Soon, The Dollar Really WILL Be Monopoly Money...

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention

By Adam Pasick

LONDON (Reuters) - Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.

"Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise -- taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth," said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

"You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there's no mechanism by which you're taxed on this stuff," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.


The increasing size and public profile of virtual economies, the largest of which have millions of users and gross domestic products that rival those of small countries, have made them increasingly difficult for lawmakers and regulators to ignore.

You know, it's a game. Second Life, World of Warcraft, they're games.

Yes, from time to time, you see an eBay auction, but that's real-world, reportable income, and by law, should be reported (although I can't imagine anyone but a regular dealer in this stuff would report it). And that's fine. You make actual income that you can use to buy actual goods. You receive a real benefit from that transaction.

But to buy a virtual lapdance? So you can fire up your fantasies and masturbate? Yeesh. That's just sad. If this was a different day of the year, say April 1, or a different news outlet, say the The Weeky World News, then I'd get the joke.

But I ain't laughing. Opening this door would literally mean opening the door to having Monopoly games tracked, or any of a dozen other games where fake money changes hands.

For America...

...and for some subsets of this country's liberal wing:

Ernst Janning: There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves.

Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.'

It was the old, old story of the sacrifical lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password.

And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. [...]What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life.

Big Dog Bares His Teeth

Clinton says Republican extremists divided country

By Kay Henderson

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Former President Bill Clinton told Iowa's Democratic Party faithful on Saturday that the actions of "an extreme sliver" of the Republican Party have backfired and "profoundly divided" the country.

"We've got a big responsibility. Forget about 2008. Forget about the politics. Just go out and find somebody and look them dead in the eye and say 'You know, this is not right'...This is America," Clinton said. "We can do better and this year, it's a job that Democrats have to do alone."

In other words, as has always happened in the past, Republicans fuck up, trash the place, and leave it to the Democrats to fix things and pay the hotel tab. It's been this way for almost a century now, which is why we had a Democratic congress for 40 years.

One can only hope the Dems learned from their decade-long exile, but I digress.

Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, Clinton charged "paint themselves as pure and the rest of us who don't agree with them as stained" in order to divide the country and stay in power.

"People know things are out of whack, that fundamentally the order of, the rhythm of public life and our common life as Americans has been severely disturbed," he said.

Again, Republicans pray the problems will go away. Anyone who's raised a kid knows that problems don't go away, they have to be solved, or they only get worse.

One thing I loved about Clinton's policies (when he could get them passed or when he could issue an executive order) was that they looked forward, not to the present, not who could make the most short term off the government. He solved a budget deficit by shifting the tax burden around and imposing more on those who could afford it while easing it on those less able to. The policies he created built an economy, boosted by investment in new technologies and newer, smarter ways of doing things, where everyone benefitted: jobs, housing values, lower interest rates, better currency exchanges making for a better trade deficit, and so on.

And he did it with only minimal preaching to family values, without turning the country into a moral morass. The asshat Republicans did that for him, to our unending regret and shame. We were better off with a president who was getting his pole smoked than one who smoked the Poles in a war they should never have been fighting.

But Bubba gives his buddy Joe Lieberman some wiggle room too:

"You cannot blame the entire Republican party for this reason. The entire government of the United States, the Congress, the White House and increasingly the courts for the last six years has been in the total control not of the Republican party but of the most ideological, the most right wing, the most extreme sliver of the Republican Party."

True, there are good decent men running as Republicans, moderate men who in a better, less strident world, might even get my endorsement: Lincoln Chaffee springs to mind, so does Chris Shays, although his unexpected melt-down this week made my hair curl, a very tough task.

But our country, our world, our lives are in peril here, and as with any treatment of a cancer on the body politic, it seems that some healthy tissue must die in order to rid us of the threat.

So a quick update on some key races around the country: Rasmussen Reports shows that Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey has taken a slim lead (42-39) over Republican Tom Kean Jr. in his bid for re-election. Keep in mind that Rasmussen skews heavily conservative (they really average out a series of other polls (including Fox News, of all people), and had Kean up by as many as four points even just a month ago. Reuters called this race for Menendez a week ago, showing him with a comfortable ten point lead.

Rasmussen calls the Tenesee race between Harold Ford Jr and Bob "Corky" Corker as being a dead heat (to be precise, Ford holds a two point lead, 48-46, but with a margin of error of 4.5%. Which if I'm not mistaken is higher than any other poll I've seen conducted. Reuters' MOE is just about 4%. Reuters calls this race a toss-up, with 40% preferring each man, and 18% undecided. Rasmussen shows the undecided vote as emphatically lower and many more voters claiming they've settled on their choice now. I think we can call this one for Ford, but by the thinnest of margins. Does Tennessee allow Diebold machines?

C. "Moremonetary" Burns in Montana remains mired, 7 points in back of Democrat Jon Tester in his re-election bid.

Overall, Rassmussen is reporting that the Senate right now is a toss-up, with the Dems picking up three seats for a total of 48, the Republicans losing three to drop down to 49, with three races close enough to be deemed toss ups: Menendez, The Ford/Corker race, and surprisingly, the McCaskill/Talent race in Missouri, which Reuters called for Talent (43-39, with only 11% undecided).

The Democrats need to win two out of three of the toss-ups, and hold onto their gains, and they will control the Senate.

More bad news for the GOP: In the lowest display of confidence in the United States’ position in the war on terror since Rasmussen Reports began polling on the subject two years ago, just 31% of American adults say the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That’s a 10-point drop since the last poll taken in the days immediately following the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Considering Bush's campaign talks on the hustings have been about how he has depicted Democrats as soft on terrorism and accused them of pushing a "cut-and-run" approach to Iraq by calling for a U.S. troop withdrawal timetable he has refused to set, this undercuts his message by quite a bit.

Dedicated To My More Paranoid Readers

Fund Raising Time

It's time once again folks:

Free Speech TV and LinkTV are having their semi-annual fundraisers.

You know those few bucks you send to NPR or PBS? You know "public" TV and radio? Divert them. Send them to Link and Free Speech television. Corporations will make up your shortfall to the CPB-run fascist media outlets (except for Moyers and one or two others, of course, but they have corporate funding too). Meanwhile, two progressive media outlets who broadcast progressive programming 24/7 (no Tucker Carlson on THESE stations!) could use the bucks and you get more bang for them.

Just today alone, I've watched "Orwell Spins In His Grave", a replay of the Democracy Now! where James Gilchrist, head of the Minuteman Militia runs off the set in the face of the exposure of his Klan roots, and "Iraq For Sale", an exposé of who really benefitted from our "war on terror".

Please. Give. You need this programming to be there. And if you haven't already, switch from cable to DISH Network, the only outlet which carries both FSTV and Link.

The War On Halloween

(Hat tip to Catherine for the idea and the links for this post)

Before I start, this post has been Hannitized for your protection, meaning there will be minimal contact with the lunatic right wing fringe...

You're all aware of the War On Christmas trope that Fox News humped last year like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on a poodle in heat, I'm sure. You know, the Christmas holiday is under attack from a general secular trend or from persons and/or organizations with a deliberate or unconscious anti-Christian agenda....that kind of crap.

Obviously, Christmas won. No Christmas trees were taken hostage, no presents hijacked by a tall gangly green beast driving a sled pulled by a dog...none of that happened.

But not satisfied with this, the right wing has opened an attack on another pagan holiday of nearly equal import, co-opted by Christianity: Halloween.

From the front lines comes this dispatch...pardon the pun...

Pumpkin Panic! Pumpkin Shortage Predicted for Halloween

Halloween without a jack-o'-lantern is like Christmas without a pine tree, Easter without any eggs and election day without any smear ads. It just doesn't happen.

