Hah, gotta love this post from the Atlantic's politics editor:
In Fahrenheit 9/11, filmmaker Michael Moore juxtaposes images and words of a terrorist attack in Israel with President Bush's first words about the incident, spoken to a press pool on a golf course, with him leaning casually against a tree. Today, as the nation's law enforcement agencies respond to an attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil, as the cable news channels and news websites pull in reinforcements to cover the incident from all angles, President Obama has been silent.
In fact, he's been golfing. He received a counterterrorism briefing early this morning, Hawaii time, and moments later, left for the gym. The president's vacation activities might have become the subject of a fierce partisan fight -- but really, the only carping is coming from the usual suspects on the right.
Isn't that sort of the definition of partisanship? Does Ambinder feel that a fierce partisan fight is only partisan if the left joins in? Yes, because stooges like Ambinder are shilling for Obama. His decision to go to the gym and then later golfing is... wait for it... brilliant!
But an in-person Obama statement isn't needed; Indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic (because Obama usually DOESN'T talk about the specifics of cases like this, and so him deciding to do so would cue the American people to respond in a way that exacerbates the situation).
Obama of course will say something at some point. Had the terrorist blown up the plane, it;s safe to assume that Obama would no longer be in Hawaii. In either case, the public will need presidential fortification at some point. But Obama is willing to risk the accusation that he is "soft" on terrorism or is hovering above it all, or is just not to be bothered (his "head's in the sand," or "golfing comes first,") in order to advance what he believes is the proper collective response to a failed act of terrorism.
This to me is the problem with the Democrat's formulation that terrorism can be treated as just another criminal matter. You know, someone gets killed, we investigate, indentify a suspect and have a trial. The problem with this is that instead of "someone" getting killed, we have hundreds killed (if the bomb had gone off), or even thousands killed (as on 9-11).
The entire blogosphere is holding its collective breath waiting for Trig Truther #1 to respond to this:
"Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?" she was asked (around 9 minutes into the video above).
"I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers," she replied.
"Do you think it's a fair question to be looking at?" Humphries persisted.
"I think it's a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records -- all of that is fair game," Palin said. "The McCain-Palin campaign didn't do a good enough job in that area."
McCain's campaign counsel has said the campaign did look into the birth certificate question and, like every other serious examination, dismissed it.
Palin suggested that the questions were fair play because of "the weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn't my real son -- 'You need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he's your kid,' which we have done."
Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask… which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.
Unfortunately she stated in the interview that the public was right in "still making it an issue."
The clock is ticking, Andrew.
Update: Our long national wait is over. Andrew has checked in:
My italics. Palin has never produced Trig's birth certificate or a single piece of objective medical evidence that proves he is indeed her biological son. A child with Down Syndrome must have a pile of such records, tests, assessments and ultrasounds that conclusively prove that he is Sarah's biological son. It seems bizarre to me that neither the public nor the campaign (so far as I can glean) has ever been given one of them.
While Harry is puzzling over temperatures — “I have that familiar Twilight Zone sensation” — the scientists are confidently making proclamations to journalists, jetting to conferences and plotting revenge against those who question the dangers of global warming. When a journal publishes a skeptic’s paper, the scientists e-mail one another to ignore it. They focus instead on retaliation against the journal and the editor, a project that is breezily added to the agenda of their next meeting: “Another thing to discuss in Nice!”
What I find most interesting is his explanation of the "hide the decline" bit:
Consider, for instance, the phrase that has been turned into a music video by gleeful climate skeptics: “hide the decline,” used in an e-mail message by Phil Jones, the head of the university’s Climatic Research Unit. He was discussing the preparation of a graph for the cover of a 1999 report from the World Meteorological Organization showing that temperatures in the past several decades were the highest of the past millennium.
Most of the graph was based on analyses of tree rings and other “proxy” records like ice cores and lake sediments. These indirect measurements indicated that temperatures declined in the middle of the millennium and then rose in the first half of the 20th century, which jibes with other records. But the tree-ring analyses don’t reveal a sharp warming in the late 20th century — in fact, they show a decline in temperatures, contradicting what has been directly measured with thermometers.
