "Ronnie." Ronnie grew marijuana in a small town in rural, northeast Alabama. About 300 pounds a year. Ronnie was sentenced to death for supposedly hiring someone to kill his brother-in-law. The witness against him later recanted. Clinton commuted Chandler's death sentence to life. (Source: NPR, 4/2/01, available on Lexis.com)...As a result of these flawed drug policies inititiated by then President Reagan, (and continued by Bush I, Clinton and Bush II,) the number of those imprisoned in America has quadrupled to over 2 million. These are legacies we are still fighting today. You can help. Support FAMM, Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Even George Shultz, Ronald Reagan's former secretary of state, acknowleged in 2001 that the War on Drugs is a flop. (MacLeans, 5/7/01, available on Lexis.com)
In Smoke and Mirrors, Dan Baum, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, provides a detailed account of the politics surrounding Reagan's war on drugs. From the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1997 (available on Lexis.com)
Conservative parents' groups opposed to marijuana had helped to ignite the Reagan Revolution. Marijuana symbolized the weakness and permissiveness of a liberal society; it was held responsible for the slovenly appearance of teenagers and their lack of motivation. Carlton Turner, Reagan's first drug czar, believed that marijuana use was inextricably linked to "the present young-adult generation's involvement in anti-military, anti-nuclear power, anti-big business, anti-authority demonstrations." A public-health approach to drug control was replaced by an emphasis on law enforcement. Drug abuse was no longer considered a form of illness; all drug use was deemed immoral, and punishing drug offenders was thought to be more important than getting them off drugs. The drug war soon became a bipartisan effort, supported by liberals and conservatives alike. Nothing was to be gained politically by defending drug abusers from excessive punishment.Drug-control legislation was proposed, almost like clockwork, during every congressional-election year in the 1980s. Election years have continued to inspire bold new drug-control schemes. On September 25 of last year Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich introduced legislation demanding either a life sentence or the death penalty for anyone caught bringing more than two ounces of marijuana into the United States. Gingrich's bill attracted twenty-six co-sponsors, though it failed to reach the House floor. A few months earlier Senator Phil Gramm had proposed denying federal welfare benefits, including food stamps, to anyone convicted of a drug crime, even a misdemeanor. Gramm's proposal was endorsed by a wide variety of senators-including liberals such as Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Patrick Leahy, and Paul Wellstone. A revised version of the amendment, limiting the punishment to people convicted of a drug felony, was incorporated into the welfare bill signed by President Clinton during the presidential campaign. Possessing a few ounces of marijuana is a felony in most states, as is growing a single marijuana plant. As a result, Americans convicted of a marijuana felony, even if they are disabled, may no longer receive federal welfare or food stamps. Convicted murderers, rapists, and child molesters, however, will continue to receive these benefits.
Moreover, kids with even a marijuana conviction are denied federal college loans and grants, and have been since 1998, when a provision was added to the Higher Education Act. Brilliant. Let's sentence them to a lifetime of missed opportunities. As Pat Ford-Roegner, Executive Director of NAADAC--The Association for Addiction Professionals said, "If we want to help these young people become productive members of society, hindering their access to a college education is foolish -- in fact it increases the likelihood that their drug misuse will continue."
(Of course, Pat makes the mistake here in assuming all drug use is abuse -- or, perhaps, plays devil's advocate in service of her cause.)
Tax The Church
If The Pope is going to turn into a de facto cheerleader for Bush, let's yank the church's non-profit status and use the ensuing tax money we get to pay down the national debt!
America: Land Of The Insulted
When did we, as a country, get so ragingly earnest and utterly unable to take a joke? We the nation of no mirth, return the slightest jab with a call for bans and witch-burnings of the jabber; in this case, Jimmy Kimmel, who made an amusing offhand remark in reference to the Pistons/Lakers basketball rivalry, and the practice by some, in my hometown of Detroit, of setting cars on fire the night before Halloween:
Kimmel was talking to ABC sportscaster Mike Tirico during halftime of Tuesday's game when he said, "They're going to burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win, and it's not worth it." Tirico, an Ann Arbor resident, immediately objected, telling him to be careful about making fun of Detroit.ABC made the decision to pull Wednesday night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" from affiliates nationwide shortly after the program was taped that night in California.
Grace Gilchrist, general manager of Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ, said the taped show featured more disparaging remarks about the city.