But this year, it just might be a pumpkinless holiday for many pumpkin procrastinators. Between heavy rains rotting seeds in the ground, harsh summer temps reducing fruiting blossoms and two mysterious pumpkin rots attacking pumpkins in the field, a significant portion of the pumpkin harvest this year has been ruined.

"Mysterious"?

I think not. Halloween has a long dark pagan history, one that as the father of a Wiccan and former non-practicing Druid (still have my body paints), I've been reminded of over and over again: "Dad, it's going to be Samhain soon! Can we light a bonfire in the bathtub?" Samhain marked the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half, where evil spirits and malicious beasts...like the denizens of some bizarre groupthink cult...begin to predate on the good people of the village. The idea of the Samhain celebration was to scare the spirits into staying away and to reinforce boundaries.

Now, who would these dark forces be today? My money is on the anti-Christians of the right wing, and I suspect this notion is not too far from the truth. They're always accusing the left of harboring "witchy lesbians", as a certain televangelist would put it.

Given their plummeting popularity and the subsequent loss of power, likely in both houses of Congress, isn't it likely that, as a last desperate attempt to create confusion and sow the seeds of a miraculous victory, the far right would attempt to destroy the one holiday they simply must believe is the most important to the liberal intelligensia of America?

And so, war has been declared on Halloween.

But unlike our war on Christmas, which was fought in the trenches and check-out lines of Macy's, with many casualties on both sides, they've taken a page from the other great pagan religion, Islam (just kidding, my Muslim friends!), and have decided to use stealth and cunning, along with biological weaponry.

As noted above, the right wing has powerful allies in the form of the weather control folks at the Pentagon....what? You thought Iraq was always a desert????...but I think they've co-opted the CDC as well:

Purdue University plant pathologist Daniel Egel says two types of fungus or rot have affected crops from the Midwest to New England. They cause pumpkins to develop mold spots and rot from the inside out.

He says a combination of high temperatures and record amounts of rain in August helped the fungi flourish.

One White County pumpkin farmer says she's lost about 85 percent of one pumpkin variety due to the rot.

Egel says shoppers should look for bright orange pumpkins with strong, green stems. He says consumers should also check for moldy areas or soft spots, especially on the bottom of the pumpkins.

Yes. The "bright orange" ones will clearly mark you as a liberal, and make it that much easier for the forces of light to TP your trees and soap your car windows, the next step in this war. Count on it! I can guarantee that at least one of you reading this will wake up the morning of November 1st with broken eggs on your sidewalk!

We must plan for our counteroffensive. I suggest the following: on Halloween, dress up in costumes. This will distract the terrorists, and confuse them. If they think that the house that contains a 6'4" tall white balding male in fact contains a Wookie with a bowcaster and a bandalero of power packs, they might slip up in their haste to get away. Similarly, if they're expecting a mom with her hair up in a pony tail and three kids, and instead find a nurse tending to three little teddy bears, they might get confused, since their orders were specifically to leave animals alone.

The powers that be wouldn't want to have bestiality included in the list of moral sins they've committed, not this close to the Foley incident.

I urge you all...run out today and find a costume! Buy it! And come October 31, prepare for war!

And then we can prepare for the real assault on Christmas: returning gifts.

UPDATE: The counter-counteroffensive has begun! As James Wolcott reports:

This morning Mona Charen, whose career consists of objecting to things nobody (probably not even she) really cares about, crabs about some inane piece in the Times about gender stereotypes in trick-or-treat couture. When Jonah Goldberg, waiting for the foam in his protein shake to settle, notes that his daughter still dresses in innocent get-ups, Mona, deploying the maternal voice of experience, tries to scare him straight.

"The children's costumes are still okay. But just be aware that childhood now ends at age 8. By nine, some of her classmates will be dressing as sexy vamps. This is the wonderful world liberalism and feminism have purchased for her."

Her warning so intrigues the horndog that under the guise of "research," he dives head-first into Wal-Mart's online catalog, which seems to have fallen under the spell of Victoria's Secret.

Go read the article. Stellar stuff.

Friday Kitten Blogging

Friday Music Blogging

All the leaves ARE brown, or turning...

A Worthy Recipient

OSLO (Reuters) - Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for grassroots efforts to lift millions out of poverty that earned him the nickname "banker to the poor".

Yunus, 66, set up a new kind of bank in 1976 to lend to the neediest, particularly women, in his native Bangladesh, enabling them to start up small businesses without collateral.

In doing so, he pioneered microcredit, a system copied in more than 100 nations from the United States to Uganda.

The first time I'd heard of "microbanking" was during the Clinton administration....you may recall those eight years, of unparalleled peace and prosperity when everyone was making enough money to live on and not trying to make ends meet so hard?...in connection with creative ways to help Africa out of its economic doldrums and helping it create a viable lasting free market economy.

You know, like how Democrats always help people by getting obstacles out of their way?

I'd never paid much attention to that kind of microeconomic application before, but what caught my ear was the fact that the program targeted women in particular as recipients of its assistance.

The world is tough for women, hell, even AMERICA is tough for women (some would argue it's tougher here for a woman than in most Western European countries...and I couldn't give much of an argument there), to make it on their own. Prima facie evidence suggests that it will continue to be tough for generations, in America, and centuries, worldwide. But programs like Yunus' can shorten the gap.

Empower a man, and you make him more competitive with the other men around him.

Empower a woman, and she can change the world.

It really is that simple. This program can help eradicate poverty, feed the hungry, clothe those who need clothes and shelter those in need of shelter.

Returning from a Fulbright scholarship in the United States, Yunus was shaken by the 1974 Bangladesh famine and headed out into the villages to see what he could do.

He found the region's women in severe debt to extortionate moneylenders. His initial goal was simply to persuade a local bank manager to give villagers regular credit, but the banker said that was impossible without a guarantee.

Yunus set out to prove him wrong and never looked back. Grameen -- the word means "village" or "rural" in the Bangla language -- has lent $5.72 billion since it began. Of this, $5.07 billion has been repaid.

The bank, which has turned a profit in all but three years, lends to 6.6 million people, 96 percent of them women, and has not received donor funds in eight years. It counts beggars among its members, giving them interest-free loans and life insurance.

Today the bank is 94 percent owned by the rural poor it serves and 6 percent by the government.

Much like American "foreign aid" to Third World nations, debt engendered servitude to a power far greater than any individual could fight. Whether it's the IMF, the World Bank, or the local loan shark, what can one person (or one country) do to stem the tide of blood that must be paid back with these promises?

"One" cannot. But "one" as a part of many, can. Find the sisters and brothers who can hear all the truth in what you say. Go. Do it. This weekend. The time has come for the world to rise as one. We can end hunger. We can end poverty. We can end terrorism, and warfare and countless thousands of ills of the planet. But it starts with one. Muhammad Yunus got it, and ran with it, and look at what he's created.

Bonus Friday Music Blogging: In honor of Muhammad Yunus, and women of the world.

Ladies And Gentlemen, Your Next President

She came, she saw, she kicked ass...
As a New Yorker, I have had an unique perspective on watching Hillry evolve as a campaigner, and let me tell you, the scripted robot of the 2000 Senate campaign, where there were legitimate concerns that she'd lose the race simply because she couldn't string a paragraph of cogent thought together, even scripted, are gone.

I do have a critique of her campaign staff: work on your fire. I realize there's 25 days until the election and you have an insurmountable lead, but the point of last night's rally was to fire people (crowd was pretty sparse, I might add) up to go out and get out the vote in their districts. If you guys can't summon up the passion for this, then no one's going to want to go out and take on the tasks of defeating peter King or John Sweeney. Your shpiel needed punch and vinegar. Other than moments when you alluded to Hillary running for president, the crowd was pretty much getting drunk at the bar.