Because they considered that recent decline to be spurious, Dr. Jones and his colleagues removed it from part of the graph and used direct thermometer readings instead. In a statement last week, Dr. Jones said there was nothing nefarious in what they had done, because the problems with the tree-ring data had been openly identified earlier and were known to experts.
But if the tree-ring data is wrong for the later 20th century, then doesn't that indicate a problem with using it for earlier temperatures?
It turns out that global (or at least hemispheric) temperatures are reflected by the climate in western Ireland (for a short explanation of that, see my site). Trees grow in western Ireland, of course, and each year those trees grow a ring. Thick rings indicate climate conditions that were good for the trees; thin rings indicate the opposite. If many trees in western Ireland had thick rings in some particular years, then climatic conditions in those years were presumably good. Tree rings have been used in this way to learn about the climate centuries ago.
Queen’s University Belfast has data on tree rings that goes back millennia — and in particular, to the Medieval Warm Period. QUB researchers have not analyzed the data, because they lack the expertise to do so.
They also refuse to release the data. The story is scandalous.
1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)
Buchanan is a nobody; he hasn't had any credibility among sensible Republicans since the 1990s. Stacy McCain? Seriously? He's even more of a nobody than Buchanan. I don't know the Europeans much, but the BNP? Do many conservative bloggers write about their admiration for the BNP?
2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)
Wow, just recycling names here. I don't know whether Ann Coulter has ever said anything that qualifies as white supremacism. And Lew Rockwell is not really on the right; he was dating Cindy Sheehan awhile ago, and posting at the Huff and Fluff.
3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)
I am an extremely reluctant pro-choicer, but I accept that I'm in a minority among Republicans. But it's not as if these people suddenly arrived in the Republican Party; they've been there for 30 years or more.
4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)
I don't know whether Palin is a creationist or not; a lot of the stuff she's accused of comes from liberal parodies of her.
Anyway, it just goes on and on. Look, there are problems on the Right. Glenn Beck is a fruitcake, and Michele Bachmann is nutty. But it's not as if the Left is free of their own kooks; see Joe Biden (who's not some congresswoman from Minnesota), or Markos (Screw 'Em) Moulitsas Zuniga. But let's talk about what's right with the Republicans:
1. Still the party of (relative) fiscal discipline. It looked like we were losing this title under Bush, but Obama has reminded us of what drunken sailors the Democrats can be.
2. Still the party of limited government. Obama wants to (gradually) take over 1/7th of the economy with his health care plan.
3. Still the party that has a sensible foreign policy that is not based on bowing and scraping to emperors and the like.
Played by my opponents, but with the flesh coming out of my hide. I'm playing pretty good, won a couple of medium-sized pots, and feel in the groove. We're getting close to last chance to rebuy, and the guy to my right goes all-in for 1600, about 1/8th my stack. Obviously he's looking to get felted so he can get back up to 6000, the rebuy stack. I look down at 7-7 and pretty quickly decide I have to fold, as there are 4 people behind me. Smart, tight play, of course, was not rewarded on this hand, as nobody raises, everybody calls and the flop comes 7,8,7. Crap, flopped quads and out of the hand as the first to act actually starts betting the hand (on his A-8, which as we know was probably the best hand at that time. So I would easily have doubled up, maybe even tripled if I'd been able to show weakness.
Rough hand, but I didn't put any money into it and so I'm still ahead as far as the tournament goes, but I'm definitely feeling snakebit. A few hands later, I pick up pocket 5s under the gun. I limp and there are no raises. A lovely 5 spikes on the flop, but there are two diamonds, so I know I have to withstand the flush draw on the turn. I bet twice the blind, and everybody calls. Terrific! Turn comes a complete blank, a black 4. I push all in.
And Peter calls with two cruddy diamonds and hits the Kd on the river. Terrible call on his part, no way he had anywhere near pot odds, but he's one of those guys who "feels lucky". Still, the table now has two banks and no real tight players, so I rebuy. We're getting close to the break, after which there will be no rebuys, so I look to pick up a big hand and push on it, figuring one of the banks will call on the assumption that I'm just looking to get another rebuy. Sure enough, two hands before the break I pick up KK. Hallelujah. I shove, and loosey goosey Peter calls. And turns over AA. Holy smoke, I cannot believe the horrible luck. But for the only time that day the poker gods smile on me, delivering my set on the flop and no Ace. Doubled up and back in the game.