"Frankly, we were shocked. We thought it was uncalled for," Andrea Parquet-Taylor, WXYZ's news director, said of Kimmel's remarks.
Wait, Andrea...are you from the Motor City or Oversensitivity City? Better go out on the Walter Reuther expressway and see what the signs say, huh!?
Kimmel was forced to play along with the weenies, actually writing an apology!, probably in order to not follow in the ABC-deported Bill Maher's footsteps:
"What I said about Pistons fans during halftime was a joke, nothing more. If I offended anyone, I'm sorry," he said. "Clearly, over the past 10 years, we in L.A. have taken a commanding lead in post-game riots. If the Lakers win, I plan to overturn my own car."ABC publicity manager Jennifer De La Rosa issued another apology from the comedian Thursday: "It was never my intention to cause anyone pain. I was trying to make a joke and I'm sorry it resulted in anything other than laughter."
Why shows use laugh tracks is suddenly pretty obvious: for people who are too stupid or indignant to know when to laugh all by themselves.
Mobile Savages
Anybody had any luck using a cell phone to connect a laptop to the Internet? Specifically, a Mac, using Cingular? I just found this software, Mobile High Speed For Mac OS, via Nova Media. Sounds pretty good. Before, Cingular insisted that it was simple to connect using a Sony-Erriccson t68i and WAP. WRONG! I don't know a single person who's tried that who's had success. And my boyfriend, who put this blog and a number of Web sites together, and could build his own computer out of a plastic fork and two rubber bands and a few other household elements, spent several painful hours on the phone with Cingular's tech "support" people, and we both concluded afterward that the notion you could use a Cingular phone to connect to the 'net was a baldfaced lie! PS Apparently, the Wifi card for my Palm Tungsten T2 will be out by November. Ish. You know how solid those tech release predictions are. Or you don't -- which makes you one of the lucky Luddites, now doesn't it?
Instepping Out
Yes, the newest hyphenate in Hollywood is "actor/shoemaker." John Malkovich, following in the footsteps of Oscar-winning weirdo Daniel Day Lewis, is going into the shoe biz. So says A Fly On The Wall, who has become the 7-11 of tasty Hollywood scoops:
It used to be you heard Hollywood people say, "but what I really want to do is direct."Now the mantra may soon be, "but what I really want to do is make lace-up oxfords."
(Unfortunately, the Malkovich shoe pictured over at Fly's place is urgently in need of a Brazilian bikini wax.)
Rip Me A Prude One
Leading the "unfortunate metaphor" category is the new language adopted in the Republican party platform in Texas this past week:
"The practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society."
(butt tip to Lena for this one)
Au Revoir, SUVS!
Paris has passed a resolution to get the rue-hogging smogmobiles off the streets:
"Our idea is to limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles," he said. "That means SUVs and lots of other vehicles that don't meet European pollution standards."Plane include banning 4x4s from Paris city centre during peak pollution periods, and denying their owners residents' parking permits. Off-roaders could also be banned from protected areas like the Bois de Boulogne and the banks of the river Seine.
The proposal, certain to be opposed by motoring groups, follows similar remarks by the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who in May month described SUVs as "bad for London -- completely unnecessary" and called their owners "complete idiots."
Britain's Guardian newspaper reported a survey showing that just one in eight 4x4 drivers had driven their car off-road, and six in 10 never take it out of town.
The Guardian added that France caught on late to the vogue for SUVs, mainly because Renault, Peugeot and Citroen have not so far offered them.
But with luxury carmakers like Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche selling plush leather-upholstered 4x4s, the vehicles are an increasingly common sight in Paris's wealthier quarters. Sales surged by 11 percent in France last year.
If it gets any harder to breathe there in July, I'll have to grow a nozzle and carry around an oxygen tank. I just wish New York would do the same, and maybe even make a street (like Madison Avenue) bikes only.