After a spirited and unique performance by a hip-hop violinist (yes, you read that correctly, and as soon as I can dig up her name, I'll edit this post and link to her stuff), including a pretty....errrrr...interesting rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, the lady herself came out from backstage for a fifteen minute pep talk.

She had fire, and spark, and the crowd responded nicely. She talked about universal healthcare and not getting into a war ever again without knowing all the facts and explaining all the facts ahead of time. She stumbled momentarily at this point, repeating this theme of "knowing going in" for some domestic policy which was clearly a mistake (she even caught herself) but she has the polish now not to let a slip up like that throw her off stride.

She ran with it, completed the thought, then went right back and corrected herself.

Most important, she reminded people that she has two opponents: John Spencer, but also, voter apathy. Not so much for her or Elliot Spitzer, but for people like John Hall, Kristen Gillibrand, and Eric Massa, among other New York State Dems running to take Republican seats away, and also took the time to mention three races in Connecticut that New Yorkers can and should get involved with, to unseat Republicans in that state.

But her biggest cheer came when she mentioned never having to see Rick Santorum in the Senate again.

Hillary Clinton
New York

Off To See The Wizard....

Thanks to my good friend Britisher over At The Fifth Estate, a stellar blog and one I highly recommend for the thought and prose that goes into it, I will be attending "Hillarypalooza" tonight, a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's Senate re-election campaign (nominally...we're giving to her Presidential campaign by now).

I will be meeting up with old friends, new friends, and new-old friends, and reliving...well...times. I won't call them bad or good.

Enjoy your evening. I'm bringing a camera, altho there will be a professional photographer among us so it seems silly and redundant.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

OSLO (Reuters) - The birds and the bees may be gay, according to the world's first museum exhibition about homosexuality among animals.

With documentation of gay or lesbian behavior among giraffes, penguins, parrots, beetles, whales and dozens of other creatures, the Oslo Natural History Museum concludes human homosexuality cannot be viewed as "unnatural."

"We may have opinions on a lot of things, but one thing is clear -- homosexuality is found throughout the animal kingdom, it is not against nature," an exhibit statement said.

Boy, When You Make The Terminator Flip Flop...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger distanced himself from President George W. Bush on national television on Wednesday, saying he was as far from his fellow Republican as he was from winning an Academy Award during his film career.

"To link me to George Bush is like linking me to an Oscar," the former bodybuilder and Hollywood action star joked during an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." "That's ridiculous."

Yea....well...link this:

Schwarzenegger plans Ohio trip to boost Bush
Carla Marinucci and John Hubbell, Chronicle Political Writers

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans a high-profile trip to the presidential battleground state of Ohio on the weekend before the Nov. 2 election -- an effort aimed at pumping up GOP voters and leveraging the governor's star power to boost President Bush's chances of success.

Though the governor downplayed the idea Tuesday of campaign appearances for Bush, insiders said plans are under way for a trip the weekend of Oct. 29 -- enabling the former Mr. Olympia to maximize his influence in Ohio, where he has real estate holdings and a following thanks to his annual Columbus-based Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition.

Some political insiders have wondered aloud why the most popular GOP politician in the nation -- who publicly broke ranks with Bush and his party on the issue of stem-cell research this week when he endorsed California's Proposition 71 -- has been noticeably absent from the campaign trail for the Republican president.

Poor Ahnuld...buyer's remorse, perhaps? Why would you turn your back on Bush, Arnold? Why wouldn't you show him the love you showed him in 2004? After all, his grandaddy helped your daddy during World War II, by funding Nazi projects! I think you owe him at least a little debt of gratitude.

Or perhaps you summed up your link to him best yourself:

We are one America, and President Bush is defending it with all his heart and soul.

That's what I admire most about the president. He's a man of perseverance. He's a man of inner strength. He is a leader who doesn't flinch, who doesn't waiver, and does not back down.

My fellow Americans, make no mistake about it: Terrorism is more insidious than Communism, because it yearns to destroy not just the individual, but the entire international order.

The president did not go into Iraq because the polls told him it was popular. As a matter of fact, the polls said just the opposite. But leadership isn't about polls.

It's about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions.

That's why America is safer with George W. Bush as president.

He knows you don't reason with terrorists. You defeat them. He knows you can't reason with people blinded by hate. You see, they hate the power of the individual. They hate the progress of women. They hate the religious freedom of others. And they hate the liberating breeze of democracy.

But, ladies and gentlemen, their hate is no match for America's decency.

We are the America that sends out the Peace Corps volunteers to teach our village children. We are the America that sends out the missionaries and doctors to raise up the poor and the sick.

We are the America that gives more than any other country to fight AIDS in Africa and the developing world.

And we are the America that fights not for imperialism, but for human rights and democracy.

You made your bed, now sleep in it.

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky

Bush
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Hump Day Marx Brothers

Today's Episode: The Marx Brothers explain how Michael Brown got his job

Public Service Message

I'm fine. That plane crash happened nowhere near either me or my home. I did grow up near there and if it's the building I think it is, dated an Iraqi-French girl many many many years ago who lived there.

*sigh*

I do miss her. She had a wonderful sense of humour.

Genocide, Anyone?

LONDON (Reuters) - American and Iraqi public health experts have calculated that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent violence, far above previous estimates.

Researchers used household interviews rather than body counts to estimate how many more Iraqis had died because of the war than used to die annually in peacetime.

"We estimate that as a consequence of the coalition invasion of March 18, 2003, about 655,000 Iraqis have died above the number that would be expected in a non-conflict situation," said Gilbert Burnham of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the United States.


That means 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population have died because of the invasion and ensuing strife, he said.

Curiously, the United States was the last of the permanent UN Security Council members to ratify the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1988, though only with the proviso that we were immune from prosecution for genocide without our consent), so presumably it should still be fresh in our memories what this word means.

The Convention (in article 2) defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:"

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

OK, we qualify on numbers 1, 2, 3. But then, there's that whole "we have to agree we committed genocide" escape clause.

So basically, we rank right up there with the Tutsis and Idi Amin, but we're not quite as bad as the Khmer Rouge or of course, Adolph Hitler. In fact, we're running neck and neck with Slobodan Milosevic, who ceded the competition with his untimely death suicide last March.

Bush
Cheney
Iraq
genocide

Caddyshack

For your viewing pleasure, a full-length film: Caddyshack!

Words To Live By

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.


* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.


* Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.


* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.


* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.


* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.


* Never buy a car you can't push.


* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.


* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.


* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.


* The second mouse gets the cheese.


* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.


* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.


* You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.


* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.


* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull, Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.


* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

And The Bitch Is Back

Last week, I wrote how payback is a bitch, and when you set yourself up as some moral authority, you're going to pay a heavy price when (not if) you show your feet of clay.

Well, here it comes:

Democrats have big lead after sex scandal": polls

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidates have a big edge on Republicans one month before elections to decide control of Congress, a flurry of new polls said on Monday, with ratings for President George W. Bush and Congress dropping after the Capitol Hill sex scandal.

A USA Today/Gallup poll gave Democrats a 23-point edge on Republicans in the battle for Congress, while a CNN poll gave Democrats a 21-point lead.

A ABC News/Washington Post poll found Democrats held a 54-41 percent lead in the congressional horse race among registered and likely voters, which ABC said was the biggest Democratic lead this close to election day in more than 20 years.

And a new CBS News/New York Times poll showed 79 percent of respondents thought Republican leaders were more concerned with politics than the well-being of the teenage congressional assistants who received lewd messages from former Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida.

Key, that last paragraph, so I emphasized it.

For more than twelve years, we've had, first, the televangelists running the Republican party, then Congress, and then a President, lecture to us about the "moral values" that are sorely lacking in this nation. We heard about it during the Clinton sex "scandal", the battle over gay marriage, Janet Jackson's nipple slip, Ten Commandments in the courtroom, Terry Schiavo, Howard Stern, immigration policy...all the while, all this was happening as a subtext to it all.