Later we get to the final table and I pick up QQ two behind the dealer, who's one of the definite banks. So I push, knowing he will call. He does, with 8-4 offsuit. Flop comes with another Q, but I'm looking at the other two cards. 6-5, meaning he's picked up a gutshot. And sure enough I get a bullet in the stomach with the 7 on the turn, and no pairup to make my boat on the river. Absolutely sick. I was 86% to win the hand preflop, and probably not much worse after the flop. Even on the river I had 11 outs.
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
Not to worry, they do have the "value-added" (i.e., massaged data. Now, let me point out that this is completely bass-ackwards. You keep the raw data above all else; the massaging can change as you learn more about the process.
Here are two pretty good examples from recent hands I've played. In the first one, we're getting close to the final table with the blind at 400-800. On the button with only one caller outside the blinds, I pick up QQ. Hello! I pop it up to 2400 to go, and the blinds fold. The other caller has the big stack at the table, so no big surprise, he calls my raise.
Flop comes Jack high, with two spades. He bets at it and I just call, knowing that if he's on the spade draw I won't get him out of the hand by pushing. Turn comes a low club, putting both club and spade draws on the board. He bets again and I'm getting a little spooked even with my overpair. River throws the third (low) spade up and he pushes all-in. Now of course, on the river, my initial read is that he hit the doggone flush. But now I go back to my reads on the prior cards and pretty quickly realize that the best hand to put him on is A-J or K-J. I doubt he would have been so pushy on the flop or turn with only a draw. So I make the call, and sure enough it was K-J and I'm doubled up.
Last night I failed to go through the reads again and let myself get bluffed off a pot. With the blinds at 200-400, the villain limps in either under the gun or early in the hand. I'm the small blind with no other callers and I look down at A-J both hearts. I pop it up to 1200. BB folds. Flop comes J-8-5, two diamonds. I put 600 in the pot, something of a weak bet to see where he thinks he's at. He comes firing out with 1800. My initial read here is that he's on a pretty good Jack, maybe Q-J or K-J, or even the matching A-J. He could also be on the flush draw or straight draw, and looking to get a check out of me on the turn so he could see the river for free. The turn comes a 2h, gotta be a blank, right? So I fire 2000 into the pot, about 1/3rd my remaining stack. And he goes all-in.
So now I try to think what the heck he could be saying he had. Did he hit his set? I don't see him as the type to limp in with pocket fives or eights, let alone jacks and I doubt he'd limp in early or call a raise pre-flop with any of the two pair possibilities. Pocket dueces? Extremely unlikely that he'd reraise after the flop with that hand. So I should have gone back to my original read of a good jack, and said at worse I'm chopping. So I do the old "Will you show me?" bit and he agrees. And turns over Q-9 offsuit when I muck my cards. He'd had an even worse hand than I was putting him on at a minimum; much worse, although he would have had seven outs on the river (any queen would give him the overpair and any 10 the straight).
Of course, I did pick up a good read on him; he'll re-raise with bullcrap, which is generally a bad idea against a tight agressive player like me. So now I gotta wait until I can trap him again, and this time make sure he doesn't escape.
I had to laugh a bit at this article on what a terrible golfer President Obama is:
The frequency and secrecy of the president's golfing has infuriated some of his basketball fans. This love of the links can't be for keeps, they moan, for he who plays secretly must surely play badly.
How badly? His score is a matter of "national security," deflects David Axelrod, political adviser to the First Duffer. White House aides said playing golf gets the president outdoors more, but declined to comment further on why he appears to be favoring golf over hoops, or why members of the press haven't been allowed to watch him tee off.
But later on in the article they reveal that his handicap is in the mid-20s and that he generally breaks 100. But they overdo how easy this is:
Mr. Mulak says he never learned Mr. Obama's score that day, but figures he surely broke 100, an average score for a hacker on a tough course. "Solid shots -- I wouldn't say straight lasers at the pin," he says.