All The News That's Too Hot To Print
My very good friend, journalist David Wallis, put together a collection of the best journalism that was killed before it could hit the printed page:
Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print (Nation Books) resurrects remarkable articles that publications like Harper's, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker assigned to renowned writers, then discarded--not for reasons of quality but because of their potential for unwanted controversy. Skittish editors feared that publishing these provocative pieces about politics, sex, corruption and culture might upset their pals, enrage readers or offend advertisers.This ground-breaking book, which Joe Conason of The New York Observer called "a public service and a work of art," pries open the inner-sanctum of the editor's office to give readers a rare glimpse at the sometimes sordid business that goes on within. Here, for the first time, read Betty Friedan's powerful essay imploring young women to take college seriously; in 1958 this article so unnerved the man who ran McCall's that he refused to run the revolutionary work, inspiring Friedan to write The Feminine Mystique. Among the other important stories in these pages: Larry Doyle's scathing satire of control-freak Hollywood publicists that struck too close to home for editors at US; Mike Sager's gripping account of life in a Palestinian refugee camp that The Washington Post inexplicably spiked; Jon Entine's devastating investigation of The Body Shop's questionable marketing practices that Vanity Fair kept you from reading-until now.
Killed also anthologizes under-published stories that were initially rejected by editors, including a censored book review by George Orwell (with a new introduction by Christopher Hitchens) that London's Observer deemed unpatriotic during wartime.
More here on David's site.
UPDATE: Here's an IWantMedia interview of David about the book.
What We Said And What We Meant
Molly Ivins on the Bush administration's difficulties in getting word and deed to match:
Just before Memorial Day, Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi said, "Our active military respond better to Republicans" because of "the tremendous support that President Bush has provided for our military and our veterans." The same day, the White House announced plans for massive cuts in veterans' health care for 2006.Last January, Bush praised veterans during a visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The same day, 164,000 veterans were told the White House was "immediately cutting off their access to the VA health care system."
My favorite in this category was the short-lived plan to charge soldiers wounded in Iraq for their meals when they got to American military hospitals. The plan mercifully died aborning after it hit the newspapers.
In January 2003, just before the war, Bush said, "I want to make sure that our soldiers have the best possible pay." A few months later, the White House announced it would roll back increases in "imminent danger" pay (from $225 to $150) and family separation allowance (from $250 to $100).
In October 2003, the president told troops, "I want to thank you for your willingness to heed the important call, and I want to thank your families." Two weeks later, the White House announced it opposed a proposal to give National Guard and Reserve members access to the Pentagon's health insurance system, even though a recent General Accounting Office report estimated that one out of every five Guard members has no health insurance. What a nice thank you note.
Sure, the Bush administation supports our troops! (wink, wink)
UPDATE: We're winning the war on terror! Well, that is, if you don't count all the acts of terror. Check out the funny math at The State Department, reported by our pal in Washington, LA Times' Josh Meyers.
Amy Alkon, Godless Harlot
Another entertaining angry letter from an OC Register reader:
Amy-----I read your column which I seldom do----and my daughter tells me you always give advice with terrible morals--------Your border on pornography. In Monday's paper you advised "Failed Flirt" how to get a guy to take her to bed. First of all if you had any morals you would tell a young lady who goes to a bar hoping to get someone to take her to bed that she is a slut, immoral and playing with danger. No wonder everyone has HIV and diseases, and illegitimate children. Thank God in another part of the paper Dear Abby had wonderful advice for a young lady telling her to get married and then worry about having children. I will keep reading your column and if this continues with no moral or values I will lead a brigade to get you to some slut paper------or better yet unemployed as an advice person. I am not "old-fashioned"----I just have a regard for my faith and know what is best for this world. Hard to believe a column like yours is read in a decent paper. M.S.
What I want to know is which papers are the "slut papers," because I must subscribe!
A Coyote's In The House
Elmore Leonard's editor used to complain that every time he'd put an animal in one of his crime novels he'd write about it from the animal's point of view:
Like, if there's an alligator in somebody's yard, I would tell you what the alligator's thinking, and my editor was always taking that stuff out. `How can you know what the alligator's thinking?' So my agent said, 'Write a kid's book with animals in it.'
That book is A Coyote's In The House, and the bits here are from a Miami Herald review/Elmore interview by Sue Corbett:
His first attempt focused on a dog who, retired from a film career, spent his days wistfully watching his wild canine cousins race through the hills above his palatial Hollywood home."I wrote three or four pages of that and I was as bored as the dog. Then I realized, I'm writing from the wrong point-of-view. I gotta get a coyote. So I did, and then I said, `Let me run with him for a while and see what happens.'''