Even as those stories began leaching out, the GOP would continue to hammer the rest of the country, good decent folks, some of them actually liberals, about terrible Hollywood moral values and how the Coasters (Left and Right, as opposed to the honey-voiced harmonies of the 50s singing group) were out to ruin heartland America with their beliefs of tolerance and peace.

Well, it looks like the dam has burst and the American people, while they'll tolerate some hypocrisy, won't be overstuffed like a bad Thanksgiving turkey.

But why is it always about sex with us? Bush and the Republicans lied about a war, and thousands of America's youth are dead for it. Bush and the Republicans have likely stolen more than a few elections, and yet people are not up in arms about the sanctity of their vote. Bush and the Republicans stole money from the working classes in the form of programs designed to clear a path to a moderate amount of wealth, and gave it to the rich, and hardly a blip appeared in opinion polls. That list goes on.

But a pervert lets his pecker lead his brain, and suddenly Americans are storming the barricades, trying to throw the fuckers out?

It reminds me of the old joke: "I am the CEO of one of the world's biggest corporations, but does anyone call me a magnate? I give millions each year to charities, but does anyone call me a philanthropist? But suck one cock..."

Why is this? It can't be that we're the most moral country in the world. France has a greater percentage of church attendance, Islamic countries certainly have tougher moral codes than we do, hell, many Third World countries practically govern by Papal bull, but none seem to have the particularly noxious reaction that America does to a good old fashioned sex scandal.

Why is that? Yes I know, in the UK, Foley would also have been forced to resign in disgrace, yadayadayada, and probably any country would have similar reaction to sex (or even just sexual advances, if you buy the right wing spin on this) with a minor below a certain age...although I'm fairly sure 17 would pass cultural muster in places like France or Spain...but here, if you want to take down a celebrity or leader, just find him or her in a compromising position with a person he or she is not married to, and the nation eats them alive.

Hell, even we liberals are as guilty as the next critter of similarly offensive behavior when it comes to judging our own peers. Remember Gary Hart? A man who, stupidly, challenged the press to discover Donna Rice. When he was found out (the next day!) did liberals rush to his defense?

Nope. They left him twisting in the wind, despite the fact that he could still have made a good President, and hey, if he was getting a bit on the side, damn, she was a fiiiiiiiiiiiiine one to be getting it from!

This is a puzzle I've pondered on more than one occasion, and frankly have never been able to come up with a satisfactory...well, not even a rationalization, much less an answer. Jealousy? Morality? Media manipulations?

None of these fit the bill, and all seem more to describe symptoms than the root problem. For example, media manipulations would only skim the surface, seeing as so many in media have their own perversions and peccadilloes to deal with, some of which even make the radar of society as a whole. Why would they call so much attention to sex scandals knowing the clown at the door will be ringing their bell next?

Any thoughts?

UPDATE: scribes at Martini Republic posts an interesting thought on this precise issue.

The reality-insulated suburban soccer moms have never seemed to mind the war too much, so long as there’s no draft. They’ve never cared about the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice Axis of Lies running the country, because that’s just all about terror, which only happens in cities, so who cares. They know that military service is for poor people, not children of the married smug in the suburbs. They’ve never worried too much about global warming, oviously; their SUVs and minivans and neighborhood-bereft lifestyle is testimony to that. And rape only happens in the inner city, doesn’t it? And birth control will always be available to white people, right? So the fundie zeal against choice hasn’t fazed them much either.

But they’d like to think that one of their highly-pampered, safety-seat-strapped darlings might end up a Congressional page someday—and that has given them pause.

It's a start, but far from an answer.

I'm SHOCKED!

While stressing his commitment to diplomacy, Bush said he had told South Korea and Japan that "the United States will meet the full range of our deterrent and security commitments" in the Asia-Pacific region.

What? We'll honor a treaty????? Wait...Bush walked away from START...Or the Geneva Conventions....suddenly treaties matter?

Really?

Big Wheels Keep On Turning....

Jeez, the way Reuters has been posting good news for Democrats all week, you'd think maybe they were an European news service...

ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Wall Street has shifted its allegiance in the 2006 election cycle by donating more to Democrats than Republicans who have been the investment banks' usual benefactors, U.S. Federal Election Commission data show.

Five leading firms Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bear Stearns Companies Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. have contributed $6.2 million so far to candidates before the November elections, with about 52 percent going to Democrats.

"People give ideological money and they give money to people they think are going to win," said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute in Hamden, Connecticut. "It looks like it's going to be a good year for Democrats."

Despite being awash in record profits, Wall Street executives, investment bankers, brokers and traders may be getting weary of Republican control, Carroll said. President Bush's polling numbers are low and growing violence in Iraq also weighs heavy on Republican leadership, he said.

Thems some pretty heavy hitters.

As Carroll points out, this is really just part of the story, however. What I'd be interested in seeing is the personal contributions of people like Ace Greenberg, et al, and where that money's going.

See, a public, high profile donation like these sends one message: we don't like what we see next. The personal contributions, however, indicate the political philosophies of the individual involved. If, for example, you were to tell me that, say, Jon Tester got $5,000 from Merrill Lynch, that's one message to Conrad Burns about his effectiveness as a legislator (and of course, an attempt to purchase Tester, just in case).

If, however, you tell me that 5 VPs got together and created a "Bullish on Tester" PAC, that tells me that, fundamentally, the individual mindset at Merrill Lynch is changing to a more progressive agenda, and that mindset is heavily influenced by peers and co-workers.

That's a far more basic and important shift in the political landscape. Even the 2004 election, for all its ghost shadow good news, wasn't nearly the cause for celebration that this year looks to be shaping up as.

Y'know, Payback IS A Bitch...

After a difficult summer of bad headlines out of Iraq, Bush appeared to be getting his footing in the weeks surrounding the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

His job approval ratings were up. And his message was playing widely that Republicans are better than Democrats at handling terrorism and that the United States must stay in Iraq to finish the job.

"The stakes are high, the Democrats are the party of cut and run. Ours is a party that has got a clear vision and says we will give our commanders and troops the support necessary to achieve that victory in Iraq. We will stay in Iraq, we will fight in Iraq and we will win in Iraq," Bush said in Stockton, California, on Tuesday.

It is a theme he is still pushing and will continue to highlight, but right now, the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, the Florida Republican who sent sexual messages to teen-aged congressional aides, is burning up the air waves.

"It's driving out everything. I don't know how long the legs will be, but probably pretty long, because it's the sort of scandal that's going to keep having odds and ends show up," said presidential scholar Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution.

Anybody got Monica Lewinski's phone number?

See, here's the thing: If you're going to be the party of morality and wrest power based on that footing by, well, distracting the American people from things like fighting terrorism BEFORE it hits our shores by endlessly.bringing.up.a.sex.scandal.and.conditioning.
Americans.to.react.to.that.more.than.the.news...well, when you're trying to govern, what in the hell do you think is going to be lobbed back at you at an opportune moment?

Friday Music Blogging

Jamiroquai. Hated the song, but the video stuck in my mind all these years.

Friday Kitten Blogging

The Media Is The Massage

Michael Wolff, media columnist at Vanity Fair, said bias was not so much linked to the ideology of the journalists or even the corporate owners as it was driven by a desire to boost ratings.

"I don't think Fox says, 'We're here to promulgate a political agenda.' I think they say, 'We're here to get ratings ... and we do that by speaking to this particular demographic, which happens to be conservative and right wing,'" he said.

Not exactly, Mr. Wolff, but you're not far off the mark.

Folks, this is chicken-and-egg stuff. Yes, putting jerk-offs like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and John Gibson drive ratings, but it's a feeback loop: by actively promoting a regressive, fear-based and fear-mongering agenda, Fox News increases the likelihood that people will vote with their fears. And fearful people like to hear news that makes them feel good about being afraid.

