Friday, May 06, 2005
Delay & Jesus
No shame -here. We need to help old Tom gain some more humility by making sure he doesn't get reelected. He can then concentrate on his dream of being the next guy to hang from a cross, which is, of course, the antithesis of humility. I hate these people.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
FOUR DEAD IN OHIO
I'm a day late & I am very sorry & very embarassed. Remember those four. They died for our sins.
& Another Example of Fine Behavior
from a ReThug via Roger Ailes, no not that Roger Ailes.
Roger Ailes: "Another Victim of Gay Marriage
A Republican family man just wants to get back his job: legislating morality and codifying discrimination:
WASHINGTON -- Three days after it was reported he was involved in a domestic dispute that triggered a 911 call from a 29-year-old woman in his Washington apartment, U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood apologized for causing his family and supporters 'pain and embarrassment.'
'I'm truly sorry. Now, I have work to do. I'm going to continue to work hard for the people of the 10th Congressional District, and to begin the healing process with my family.'
That's beautiful. I'm all choked up.
The woman, Cynthia Ore of Rockville, Md., says Sherwood has been her lover since 1999.
'When I met him he told me he was getting a divorce,' Ore has said.
So that's why Republicans oppose quick divorces -- they inhibit their ability to get laid. This also explains their love of the Young Republicans -- it's the perfect source for fresh meat.
While the Tunkhannock Republican has hardly led the conservative charge on social issues, GOP leaders in the House have come to rely upon his vote when bills pertaining to 'traditional family values' come to the floor.
The Christian Coalition of America, which touts itself as 'the largest and most active conservative grassroots political organization in America,' gives Sherwood an 84 percent rating for voting with the coalition's positions on legislative issues. The American Conservative Union rates him at 88 percent.
The American Family Association gives Sherwood a perfect 100-percent rating.
Ms. Ore gave him a O percent rating for honesty, and 5 percent for technique.
Among the votes that helped earn Sherwood his 100 percent rating with the family association was his support of the Marriage Protection Act of 2004, which would limit the federal courts' jurisdiction over the issue of whether a ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional. Sherwood also voted in favor of a failed proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.
....and another, much younger woman who really understands me.
posted by Roger | Comments (9) | 4:42 AM"`
Roger Ailes: "Another Victim of Gay Marriage
A Republican family man just wants to get back his job: legislating morality and codifying discrimination:
WASHINGTON -- Three days after it was reported he was involved in a domestic dispute that triggered a 911 call from a 29-year-old woman in his Washington apartment, U.S. Rep. Don Sherwood apologized for causing his family and supporters 'pain and embarrassment.'
'I'm truly sorry. Now, I have work to do. I'm going to continue to work hard for the people of the 10th Congressional District, and to begin the healing process with my family.'
That's beautiful. I'm all choked up.
The woman, Cynthia Ore of Rockville, Md., says Sherwood has been her lover since 1999.
'When I met him he told me he was getting a divorce,' Ore has said.
So that's why Republicans oppose quick divorces -- they inhibit their ability to get laid. This also explains their love of the Young Republicans -- it's the perfect source for fresh meat.
While the Tunkhannock Republican has hardly led the conservative charge on social issues, GOP leaders in the House have come to rely upon his vote when bills pertaining to 'traditional family values' come to the floor.
The Christian Coalition of America, which touts itself as 'the largest and most active conservative grassroots political organization in America,' gives Sherwood an 84 percent rating for voting with the coalition's positions on legislative issues. The American Conservative Union rates him at 88 percent.
The American Family Association gives Sherwood a perfect 100-percent rating.
Ms. Ore gave him a O percent rating for honesty, and 5 percent for technique.
Among the votes that helped earn Sherwood his 100 percent rating with the family association was his support of the Marriage Protection Act of 2004, which would limit the federal courts' jurisdiction over the issue of whether a ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional. Sherwood also voted in favor of a failed proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.
....and another, much younger woman who really understands me.
posted by Roger | Comments (9) | 4:42 AM"`
Another ReThug Hypocrite
Via B3, a story that's becoming all too familiar, & nothing changes with these creeps.
Drinking Liberally, Chequamegon Style #3
A bit of a smaller crowd tonight, but there was some competition. A Kiwanis pancake dinner, they raise money for lots of community stuff. My favorite is the flowers they plant in the boulevard on the street coming in from the south. There were some new people again tonight & Joe & KRose integrated themselves nicely with the old farts. A woman from down below thought we had a great town, since the mayor was wearing a name tag proudly announcing that he was Drinking Liberally. Good. Again we had teachers, welders, chemists, piano teachers, timber framers, IT people - what a bunch of no-good welfare cheats. Boy the right wing is wrong about us. On to next week & Drinking Liberally #4.