Thus sprang Antwan, a wise-cracking, jive-talking coyote who meets Buddy, a German Shepard, when he's rooting through the trash, dining on takeout sushi Buddy's family had thrown out. Buddy, longing for excitement, invites Antwan in -- through the doggy door. Antwan follows, curious about how the other half lives. He sniffs out a plate of peanut butter cookies on the counter and eats all of them.
''Homes, can't you smell?'' Antwan asks Buddy.
"Of course I can smell.''
"You know cookies are sitting here and you don't eat none?''
''We're not allowed cookies,'' Buddy confesses.
There's also a love interest, Miss Betty, a ''show bitch poodle,'' who lives with Buddy and who looks, in Antwan's estimation, ''like a wedding cake with a black nose.'' Buddy and Miss Betty may be best-in-show types, but Antwan stars in this story.
''I've had Antwan in books before,'' Leonard said, referring to a character type he frequently relies on to tell his stories of shysters and shylocks seeking second chances or comebacks -- human animals involved in salacious hustles.
Leonard undoubtedly writes the hippest street slang of any great-grandfather around.
Corbett notes that Elmore got Coyote around to all the major Hollywood animation studios, but they all said it wasn't sappy enough for them, so Elmore's got an animator and screenwriter on the job on his own dime. He sees Albert Brooks doing Buddy, and Chris Rock as Antwan.
More on Elmore here, at ElmoreLeonard.com.
Reagan Rewritten
When notable leaders die, the press often "forgets history" sliding into sentiment rather than sticking to the facts. Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp looks at the recent flood of Ronald Reagan stories:
Reagan's death, especially following the tragedy and torture of Alzheimer's disease, likely struck editors and reporters with a responsibility to go easy on the former president. Few, after all, protested the sacking of the CBS television movie about Reagan a few months back.And the man did win two presidential elections, the second by a landslide, and led a rebirth of a Republican party that had been rocked by Watergate and other scandals. But let's not forget, however, that the often-mocked Bill Clinton accomplished much the same for his party, and despite the Lewinsky disgrace, left office with approval ratings that beat Reagan's (and no federal budget deficit, to boot).
So the overwhelming praise for a president who plunged the nation into its worst deficit ever, ignored and cut public money for the poor, while also ignoring the AIDS crisis, is a bit tough to take. During my years at Brooklyn College, between 1984 and 1988, countless classmates had to drop out or find other ways to pay for school because of Reagan's policies, which included slashing federal grants for poor students and cutting survivor benefits for families of the disabled.
Not to mention the Iran-contra scandal, failed 'supply-side economics,' the ludicrous invasion of Grenada, 241 dead Marines in Lebanon, and a costly military buildup that may have contributed to the breakup of the Soviet Union (there were plenty of other reasons too) but also kept us closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, besides leaving us billions of dollars in debt.
And should we even mention the many senior Reagan officials, including ex-White House aide Michael Deaver and national security adviser Robert McFarlane, convicted of various offenses? What about Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger indicted but later pardoned by the first President Bush?
In the end, notes Strupp, much of the press went easy on Reagan:
In Reagan's case, his genial public persona, and Alzheimer's end, may have made it more difficult to knock down a popular leader, despite the fact that some argue Iran-Contra was a more impeachable offense than Watergate.Maybe it's to be expected that the press, when covering a leader's death, will take a kinder, gentler approach. But in the interests of fair, accurate journalism -- something that has become a leading issue in the media today -- no former leader should be above a frank, complete, and balanced assessment.
Especially not the one currently in office, who has the entire right wing "journalism" contingent playing intellectual contortionist to defend him.
LAObserved Needs You
It's the first site I turn to when I wake up: Kevin Roderick's LAObserved. (Next, I go to Romenesko, then to what's happening in the real world.) Well, Kevin's losing his funding, so if you like his site, please go to this link, read what's going on, and toss him some bucks. I did.
The Dirty Words Police Are On Vacation
Jacques Steinberg reports in The New York Times that the prudery advocates' prospects for sending "decency" legislation to President Bush's desk are a bit slimmer than they were a few months and a naked nipple ago. Unfortunately, broadcasters are in a panic to guess what's considered too racy for prudish American ears:
In response to the Stern and Bono decisions, some broadcasters have hewed to such a narrow line in recent weeks - tossing songs like "The Bitch is Back'' by Elton John off the radio, and carefully editing programs like the critically acclaimed "Prime Suspect'' by PBS - that fresh concerns have been raised, by civil rights groups among others, that self-censorship has gone too far.