You're in your house alone. You get startled by a noise. You're scared. That's an embarassing situation, and no one likes to be embarassed. What Fox would like to see happen in this scenario is for you to buy an alarm system (which, of course, is advertised on Fox), a couple of guns, and tell all your friends some made-up story about how you just had to do all this, because your neighborhood is unsafe.

Whereas a normal person would just turn on the light, see it was the cat, chuckle at themselves, and go back to bed.

I can't stress this enough: Fox likes panic. Fox thrives on panic. So Fox's political agenda is to feed the beast. And that means promoting a right wing agenda that scares people while downplaying rationality and the advice we all got growing up: Stop. Breathe. Think.

And of course, the Republicans, being a party of fearful puddles of mouse-piss, cling to Fox like a raft after the Titanic has gone down, and feed that agenda, adding their own unique perspective and fears.

Lee Meringoff of Marist sums it up best, I think:

"They're not after converts so much as getting their supporters to show up," he said.

Political persuasion used to mean taking a position, defending it, re-evaluating it, and amending it if necessary, and thus was forged public policy.

Today, it means poll-testing a sound bite for a fully-formed agenda to ram down the throats of constituents and then scare enough people into voting for it. "Contract For America," anyone?

There's also a campaign finance aspect to this trope. Candidates appear on Fox, not only to promote a fear-based agenda, but to present themselves as the bulwark to society from this particular demon. Viewers (Fox' viewers tend to skew, um, ancient, which means they have a little coin stashed away) not only see the "problem" and the "solution" but are invited to participate by, as Soupy Sales said "send(ing) in those funny green pieces of paper."

In exchange for this, Fox gets a fairly clear field to bash whomever they want with little fear of oversight from the FCC or Congres for that matter.

Thought-experiment: what would have happened if Fox had been broadcasting the Super Bowl with the Jackson nipple-slip, instead of CBS? Does anyone here honestly think Fox would have paid nearly as dearly as CBS?

No one doubts that Fox News is in it to make money, and that as the country now begins its swing towards a more liberal (actually, moderate-conservative) perspective, Fox will likely adjust accordingly, with much grudging and nattering. However, they will never abandon the money trough that conservative politicians and their own programming has created, a cash flow of both campaign contributions and advertising money that is fear-based, fear-driven, and fearfully cynical. Just look at how Fox has tried to Stalinize Mark Foley as a Democrat...

Fox News
Bill O'Reilly
Sean Hannity

Rick Santorum, R.I.P.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

tags technorati : rick santorum

Unfortunate Juxtaposition?

Closer To The Brink

In succession to the post I made yesterday about the races for the House, Zogby/Reuters have released a poll about the Senate races up for grabs this year.

Hang on to your hats, folks: In ten battleground states, Dems clearly lead in five (six, if you count Lieberman in Connecticut), and are dead even in two, one of which is a Republican holding. The Democrats need six to take control of the Senate.

The most interesting races are in Montana, where Jon Tester (see sidebar) has a four percent lead over C. "Moremonetary" Burns, the incumbent Republican, as well as Rhode Island, where Sheldon Whitehouse holds a four point lead over moderate Republican incumbent, Lincoln Chaffee.

The Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey Senate races all show the Democrat with a double digit lead over his Republican opponent, including Man-Dog Santorum in Pennsylvania.

Republicans hold clear leads in only two of the ten, but that includes Virginia, where George "Macaca" Allen is up by nine over James Webb, but a whopping 13% of voters have yet to make up their minds between a Republican bigot and a "Republican-lite" bigot.

The most exciting race for me is in Tennessee, where Democratic Congressman Harold Ford is dead even with Republican Bob Corker to replace outgoing Majority Leader Bill Frist, the catkiller. Each has 40%, but almost twenty percent of the electorate has not made up their minds (the smart money sees Ford winning, I think). For an election to be such a toss-up this close to election day in a seat that should by rights be safely Republican, along with the Chaffee and Burns problems, speaks to me that this anger that voters are feeling at Republicans is not limited to the "usual suspect" states, nor to the extremists in the Republican party.

The race I haven't touched on is in Ohio, where incumbent Republican Mike Dewine is deadlocked with challenger Sherrod Brown in a battle of moderates, at 40%. Dewine, although a moderate Republican (in this day and age, Genghis Khan would be a moderate Republican, tho), faces stiff resistance probably as a backlash from the Bob Ney scandal, and the fact that he also took in a princely sum of $1,000 from a group advised by Jack Abramoff. Add to that the Noe scandal (not related to Abramoff, but one involving the investment by the Ohio Worker's Compensation fund in a rather u nconventional investment vehicle, run by members of the state Republican committee, and about $13 million dollars in lost funds), and Dewine is in serious jeopardy. 17% are undecided in Ohio.

Dewine cannot count on the Radical Right's support, since he broke with his party and was one of the Gang Of 14 Republicans and Democrats who brokered the filibuster compromise last year. In effect, he's left stranded on a raft amid the debris of the Abramoff and Noe scandals, without the usual right-wing lifeline that other, more conservative Senators might rely on. I'd say it's a testament to his personality and moderation that Ohioans would even consider him against the backdrop of all these scandals and six years of Republican mishandling of all three branches of government.

Mike Dewine
Sherrod Brown
Harold Ford
Bob Corker
Jon Tester
Conrad Burns

Hump Day Marx Brothers

Today's Episode: Groucho Explains The Global War On Terror

On The Brink

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats lead in races for 11 of 15 crucial Republican-held U.S. House seats a month before Nov. 7 elections, putting them within reach of seizing control of the chamber, according to Reuters/Zogby polls released Wednesday.

Republican incumbents are at particularly high risk, the polls found, with seven of nine trailing their Democratic challengers in the high-stakes battle for control of the U.S. Congress.

Democrats must pick up 15 seats to reclaim control of the House, and the polls found Republicans were also behind in four of six open seat races in districts they won in 2004.

"This is a dismal showing for Republicans," pollster John Zogby said. "Republicans ought to be very, very nervous."

The polls, taken Sept. 25 to Oct. 2 in 15 of the most competitive House districts across the country, overlapped by three days the sex scandal involving Florida Rep. Mark Foley's explicit Internet messages to teenage male congressional pages.

The scandal and questions about how their leaders handled it have mushroomed into a political crisis for Republicans, who worried it could demoralize the party's core supporters, particularly social and religious conservatives.

The news gets even better. Of the eleven races the Dems take, nine of them are by margins of more than five percent (and remember, some of this was done before the Foley scandal broke fully), and at least five are by double digits, meaning the race is all but over already.

Add to that now, Tom Reynolds seat is in play AND so is Christopher Shays, a moderate Republican from Connecticut who has been the recipient of an awful lot of Mark Foley's slush fund (what spilled over the brim from his ample fund of contributions made from his backers), and you have what amounts to the tip of the iceberg. We won't fully see the embroilment of this scandal for another couple of days in terms of how it affects the polls.

Conventional wisdom has it that Hastert will ahve to fall on his sword and at least resign the Speaker's position, if not his seat, which might put even his seat in play.

Times are going to be interesting in what should shape up to be an amazing race.

South Foley

(hat tip to Miss Cellania) Didn't take long, did that?

New York Matters, Part Deux

As we draw closer to the November midterm elections, what should be a slam dunk for Democrats nationwide, taking over at least one house of Congress, and possibly both, is still up for grabs. As Time magazine reports this week, there's "an eerie, Zen-like calm" projected by top Republican officials. Why? A couple of reasons. First, money. Republicans on the whole still out-draw in campaign contributions by a sizable amount, thanks to special interest and corporate donations.