Flat Tires
So, it’s time to make fun of some people. I was particularly tired one evening, so I avoided the lefty blogs that force me to think & went on a Wisconsin newspaper search. Although I was looking for some info on Crex Meadows, a nice, public wildlife preserve, I’m mostly interested in the birds there, I stumbled upon a column in the local paper written by a Mr. Byron Higgin. The title of his column is: FROM MY BACKYARD – Our system just is not working. This column concerns one Patty Baker, a true criminal. According to Mr. Higgin, our justice system is broken. Mr. Higgin is in blue.
Case in point. Patty Baker of Grantsburg deflated a lot of tires of Grantsburg residents on several occasions.
Yes, because of Ms. Baker’s deflating tires, our entire justice system is broken. But wait, there’s more.
She claims her medication let her down.
Her medication makes her deflate tires. They let her down, down so far as the pavement, apparently, so she could deflate the tires. & Mr. Higgin has more–
Instead of putting her somewhere to get help or where she will be off the street, she’s right back on the street again.
Well, of course, she has to be on the street, her medication let her down onto the street so she could deflate more tires. & this is why our criminal justice system is broken. Broken by deflated tires.
& it seems like this broken system is allowing Ms. Baker to become even more criminal.
...now she’s injured an animal and again, we throw up our hands and say, why are we allowing this kind of person to walk around?
I’d like to know why, too? Why is Mr. Higgin not telling us what kind of animal Ms. Baker injured? Was it a Norway rat? A Canada Goose? A Holstein? This inquiring mind wants to know. Why won’t Mr. Higgin tell us? How can I defend the poor defenseless animal if I don’t know what kind of animal it is? I wonder if Mr. Higgin is concealing something from us? Is Mr. Higgin a friend of Ricky Santorum? You know, of the man-on-dog Santorums?
& then Mr. Higgin offers a vision of the future that is truly horrifying. It’s almost too horrible to imagine:
Fact is, so far it’s been tires and animals. But what is next — hurting real people?
I take offense that Mr. Higgin doesn’t think tires & animals are real people. What planet is he living on? Boy, talk about being divorced from reality. I’ve had many experience with tire people & animal people. I am usually mad at tire people, for being flat, or because they have a spike poking into them. This causes me great distress. It’s possible, I suppose, that Ms. Baker is at fault, although, I live quite a distance from Grantsburg, WI, & Ms. Baker probably is a Luddite, which would explain her deflating of tires. But Mr. Higgin isn’t totally against people, real or not-real. He wants to help Ms. Baker by fixing the criminal justice system.
Something has to be done — not only for the safety of the residents, but to help people like Patty Baker. Oh, we don’t like the idea of spending a lot of time and money on folks like Patty, but we have got to do something.
Yes, let’s not spend any money on Patty Baker, let’s lock her up, oh, for ten or twenty years. That would teach her to deflate tires, or hurt non-real people like tires or animals. After all, it’s Patty’s medications that let her down, to deflate tires, & we should keep her down, but take away her tire deflating equipment, not to mention her not-real animal hurting equipment. & maybe her name & medications, since they let her down, &, I don’t know, lots of other stuff, because Mr. Higgin doesn’t like broken stuff.
Steve, Stephanie, Indeed
We need to fight & then be freed from these people. Kansas already is a laughing stock. These morons need to use science & find out why their bobwhite quail population is tanking.
Tonight, Tonight #2
New missing link, cormorant sharpshooters, Social Security numbers, magnets, stickers, & more! Plus, skatepark dedication. Potentially the most exiciting night of your life. Don't miss this week's version of DRINKING LIBERALLY, tonight, 6-9 P.M., at the Black Cat in Ashland, WI.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Another Good Read
Eschaton: "Quango Tango
Alternate Title: Democratic consultants want to party like it's 1994!
Kenneth Baer, muses about prior TPM substitute co-host's question about why New Labour doesn't get much respect from the American Left.
He writes:
The thing to remember is that the main dividing line between New Labour and New Democrats and the more recalcitrant portions of their respective parties is a realization that the industrial age has come and gone and that we now live in a interdependent world which demands different policy responses in order to live up to the values of fairness, equality, opportunity, etc. that progressives cherish. If you drill down past the name-calling and the various issue positions, at the root of the divide is that New Labour and New Democrats are people on the left who have come to terms with -? and even embraced -- the market.
I've never heard of Baer before, but given that he's described as a 'a Democratic strategist and the founder of Baer communications' I assume he's someone foolish candidates pay to tell them how to lose elections. The idea this has anything to do with serious contemporary policy debates is ludicrous.
Baer's comments seem to have a lot to do with a misunderstanding about the modern relationship between government and the private sector. While it's true that New Labour broke from its 'nationalize everything' past, its flaws have little to do with its embrace of 'the market,' and good Democrats whether Right, Center, and Left, would do well to get their heads out of their 1994 assses and come to terms with what has happened here and in the UK over the past decade or so.
Labour gets more fire from the American left for the same reason that Democrats who support the bankruptcy bill get a lot of fire - they're sellouts. Blair's and Labour's problems aren't to a great degree about their heresy against the (non-existent) Marxist orthodoxy of the left, it's about their embrace of corporate Whoreness.