What ever happened to use of the channel changer or the on-off button? Is all of America so obese that they can no longer get their giant, swollen fingers around the remote?
Prude Awakening
At institutions funded by government money, teachers have to preach "abstinence only." The problem is, writes Jane Brody:
Experts who have spent decades studying teenage sexual activity have gathered ample evidence to refute the basic premise of abstinence-only sex education. They say this approach is not adequate to protect youngsters from unwanted pregnancies and disease."There is nothing in any peer-reviewed scientific journal to suggest that teaching abstinence-only is effective in getting teens to delay sexual activity," said one expert, Cynthia Dailard, a lawyer and senior public policy associate at the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In contrast, Ms. Dailard has reported, considerable evidence shows that sex education promoting abstinence, but also providing information on the benefits of contraception for those who do not remain abstinent, does delay the start of sexual activity. Such programs also reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancies and S.T.D.'s, she has found.
Furthermore, she and others who have reviewed the findings of many carefully done studies are worried about the effects of the abstinence-only approach on teenagers who do become sexually active. If teenagers are given no information about birth control, or only negative information, the studies indicate that they are less likely to use any method of protection, and are thus more likely to become pregnant or contract a sexually transmitted disease than are teenagers who are well informed about condoms and other contraceptive options.
One national study, published in 2001 in The American Journal of Sociology, found that while some teenagers who promised to remain abstinent until marriage delayed sexual activity by an average of 18 months, they were more likely to have unprotected sex when they broke their pledge than those who had never pledged virginity in the first place.
The problem, too, is the idea, taken as a given by far too many people, that sex is a terrible, horrible thing for teenagers. Sure, if you're a religious fanatic, you'll probably feel some guilt. But, the French, for example, don't seem to be suffering from rutting wildly in their teen years. Then again, they have ready access to contraception and information about using it correctly, and they can walk into any pharmacy and get the morning-after pill if there's an accident (along with a lecture from the pharmacist on the dangers of using it as regular birth control).
Knowledge is power. Power to protect oneself from pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Unfortunately, we don't give our teens power. No, we give them a long lecture on the merits of prudery instead. Now, maybe this makes the god squad feel all squishy inside, but Brody writes that "about one-half of unplanned teenage pregnancies result from failures to use any contraception, researchers find, and the other half from ineffective contraceptive use." Yes, thanks, in large part to the fundamentalists among us, American kids are sexually ignorant and may be in for HIV, an unplanned pregnancy, and/or a nasty case of chlamydia, syphillis, or the clap.
This Is Your Brain On Legalized Crack
Nobody talks drugs like William F. Buckley. Scroll down (the interview is near the bottom of the page) for a pro-legalization discussion between Buckley and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. I especially Buckley's use of the word "crimogenic" to refer to thieving crackheads!
BUCKLEY: It is said that the drug crack is substantively different from its parent drug, cocaine, in that it is, to use the term of Professor van den Haag, "crimogenic." In other words a certain (unspecified) percentage of those who take crack are prompted toówell, to go out and commit mayhem of some kind. Is that correct?GAZZANIGA: No, not in the way you put it. What you are asking is: Is there something about how crack acts on the brain that makes people who take it likelier to commit crime?
Let's begin by making it clear what crack is. It is simply cocaine that has been mixed with baking soda, water, and then boiled. What this procedure does is to permit cocaine to be smoked. Now any drug ingested in that wayói.e., absorbed by the lungsógoes more efficiently to the brain, and the result is a quicker, more intense experience. That is what crack gives the consumer. But its impact on the brain is the same as with plain cocaine and, as a matter of fact, amphetamines. No one has ever maintained that these drugs are "crimogenic."
The only study I know about that inquires into the question of crack breeding crime reports that most homicides involving crack were the result not of the use of crack, but of dealer disputes. Crack did not induce users to commit crimes. Do some crack users commit crimes? Of course. After all, involvement in proscribed drug traffic is dangerous. Moreover, people who commit crimes tend to use drugs at a high rate, though which drug they prefer varies from one year to the next.
BUCKLEY: You are telling us that an increase in the use of crack would not mean an increase in crime?