Second, aggressive redistricting by Republicans means that, rather than have 100 seats up for grab as happened in 1994, there are really only 36 seats that the GOP has to focus on in order to retain control of Congress. The Dems need to capture 21, 15 House, six Senate. Tall order when all that money and machinery can be so narrowly focused.

Which means the Democrats will have to pick their spots very carefully. Earlier this year, I recounted how important New York state would be in determining the make-up of Congress. Today, we can flesh out some of the details:

In the Empire State, Democrats and nonpartisan political analysts say as many as five of the nine GOP seats could be in play in November. However, so far only one - the race to replace moderate Republican Sherwood Boehlert of Utica - at this point in the campaign leans Democratic or is a toss-up.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) is being challenged by Nassau Legis. Dave Mejias (D-Farmingdale), who in six weeks raised more money than King's previous two opponents combined. Despite being listed as one of the top races to watch by political handicappers, King is a heavy favorite in this overwhelmingly Republican district.

Several other GOP incumbents are in competitive races, according to nonpartisan political analysts. Among those are: Sue Kelly of Westchester, John Sweeney of Clifton Park, James Walsh of Syracuse and Randy Kuhl of Hammondsport.

The Democrats' "best opportunities are in congressional districts that are generally Democratic but have Republican incumbents," said Stuart Rothenberg, a political handicapper.

In each of the previous three elections, Democrats have been able to capture at least one seat formerly held by Republicans, while maintaining a tight grip on all their holdings in the state. This year, several factors should increase that tally:

1) Bush's miserable performance as President will be a real issue in two ways: it's angered the hell out of Democrats, and it's deflated and frustrated blue state Republicans, who tend to be more moderate than red staters.

2) Eliot Spitzer, Hillary Clinton, and Andrew Cuomo are almost guaranteed to win their races, again, deflating Republicans who might turn out for competitive races, but who will be further frustrated and likely not to vote.

3) Rep. Mark Foley. The taint of Congress and incumbency was already weighing heavily on Republicans across the nation, but recent revelations regarding the sex scandal that Foley singlehandedly created will tarnish anyone who's had any type of close ties to Foley. The fact that the party leadership in Washington knew enough about Foley's escapades to warn pages as early as five years ago does not reflect well on anyone in the party, but in particular on Tom Reynolds, who ought to have known better and who is running in the 26th.

4) Lastly, traditional Republican strongholds in the state, like Long Island and Westchester County, have seen a gradual erosion of that power as aging Republicans retire and move away, such that Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, was able to wrest the Nassau County board away from the GOP.

The fight is there. The work is cut out for us. It's time to wipe the slate clear of Republicans and take back Congress.

New York

Peter King
Sue Kelly

John Sweeney
James Walsh

Randy Kuhl

Tom Reynolds

Standing Up For The Legislative Process

In the course of looking over the sordid material provided by the Foley affair, I came across this little exchange("Maf54" is Foley):

Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:38 PM): lol no

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:40 PM): im single right now

Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:57 PM): my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi

Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): are you

Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny

Xxxxxxxxx (7:47:29 PM): lol?a bit

Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself

Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:04 PM): no

Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy

Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow?

Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha

Now, as an experienced hand with masturbation, and a firm advocate of it as a stress reliever, particularly as it pertains to disseminating good feelings (see my sidebar link for Masturbate For Peace), I was thinking a little about this.

You're a Congressman from, say, Florida. A Republican in good standing who has certain...impulses...that if he acted upon them, might be taken the wrong way by his constituents, and things could get out of hand.

You know, you'll got to consider all these bills and mark up all those pages, and you're too busy to hire, um, help for your swelling needs, since that would leave a paper trail for your district. And besides, your fellow members get agitated and you might arouse suspicions. I mean, it's not like going to see the Yanks bat around at the Stadium! People get upset when sex is involved and money is spent!

So you lock your office door, and buzz your secretary and tell her you need to polish up your response to some legislation. You tell her to tell anyone who calls that you're consulting with your staff in order to firm up your position.

Now cast the stock answers you hear given to the media with this scenario. I wonder if legislators aren't telling more than we're hearing?

"After working closely with fellow members..."

"We polished up the language in conference..."

"I closely examined the many pages in this bill..."

"I can safely say we have the situation firmly in hand..."

"We are in Iraq for the long haul..."

"I'm here to play ball with the members of Congress..."

"I'm reaching across the aisle to work hand-in-hand with members of the other party..."

See how easy it is to realize how extensive sexual perversions are in Congress? You try it!

A Pirro-ette

Well, it looks like Jeannine's troubles have only just begun. You may recall the rather embarassing leak last week of an investigation into conversations she held with Bernard Kerik over planting a bug on her husband's boat.

Said husband was suspected of having an affair with his lawyer's young and attractive wife, Lisa Santangelo:Jeannine Pirro and Lisa Santangelo

Admittedly, that takes balls. Here's the man defending you from a federal tax evasion inquiry, and you go around banging his wife.

Well, frying pan into the fire stuff was revealed overnight.

Financial disclosure statements from Pirro's time as Westchester district attorney have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, according to a spokeswoman for Pirro.

The grand jury asked the Westchester County Board of Ethics to turn over more than 100 pages of Pirro's financial disclosures from 1998 to 2005. [...]

The New York Post also reports a federal prosecutor is looking into whether Pirro allowed plea deals from defendants who used the lawyer who once represented her husband.

Apparently, ol' Jeannine was, um, funding her husband's affair. The smoking gun they are looking for is kickbacks from the lawyer Michael Santangelo in exchange for the plea deals she agreed to so willingly, and also to see if, as she claimed, the boat was jointly held. Al Pirro and Michael Santangelo has business dealings apart from his representation in Federal court. It's possible those business deals would come under scrutiny as well.

The only good news for Pirro was a rally yesterday on Staten Island, but even that was tainted by this scandal. Many leading Republicans, including New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg and Republican gubenatorial candidate John Faso came in support of Pirro as she trolled for votes in perhaps the only borough she stands a faint chance of carrying in the city.

Conspicuous by their absence were the two men who encouraged Pirro to run, first against Hillary for Senate (and we all saw what happened there) and now against Andrew Cuomo for Attorney General: Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Fuhrer...I mean, mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Add them to the increasingly long list of unprincipled cowards under the GOP banner...

Jeannine Pirro
Al Pirro
Bernard Kerik
Rudy Giuliani
George Pataki
Lisa Santangelo
Michael Santangelo
New York

Condoning Pedophilia...

Just another service offered by your United States Republican Party:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives said his office knew a year ago about inappropriate contact between a former intern and newly resigned Rep. Mark Foley and called on Saturday for a criminal probe of the matter.

Foley, 52, a six-term Florida Republican, resigned from the House on Friday after ABC News reported he sent messages to current and former congressional pages with references to sexual organs and acts.

Staff for the Republican leader, Speaker Dennis Hastert, said they had been alerted to an exchange between Foley and one congressional page in the fall of 2005 but were not told about any sexually explicit e-mails or text messages, according to a statement issued by the speaker's office.

They said Foley had been warned to stop any such contact and that Hastert did not become aware of the incident until the spring of 2006.

Yea, right. Hastert knew last year, which is why Foley was discouraged from running for Senate against Katherine Harris in Florida.

Then again, Hastert was a high school wrestling coach and perhaps he had his own, you know, attraction to the youthful sweaty bodies of adolescent men...I wonder if he was getting sloppy seconds from Foley?

tags technorati : Dennis Hastert Mark Foley

Ladies, A Little Help Please?

A 59-year-old American has been drinking breast milk for the past four years in a bid to fight cancer.

Howard Cohen hopes it will boost his immune system and help him fight off his prostate cancer.[...]

Mr Cohen, who has a PhD in theoretical physics, read up on his cancer when he was diagnosed in 1999 and came across a piece of literature by scientists who had killed cancer cells in the laboratory using an ingredient of breast milk.