The 90s in Britain in particular saw the rise of wonderful things referred to as 'private-public partnerships' and 'quasi-non-governmental organizations,' or 'Quangos.' This trend didn't start under Blair, but it sure proliferated. Essentially it was a way to move expenditures off-budget, along with accountability, and hand off government functions to regulated monopolies with highly paid favored executives. The most notorious and disastrous example of this type of arrangement was Railtrack, the company tasked with maintaining the rail infrastructure in Britain. Railtrack was a 'private company' which operated in 'the market' in theory, but in practice it lived off of government subsidies and government-mandated payments from the rail systems whose track it was supposed to maintain/improve. Of course, it had absolutely no incentive to actually improve the rail infrastructure - their primary money making route involved begging for more money from the government corporate dole. Eventually it was, in fact, re-nationalized, after its executives got rich fleecing the taxpayers.
This 'market'/'non-market' distinction is so 1994. Anyone who is trotting it out as a meaningful 'New Democrat' manifesto is a silly person who is going to lose us more and more elections, especially from someone posting on 'the net' who pre-empts criticism by making snide remarks about netroots.
(all this ignores the obvious wee little Iraq issue of course)
And, what's with this 'I know just about nothing about Social Security' crap. How is it possible that someone getting money to be a Dem consultant appears to be proud of this fact? I didn't know much about Social Security until a few months ago when it became the central domestic policy issue of this president, and I learned a few things.
-Atrios 5:48 PM
Comments (170) Trackback (0)"`
Alternate Title: Democratic consultants want to party like it's 1994!
Kenneth Baer, muses about prior TPM substitute co-host's question about why New Labour doesn't get much respect from the American Left.
He writes:
The thing to remember is that the main dividing line between New Labour and New Democrats and the more recalcitrant portions of their respective parties is a realization that the industrial age has come and gone and that we now live in a interdependent world which demands different policy responses in order to live up to the values of fairness, equality, opportunity, etc. that progressives cherish. If you drill down past the name-calling and the various issue positions, at the root of the divide is that New Labour and New Democrats are people on the left who have come to terms with -? and even embraced -- the market.
I've never heard of Baer before, but given that he's described as a 'a Democratic strategist and the founder of Baer communications' I assume he's someone foolish candidates pay to tell them how to lose elections. The idea this has anything to do with serious contemporary policy debates is ludicrous.
Baer's comments seem to have a lot to do with a misunderstanding about the modern relationship between government and the private sector. While it's true that New Labour broke from its 'nationalize everything' past, its flaws have little to do with its embrace of 'the market,' and good Democrats whether Right, Center, and Left, would do well to get their heads out of their 1994 assses and come to terms with what has happened here and in the UK over the past decade or so.
Labour gets more fire from the American left for the same reason that Democrats who support the bankruptcy bill get a lot of fire - they're sellouts. Blair's and Labour's problems aren't to a great degree about their heresy against the (non-existent) Marxist orthodoxy of the left, it's about their embrace of corporate Whoreness.
The 90s in Britain in particular saw the rise of wonderful things referred to as 'private-public partnerships' and 'quasi-non-governmental organizations,' or 'Quangos.' This trend didn't start under Blair, but it sure proliferated. Essentially it was a way to move expenditures off-budget, along with accountability, and hand off government functions to regulated monopolies with highly paid favored executives. The most notorious and disastrous example of this type of arrangement was Railtrack, the company tasked with maintaining the rail infrastructure in Britain. Railtrack was a 'private company' which operated in 'the market' in theory, but in practice it lived off of government subsidies and government-mandated payments from the rail systems whose track it was supposed to maintain/improve. Of course, it had absolutely no incentive to actually improve the rail infrastructure - their primary money making route involved begging for more money from the government corporate dole. Eventually it was, in fact, re-nationalized, after its executives got rich fleecing the taxpayers.
This 'market'/'non-market' distinction is so 1994. Anyone who is trotting it out as a meaningful 'New Democrat' manifesto is a silly person who is going to lose us more and more elections, especially from someone posting on 'the net' who pre-empts criticism by making snide remarks about netroots.
(all this ignores the obvious wee little Iraq issue of course)
And, what's with this 'I know just about nothing about Social Security' crap. How is it possible that someone getting money to be a Dem consultant appears to be proud of this fact? I didn't know much about Social Security until a few months ago when it became the central domestic policy issue of this president, and I learned a few things.
-Atrios 5:48 PM
Comments (170) Trackback (0)"`
Slow Hand
Blogging might be light today. The last couple of days have been rough, in terms of the work I do. Let's just say it involes an elementary student, an insufferably pompous assistant DA, & a Social Services Department that apparently doesn't seem to care. I'm exhausted. Later.
I Don't Give A Damn
Things are going so well, George must be satisfied. How many more people must die before Bush takes responsibility or America makes Bush take responsibility for this unmitigated disaster.
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