GAZZANIGA: I am saying that what increase there would be in crime would not be simply the result of the pharmacology of that drug. Look, let's say there are 200,000 users/abusers of crack in New York Cityóa number that reflects one of the current estimates. If so, and if the drug produced violent tendencies in all crack users, the health-care system would have to come to a screeching halt. It hasn't. In fact, in 1988 the hospitals in New York City (the crack capital of the world) averaged only seven crack-related admissions, city-wide, a day. The perception of crack-based misbehavior is exaggerated because it is the cases that show up in the emergency rooms that receive public notice, and the whole picture begins to look very bleak. All of this is to say: when considering any aspect of the drug problem, keep in mind the matter of selection of the evidence.
(via Metafilter)
Gore Or Less
"You know, back in 2000, a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true."
--JAMES CARVILLE
Angry Reader Of The Day
The best letters are always from the people who don't like me. This guy reads me in the Orange County Register:
Dear Amy, YOU ARE IDIOT.
Name omitted to protect me from being sued by the semi-coherent/semi-literate.
UPDATE: He sent another message this morning:
YOU ARE IDIOT AND ASS-HOLE.
Freedom To Pander To The Religious
What separation between church and state? The Bush campaign is making a bid for the votes of churchgoers, getting churches to distribute campaign materials and enlist voters:
...Even some officials of some conservative religious groups said they were troubled by the notion that a parishioner might distribute campaign information within a church or at a church service."If I were a pastor, I would not be comfortable doing that," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "I would say to my church members, we are going to talk about the issues and we are going to take information from the platforms of the two parties about where they stand on the issues. I would tell them to vote and to vote their conscience, and the Lord alone is the Lord of the conscience."
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of the liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argued that any form of distributing campaign literature through a church would compromise its tax-exempt status. He called the effort "an absolutely breathtakingly large undertaking," saying, "I never thought anyone could so attempt to meld a political party with a network of religious organizations."
In a statement, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal group, called the effort "an astonishing abuse of religion" and "the rawest form of manipulation of religion for partisan gain." He urged the president to repudiate the effort.
In a statement, Mara Vanderslice, director of religious outreach for the Kerry campaign, said the effort "shows nothing but disrespect for the religious community." Ms. Vanderslice continued: "Although the Kerry campaign actively welcomes the participation of religious voices in our campaign, we will never court religious voters in a way that would jeopardize the sanctity of their very houses of worship."
How many congregations or worshippers will choose to cooperate remains to be seen. In an interview yesterday, the Rev. Ronald Fowlkes, pastor of the Victoria Baptist Church in Springfield, Pa., said he had not seen the e-mail message but did not think much of the idea.
"We encourage people to get out and vote," Mr. Fowlkes said, but as far as distributing information through church, "If it were focused on one party or person, that would be too much."
Yes, it would.
Can You Hoor Me Now?
11-year-old Ella Gunderson has become the "media darling" of modesty after writing a complaint letter to Nordstrom execs about all the slutty clothes they sell to young girls:
"I see all of these girls who walk around with pants that show their belly button and underwear," she wrote. "Your clearks (sic) sugjest (sic) that there is only one look. If that is true, then girls are suppost (sic) to walk around half naked."Nordstrom executives wrote back and promised Ella the company would try to provide a variety of fashions for youngsters.
I don't know about you, but I think little Ella should be a little more concerned with the fact that she can't spell than with whether other girls look like little hookers.
Can You Rear Me Now?
Ass-vertising. Really! Put your best cheek forward.
(via fellow freedom-of-speecher Jeff Jarvis)
Faux Real
More fine frolic (uh, news) from Fox:
"Osama Bin Laden is a pussy."
--Fox News analyst ìMajorî Bob Bevelacqua
(via Kevin Roderick's LA Observed)
Microsoft On Innovation
Why a former Microsoft Exec went Mac:
Why are Microsoft products so endlessly frustrating to use? Even techno-geeks like me get annoyed by Windows. Iím tired of spending the first 10 minutes of my day rebooting just so I can get to work. Microsoft Outlook 2003, the latest version of the companyís e-mail and calendar software, hangs for me about once a day, requiring me to restart my PC. I also have a problem with Word 2003: Whenever I bullet a line of text, every line in the document gets a bullet. Asking Windows to shut down is more of a request than a commandóit might, it might not. And recently, Internet Explorer stopped opening for me.I know Iím not alone. If youíre like me, youíve invested in technology to become more efficient and productive but mutter about the many frustrations of the digital lifestyle. Technology is my hobby as well as my job, so I regularly ponder why software giant Microsoft Corp., which has more than $56 billion in cash, hasnít solved more of these problems.