Now, my prostate is a very dear part of me, and I'm thinking that perhaps there's something to Mr. Cohen's theory.

So as a preventative measure, I'm wondering if we should conduct an experiment to see if breast milk actually prevents prostate cancer.

If you are interested, and can lactate-- even if you can't, I always need the practice-- please come to my nightly auditions:

Le Trapeze
17 E. 27th Street
New York, NY
(between Madison and 5th)

"A" cups welcome, I don't discriminate.

Re: The Foley Scandal

I have nothing to add but my contempt. Down With Tyranny has the whole sordid story. Pardon me while I relive my childhood and go throw up...

Friday Music Blogging Two-Fer

I really need to reshoot this video with a concept I have, but have at it: Thompson Twins
And in the spirit of TwoFers....Cocteau Twins

Friday Kitten Blogging

I was too busy this week to shoot Thumb-Per (with a camera, before you PETAns start narcing on me...), so in lieu of my kit, I'm posting some of the cats who inspired me to take a polydactyl in:

Telling Tales Outta School

I'm going to take a look at the Bob Woodward revelations from an angle few in Blogtopia(©Skippy) will.

Most will focus on how neatly the book ties into the NIE leaked last weekend, and the testimony of the generals in front of the Senate committee earlier this week, as well they should. It all smells pretty coordinated, and it's nice to see the Dems play hardball as hard and perhaps even better (more subtly, to be sure) than the Republicans.

Let's get to it, shall we?

Woodward: Bush concealing level of Iraq violence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is concealing the level of violence against U.S. troops in Iraq and the situation there is growing worse despite White House and Pentagon claims of progress, journalist Bob Woodward said in advance of a new book.

Insurgent attacks against U.S.-led forces in Iraq occurred, on average, every 15 minutes, Woodward said in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview taped for broadcast on Sunday.

"It's getting to the point now where there are eight, 900 attacks a week. That's more than a hundred a day. That is four an hour attacking our forces," Woodward said in excerpts of the interview released on Thursday before the release of his book on the administration, called "State of Denial."

"The assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon (saying) 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,'" Woodward added.

Not surprisingly, the Bushies have been lying to us about Iraq. Dog bites man stuff. It's a non-story, except of course for the fact that Bob Woodward has been in the administration pocket for a few years now, and appears to have wiggled out a little.

But drop down a few grafs:

A senior administration official saw little new in Woodward's charges "except that Bob believes he has a lot of making up to do since the Washington establishment criticized him for being too soft in his first two books (on the Bush administration)."

"We've seen this movie before, and we shouldn't be surprised of another critical book about the Bush administration 40 days before an election," said the official.

Uh huh.

Ask yourself this question: just WHO is this "Washington establishment" that the senior administration official (SAO) (clearly, either Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld, but more likely Cheney, given the wording of the metaphor)? Is it the same "Washington establishment" that was so hypercritical of President Clinton? The same "Washington establishment" that has hammered the Democrats from pillar to post and has made up pipe-dream stuff to keep the masses undereducated? The same "Washington establishment" that supported the war in Iraq in the first place?

Let's face facts: the only "Washington establishment" (other than Morton's which serves a delicious filet mignon) that exists is the large cadre of lobbyists, almost all Republican, who do business on a daily basis with Congress and the White House.

Like Jack Abramoff, to name names.

And somehow, I doubt Abramoff gives a rat's ass about this book or Bob Woodward right now...

Which leaves the White House and its supporters as, well, the "Washington establishment." But note the way the "SAO" paints the White House as outside the Beltway? The same trope that Bush ran in 2000?

That's an interesting position for a Presidency to take in the midterm election of their second term, don't you think? It shows a lot of desperation and fear draping over the White House like syrup on a stack of pancakes.

Bush
Bob Woodward
Iraq
Cheney

Yes! The Meaning Of Liff!

Blind Item

What long-time moderate Republican from Connecticut, active in political circles and a strong backer of Joe Lieberman in past campaigns (to the aggregate tune of six figures), just hedged his bets with a sizable contribution to Ned Lamont's campaign?

The Tears Of A Clown

I think we can officially write-off Republican candidate for attorney general Jeannine Pirro as an up-and-coming national political figure.

Republican state attorney general candidate Jeanine Pirro says she is under federal investigation for allegedly plotting to secretly record her husband, Albert.

Oh, there's a lot more to this story, hang on...it's going to be a bumpy night...

At a packed news conference in Manhattan, a furious and at times tearful Pirro insisted she would not quit the race and blasted the investigation as politically motivated and sexist.

Said investigation stems from a separate investigation of her good friend, convicted swindler and bribe-taker, Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former head of the NYPD, and ersatz-Homeland Security Secretary under George W. Bush. Speaks a lot about how carefully Bush picks his Cabinet (a subject of a later "Marx Brothers" clip...)

Said investigation, involving no less than six Federal and state law enforcement agencies. Said investigation being run by Republican U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Michael J. Garcia. But wait, there's more!

Pirro said FBI agents had confronted her outside her home late one night to inform her she was under investigation. She said she had hired an attorney to represent her in the case.

But she insisted that prosecutors had no business delving into her troubled union with lobbyist Albert Pirro, who spent 11 months in prison on tax fraud charges and fathered an illegitimate daughter after their wedding.

"Sometime last year, I came to believe that my husband was seeing another woman," Pirro said. "In the midst of matrimonial discord, I was angry and had him followed to see if what I suspected was true. Although I spoke about taping him, there was no taping by me of anyone. There was anger, and frustration, and disappointment."

Fair enough. A woman's home life ought to be private, just like, say, Bill Clinton's should have been kept out of the papers while he was President. But wait, there's more! How do you think her name came up in the Kerik investigation?

On a wire-tap!

Pirro spoke with Bernard Kerik, the disgraced ex-New York police commissioner, about possibly placing a recorder in a room to listen in on her husband, said two people familiar with the situation, who spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity.

Pirro said Kerik was a friend and confirmed that they had spoken about her marital concerns. And while she said she had ultimately decided against recording her husband, she said none of the actions she'd contemplated taking was illegal.

Now....she's the county prosecutor for Westchester. She's running for Attorney General on the basis of her very solid record as a prosecutor, contrasted with Andrew Cuomo's skimpy record in court.

Pardon me for venting here, but...WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE THINKING? The law is very specific and very clear: you can only bug or wiretap IF one party to the conversation has knowledge of the tap or you have a warrant. Since she was trying to determine if her husband was cheating on her, it's clear that neither party would know. Further, it's unlikely that a court would issue a warrant.

The taped evidence in damning. She speaks to Kerik about having someone install a video camera and microphone on her husband's yacht. It's clearly not the first time they've discussed it, as Kerik whines that he cannot find anyone who would agree to do this (whether he actually tried is open to discussion: he seems to have gotten how illegal this route was). At the very least, based on this bit of tape, Pirro is guilty of conspiracy to violate of a part of the U.S. Code relating to interception and disclosure of wire, oral or electronic communications.

At the very worst, she took further steps on her own accord to actually install the bug, something she threatens to do in the tape.

Her excuse for all this?

"Placing a recording device on one's property to intercept a conversation involving one's spouse is not a crime," Pirro said in the statement provided to The Associated Press. "That is what is so stunning about this federal investigation. I am being investigated for speaking in anger about doing something that it is lawful to do, and which I didn't do."

And her counterattack?

"There is no way, when I have the opportunity to be the first woman attorney general in the history of this state, that I'm going to be pushed out of a race because somebody wants to delve into the personal lives of my husband and myself," Pirro said. "I'm standing up for myself and standing up for women."

Ah, the gender card! If I was a woman, I'd be highly offended that she'd play the pity card over her own actions, and dragging me into her sordid personal life.