In fact, most hackers don't break 100 on a tough course. I'm a decent golfer, nothing special, and I'd guess that well over half of my playing partners in life have not broken 100 in the rounds they played with me. Obviously Obama is not a great player by any means, but sub-100 rounds are nothing to sneeze at.
Look, there's a lot to criticize about the man; this health care fiasco is a good place to start. But his golf game is not one of them.
Predictably, the anti-moderate chorus is pushing 2006 congressional loser JD Hayworth to run against the GOP's presidential candidate in 2008, and of course they will get some ammunition from Rasmussen's recent poll, which shows the former sportscaster within striking distance of McCain.
Frankly, I doubt Hayworth's dumb enough to challenge McCain. For one thing, the senator's already got about $5 million in his campaign fund, and another $20 million left over from his presidential run. And the Democrats have already admitted that they can't come up with a credible challenger, so he doesn't have to keep his powder dry for the general election.
If I Were Shedding Pounds the Way Obama's Shedding Independents...
I'd be able to fit into my clothes from the 1980s. Scott Rasmussen talks about Obama's plummeting poll numbers:
A CNN poll released Nov. 6 found that 47% of Americans believe the top issue facing the country is the economy, while only 17% say its health care. However, the bulk of the president's efforts over the past six months have been not on the economy but on health care, an issue in which he continues to draw negative ratings.
In a Rasmussen Reports poll taken after the House of Representatives passed health-care reform by the narrowest of margins last Saturday night, 54% of likely voters say they are opposed to the plan with only 45% in favor. Furthermore, in the all-important category of unaffiliated voters, 58% oppose the bill. That's one of the reasons why so many moderate Democratic House members opposed it.
The CNN poll also shows that in addition to health care, a majority of Americans disapprove of how Mr. Obama is handling the economy, Afghanistan, Iraq, unemployment, illegal immigration and the federal budget deficit. Put simply, there isn't a critical problem facing the country on which the president has positive ratings.
This month's improvement in congressional approval is bipartisan, with approval among Democrats climbing from 36% to 47% and among Republicans edging up from 9% to 17%. Independents, however, buck that trend: moving from 16% to 14%, the percentage approving is the lowest it has been all year.
Not sure why Congress' approval rating jumped among the GOP, but that independent trend is quite noticeable; from 31% to 14% in about four months.
Teams start out in Holland and must fly to Stockholm. Given that they are starting late (first team leaves at 9:48 PM), I am assuming that this will be the bunching maneuver that the Interracial Couple needs. Sure enough the next flight is in the morning at 6:55 AM. But... only three teams can get on the flight. The next flight is about 2-1/2 hours later. So the Farmer and Son get bunched with Miss America and "Brian!"
At the airport in Stockholm, teams must grab a subway to the city, but they have to buy tickets before hand from ATM-style machines, which seem to take forever to accept the currency. As it happens, the Gay Brothers and the Blond Beachers get lucky and leave the Harlem Globetrotters behind on the platform.
They make it to a ferry which takes them to an amusement park. They get on a drop-from-height ride where they have to spot an arrow that will lead them to the next cluebox. They decide to cooperate, but is that just accepting reality? If a team decided not to get back on the ride and started running, wouldn't the other team be smart to just follow them rather than go back up?
Ring toss is the next "challenge". The teams must toss rings over a cone and hope that it contains a Gnome. Of course this is not a big deal and so we go to the real challenges of the evening. The detour is next: Nobel or Viking. In Nobel they must fill a bunch of sandbags, then blow up a small mound to get their clue. In Viking, they must decipher the Norse alphabet.
Not too surprising, everybody decides to blow things up. I'd be tempted to try the Viking part, but I'm a nerd. As a result, teams leave here in essentially the same place as they started.
Now they head to Bogs Gard Farm, which we are told is the site of one of the most infamous challenges in TAR history. One player from each team must find TAR flags in a huge field of rolled-up hay bales. IIRC, the ratio is about 7 flags in 200 bales of hay, so that the odds are about 1 in 30, and it looks like each bale takes a long time to unroll. We are told that in an earlier season, a team spent 8+ hours out in the field without finding the flag before Phil called the mercy rule on them. So it must be assumed that this will be a horrendous challenge.