I began using Microsoft products 23 years ago, at age 11, and I worked for Microsoft from 1991 to 1999 as a technology manager. For many years, I was a Microsoft loyalist. While aware of Microsoftís shortcomings, I always believed that the Soft did its best to improve products over time, as it did with Windows XP. But recently, Iíve had a crisis of faith. Perhaps Iíve rebooted Windows one too many times.
Over the past year, my frustration with Windows grew, as did my envy of Appleís cool new products. Finally, last month I went out and bought an Apple Macintosh G5 and began using the new Mac operating system, OS X. It had been years since Iíd used a Macintosh. Until recently, I dismissed those who did as impractical, elitist hipsters, and I mocked the Mac ìswitchî ads on TV.
But in the first five minutes on my new Mac, I was surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, and ripping a CD. OS X has been a breath of badly needed fresh air after Windows.
This made me wonder about Microsoftís willingness to innovate and compete. Why are Microsoft products still so difficult to use and so unreliable? Why is the company improving them so slowly? Is Microsoft losing its competitive edge? Has the company seen its best days?
I wouldn't know. This blog item was written on an eMac, while listening to iTunes.
Singing While California Burns
The Enron Tapes.
Sludge Match
Alexandra Polier, the woman falsely accused of having an affair with John Kerry, sets the record straight.
The Advice Goddess Blog-iversary
It's the one-year anniversary of my blog. From this time last year to this time this year, I've had over 300,000 visitors to my site, according to my Web stats. And counting! I'm now getting over 30,000 visitors per month -- over 1,000 visitors a day.
The False Controversy Of Stem Cells
Kinsley explains, "If you think it through, the case for embryonic research is an easy one":
An embryo used in stem-cell research (and fertility treatments) is three to five days past conception. It consists of a few dozen cells that together are too small to be seen without a microscope. It has no consciousness, no self-awareness, no ability to feel love or pain. The smallest insect is far more human in every respect except potential.Is destroying that microscopic dot the exact moral equivalent of driving a knife through the heart of an innocent 6-year-old girl? Some stem-cell enthusiasts think that even antiabortion absolutists can support stem-cell research, since it uses surplus embryos that are doomed anyhow. But that logic would justify Nazi experiments on doomed Jews in the concentration camps. If the microscopic dot is a human being with full human rights, the answer is easy: no stem-cell research.
But you don't have to be an abortion-rights advocate to reach the opposite conclusion. In fact, for abortion opponents whose views fall anywhere short of fanatical absolutism, the answer ought to be easy as well: full speed ahead. To the nonabsolutist, it ought to matter a lot that restricting stem-cell research doesn't actually spare the lives of any embryos. That means the lives of real people desperately awaiting the fruits of stem-cell research are being weighed against a purely symbolic message.
It also ought to matter to the nonfanatic that embryos are needed only to start the research process. Most of the research and all the treatments that come out of it will use so-called lines developed out of a few initial stem cells in the laboratory. That makes the stem-cell issue different from ó and easier than ó the one about fetal tissues a few years ago. Fetal-tissue treatments use brain tissue from several aborted fetuses for each patient. An embryo used in stem-cell research has nothing resembling a brain.
A difficult issue is one in which you hold two or more conflicting values. Stem cells are not a difficult issue: either you think a microscopic embryo has the same human rights as you and I, or you don't. Do you believe that a woman who gets an abortion should be prosecuted for murder, just like a mother who hires a professional killer to off her teenage son? Are you picketing around fertility clinics, which kill hundreds of thousands of unborn children ó if that's what you believe a 5-day-old embryo to be ó just like abortion clinics do? If so, you are entitled to oppose stem-cell research. If not, please get out of the way.
Yes, Mr. Bush, do step aside. I think there are a few people out there who'd rather not suffer or and die from diabetes, Parkinson's, and a host of other diseases just because you take marching orders from the Christian fundamentalists. It's still a secular country. Or was -- last time I looked.
Keitel Cleans Up
Dead bodies littering your foyer? Call Harvey Keitel. Keitel, who starred as a "cleaner" in Pulp Fiction, is now in the business in real life -- at least financially speaking -- of tidying up human remains after death scene investigations.
(via Metafilter)