Jeannine Pirro has an ALbatross around her neck, no question about it, and he doesn't even have the charm and political adeptness that Bill Clinton has. That she hasn't divorced his sorry ass already speaks volumes about her weakness as a politician, a candidate, and a woman. That she'd hide behind this weakness is despicable.

Is it possible, however, that the timing of this investigation is suspect, despite the fact that Republicans are running the investigation and it stems from another investigation? Sure.

Pirro's television ads have worked overtime trying to link her to the heritage of Eliot Spitzer as a crime-fighting district attorney who will fight just as hard for women's rights and quality of life for New Yorkers than anyone else. Spitzer might have take offense at that, and forced a leak, as he has cut commercials showing his outward support of Andrew Cuomo, Pirro's opponent.

Too, she angered the state GOP, including its nominal head, state senator Joe Bruno, by creating a ruckus when she was asked to drop out of the race against Hillary Clinton for her re-election.

So, here we have a woman who has promised to pick up the fight for women's rights and quality of life issues, when she herself is an emotionally-battered and cowed wife who's own life needs a little more quality in it. She probably ought to quit now, and retire from public service.

Which is a damned shame, because she's actually pretty effective.

Jeannine Pirro
Al Pirro

All I Know About Life...

...I learned from the Marx Brothers: Today's episode: The Marx Brothers Explain The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

For Your Dining Pleasure...

BEIJING (UPI) -- When sampling donkey penis at a Beijing restaurant, it may help not to think about what is being eaten and just focus on its benefits.

It's good for the skin, in case you're wondering.

The Guolizhuang restaurant claims to be China's only restaurant specializing in penises, the BBC said Sunday. That's right, penises. Dog, reindeer (a delicacy), snake (they have two) and ox. It serves its unusual bill of fare in a variety of ways, from chilled to fried.

The restaurant's owner came up with the menu after he began looking into traditional Chinese medicine, the BBC said. Apparently appendages such as these are low in cholesterol and can be used to treat a variety of conditions, such as sexual dysfunction, the BBC said.

The restaurant's primarily male patrons, mainly wealthy businessmen or government officials, can dine discretely in private rooms, the BBC said. The wait staff, called nutritionists, serves little alcohol, but there is a deer blood and vodka cocktail on the menu.

penis
penis restaurant

Plus Ça Change....

...plus çe meme chose...you may recall I wrote about the retirement of Captain Brenda Berkman, the pioneer who was among the first female FDNY firefighters?

Among the comments on that thread was a snarky little trolling from a FReeper which said the following:

This is such a typical liberal story...
A victim (woman,black, or mexican) overcomes horrible obsticals (everything) to succeed at doing something (firefighting...)everyone else does without the fanfare.

"Bang," I hope you're reading this...

Female EMS workers file suit
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 27, 2006

Five female Emergency Medical Service employees filed a lawsuit yesterday accusing the Fire Department and city leaders of gender discrimination in promotions.

They and other women in the Fire Department of New York face a "glass ceiling" once they reach the rank of lieutenant, according to their lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

I'm thinking those horrible "obsticals" still exist and are keeping people, not women, Bang, people, from advancing as they should.

The point behind affirmative action programs is to raise everyone who is qualified so that there's a level playing field for them to compete, head-to-head, toe-to-toe, for advancement in a career. That's all.

People like "Bang" concern me, because they behave out of fear of their own shortcomings, and rather than accept the challenge of increased competition. Which is supposed to be a good thing in capitalism.

This isn't about preferences. It's about giving everyone an equal chance, that's all. The right wing, for too long, has extruded the argument that equal opportunity programs should be disbanded because they've either served their purpose or have given an undue leg up to folks who don't qualify under other circumstances. But that's simply not the case. Affirmative action programs are meant to plow the road ahead of hard-working Americans who can make valuable contributions to the economy and to society, if they just have the chances that white males take for granted, like acceptance in a workplace.

Or consideration by their superiors. This is how we have to start framing this argument.

I dream of the day when EEOC programs can be permanently dismantled.

Perhaps under President Obama.

affirmative action

The Big Dog Bit...

...and now his Dogpound is biting:

Hillary backs up husband's bin Laden criticism
BY GLENN THRUSH AND CAROL EISENBERG
Newsday Washington Bureau

September 25, 2006, 9:21 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton's fire-breathing defense of his administration's effort to kill Osama bin Laden is getting a thumbs-up from his wife, who says she's tired of Democrats being pushed around on national security issues.

"I just think that my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take this," Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday.

The senator [added], "All you have to do is read the 9/11 commission . I thought all he did was state what had been repeatedly found in the various studies that have taken place."

Meanwhile, this morning on Today, James Carville and Paul Begala, who will handle my Senate campaign in 2012 after President Hillary's first term in office, also raised the point that this is how Democrats need to respond to such baseless, shameful ploys of the right wing punditry and politicoes. Begala even went so far as to allude to John Kerry's weakness in 2004 on both homeland security and the Swift Boat veterans.

With less than six weeks to go before the midterm elections, and a staggering National Intelligence Assessment report leaked over the weekend about the state of homeland security vis-a-vis the Iraq war, one might be tempted to think that, well, there's a strategy that's been devised and is in play for an early "October Surprise".

I was heartened to see Bill Clinton taking on Chris Wallace, on Wallace's home turf and that Fox at least had the decency to air it unedited (couple of reasons leap to mind, first that their rating went through the roof after a transcript was leaked, and second, they've tried to spin it as 'Clinton loses his temper and goes mad'). If this was the kickoff to the fall campaign, it's going to be a doozy, and it's the type of campaign that we need: a talk on the issues, but tough talk on the issues.

Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton

Just. Bring. It.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is daring President George W. Bush to stump in New York for her Republican opponent - joking that Clinton would even consider paying for Bush's airfare if he stumped in Dubya-phobic Gotham.

In an interview airing this weekend on WNBC-TV, Clinton's Republican challenger John Spencer said he'd welcome the president's presence, arguing that Clinton's "vitriolic attacks" on Bush's Iraq policy have been "helpful to the enemy."

When Spencer was asked if he wanted to stump with Bush, the former Yonkers mayor said, "Absolutely. Absolutely, I would. ... I would welcome President Bush."

That prompted Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson to quip, "We might consider paying for that ourselves."

Aside from being a very funny joke, let's take a look at the "inside baseball" aspect of this.

First off, Bush would sooner campaign for Clinton as for Spencer. Why?

Spencer is running somewhere south of 20% in polling, which means that, given Bush's 20% approval rating in New York State, he would actually be hurt more by campaigning for Spencer than Spencer would gain.

Second, with that disparity in polling, Spencer having comfortably lodged in the high teens against Clinton since he announced he was running (and even that is more an anti-Hillary vote than a pro-Spencer vote...altho it might be that they think Spencer is that nice Leo McGarry from The West Wing...), Bush would really serve no purpose in campaigning for Spencer.

To sum up, Spencer's statement was a falsely brave one. He knows Bush would never bother campaigning in a blue state like New York for a candidate that stands no chance of winning. Incumbents like to be seen with people who are at least competitive, if not winners, and so why would he bother? There's no real ideological difference between Hillary and Spencer, other than Bush could put a leash on Spencer, whereas Hillary is an active critic of Bush.

"Lapdogs" have their place in New York politics (just ask George Pataki about his relationship with Al D'Amato) but this kind of stuff doesn't fly outside the state onto the national scene as it does in other states that have stronger political machines.

Spencer knows this. So does Howard Wolfson. This bluster is entertaining, something that will be in short supply in this political season in New York.

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky
Hillary Clinton
John Spencer

Robert. F. Kennedy. Joonyaah.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has another article using that question mark tactic.
Will the next election be hacked?
If you missed his article questioning the 2004 election, the link for that is in the intro.

Here is the link to the Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine, done at Princeton University, complete with video:
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/