Sure enough, the Gay Brothers and the Interracial Couple, despite being at least 15 minutes ahead of the Globies, find the basketball players out there in the field with them. And unlike many other challenges there is no particular advantage to being in the lead; all the unrolled bales actually help the late-arriving teams especially since they are fresh.
Sure enough the Globies find the flag first and win the round, giving Flight Time a birthday present. They win a trip to somewhere in East Jabib; I never heard of their destination in my life.
Eventually the female half of the Blonde Beachers finds her flag, then "Brian!" Now the Gay Brothers, who won the last episode and the Farmer and Son are the only teams out there. And the taller of the Gay Brothers realizes he has to stop nagging his shorter brother, and finally Shorty finds it.
So now the old man is the only one out in the field, but I'm definitely suspicious that this will be a non-elimination leg. After a couple of hours, the Farmer finally scores and he and his son dash to the mat.
And Phil definitely cons me. He direly notes that the Farmer and Son, "are the last team to arrive. I'm sorry to tell you... that the next leg is going to be very difficult!" Sure enough, it's a non-elmination leg, although F&S have to do an extra challenge in next week's episode.
Comments: Overall an interesting episode, although I do feel that the Hay Rolling part is a bit unfair on teams that have established a lead. In a lot of other endurance challenges there was some definite advantage to having been out there, and yet there is no value to that in this one. It's kind of a hidden bunching maneuver.
Team to Beat: I'm still betting on the Blonde Beachers; they're one of the best teams I've seen yet in TAR. They support each other, they work hard, they don't make any stupid mistakes. Only the Gay Brothers seem like a challenge. The Globetrotters are good, but they've made some mistakes (like misreading a watch) that call into question their brains. And Miss America couldn't count the bells. So watch out BB's, because late in TAR I always pick the team doomed to be eliminated the next show.
The diminutive Munley - she stands 5-foot-4 and weighs about 120 pounds - served as a cop in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., before she moved to Texas to enlist in the military, friends said.
And yet:
The hero cop who ended the bloody rampage at Fort Hood by pumping four bullets into the crazed gunman even though she was wounded is known for her toughness, friends say.
More on her wounds:
Wounded three times in the arm and leg, Munley is in stable condition after undergoing surgery Friday to repair damage to an artery. Base officials said she wishes she could have acted even faster and saved more lives, and she spent Thursday evening calling friends and colleagues, expressing those regrets.
I am going to predict here and now that she insists that she's no hero. The real ones always do.
Her scorched earth campaign cost the conservative the race in NY-23! Crap, what a disappointment! About the only good news is that the nutroots like Kos were unhappy with Owens to begin with. But still, we can console ourselves with winning NJ and VA. But I am perplexed with Hoffman's loss; all the polls said we'd win there. What happened?
An interesting episode, with lots of frustration for the contestants. First, teams are told they must fly to Amsterdam. It turns out that the next flight is over 10 hours away, so all teams will catch the same flight. As it happens, the starting times reveal that the Blonde Beachers were almost two hours ahead, so the bunching maneuver certainly hurts them.
As they wait in the airport, the Gay Brothers decide it's time to come out of the closet. Everybody seems to take it in stride. Although Tiffany Michelle of the Poker Players expresses some regret they don't want to date her, she reaffirms their alliance.
After landing in Amsterdam, the teams must drive to a dam, where a statue will alert them to the next clue. The Interracial Couple's hubby can't get the car into drive, and finally asks somebody in the garage for help; I'm not sure what was going on there. One of the Globetrotters mentions that out of all the players in the race, everybody knows Brian's name, because his wife is constantly yelling "Brian!" On cue, they arrive at the statue and he urges his wife to run and she says, "Brian!"
Teams must drive to some small city in Holland and find the Martinitoren, the tallest building in the town. There they have to count the bells in the tower. The pink-haired farmer's son blazes this one, but there are two very interesting moments by the other teams. First, the Blonde Beachers work together, although this is a roadblock, which is supposed to be done by one player or the other. Somehow this does not seem to matter, as they are not penalized. Second, the Gay Brothers give the Poker Players the answer (62), giving the latter a break over the Interracial Couple, who are now in last place.
And it looks even worse for the Interracial Couple as Brian's wife (a former Miss America) can't seem to figure out the number of bells in the tower. She's consistently wrong as the other teams move way ahead. Next is the Detour: Farmer's Game or Farmer's Dance. Farmer's Game is basically golf with a ball a little larger than a softball. In Farmer's Dance, someone must ring the bell on one of those carnival-type sledge-hammer machines, then learn a dance, and then eat a bunch of raw fish.
The first team to arrive are the Blonde Beachers. At first they seem to be having trouble with the Farmer's Golf. The Farmer and Son decide to try dancing at first, and they easily ring the bell. Then they see the part about eating fish, and apparently pink-hair boy never eats fish, so they dash off to play golf. There's a hilarious bit in here where the Farmer says this isn't the first time he's dressed up in women's clothing. Huh? He quickly clarifies that it's just for some costume parties. Ooooookay!
Meanwhile, the Gay Brothers quickly make their way through the golf game and are headed for the mat. The Poker Players start out with Farmer's Dance, but it is quickly apparent that neither of them can hit the bell, so they decide to play golf. The Globies decide to go dancing, and despite some obvious discomfort with the fish, they blaze through.
Gay Brothers win. About this time, Miss America finally finds the 62nd bell. The Blonde Beachers finally get the hang of golf, and the Farmer and his Son don't seem to have any trouble. Blonde Beachers finish off, followed by Globies and Farmer and Son.
And now it becomes obvious that the Poker Players are hosed. They don't have the strength to ring the bell at the Dance Challenge, and they are hopeless at golf. They go back to try dancing, then back to try golf. Eventually the Interracial Couple arrives, hubby rings the bell first time, and it's pretty obvious.
But... they were supposed to ride a bike to the Detour, so they incur a 30-minute penalty. Miss America breaks down; after being stunned to find they had not been Phil-liminated as the last team, they have to wait. But the Poker Players do not show up and the Interracial Couple are still in the race. The Poker Players are unable to finish, and concede.
Comments: It's easy to say that it was unfair to have a detour where sheer brawn matters; the only all-girl team is eliminated because they couldn't ring a frigging carnival bell, while every man did it the first try. And I will say it. Obviously the counter is that they shouldn't have gotten the answer to the number of bells in the tower question for free; that's a bit too much alliance.
Team to beat: Still the Beachers. The Farmer and Son are probably the most likely to go next week; the Farmer is the only old person in the race. The Globies, Gay Brothers and the Interracial Couple all look competitive. A lot will depend on whether there is a bunching maneuver next weekend, as the IC is still clearly several hours behind everybody else.
I have been critical in the past of attempts to run more conservative candidates over moderates, so this one might surprise a few people: Doug Hoffman gets my endorsement.
Why? First, because his opponent is not a moderate; she's a liberal. She supports card-check (elimination of secret ballot for union elections), for Pete's sake! Second, where I have pushed for the moderate candidate, it's in elections where the race was tight, and the GOP needed to attract independents. That's not the case in NY-23; the latest polling shows the Democrat, Owens, with only 29% of the vote. There's no reason to suppose Hoffman can't win that race, or that a strong showing by him would result in Owens winning a squeaker. Scozzafava looks like a loser in that poll, with a ridiculous 14%.
The teams were obviously hoping to get out of the heat, but it was not to be during this episode. The Blonde Beachers, off their win last week, are the first to start in the morning. They pick up a locked briefcase. The first task is a roadblock: Row a boat out to a yacht to receive a watch. The watch has a time on it, which is set at 8:35. This of course is the combination to the briefcase, and everybody quickly realizes this. Except that the Harlem Globetrotters' Big Easy thinks the watch is telling him an eight and a seven, so he keeps trying the combinations of 8-7-1, 8-7-2.
I notice that one of the gay brothers is wearing a shirt that just reads "College". Didn't somebody else do that a few years back? At any rate, the teams are next faced with a detour: Gold or Glass? In Gold, they have to weigh out $500,000 worth of gold, while in Glass they must assemble a dozen hookahs. It seems transparent to me that the Gold challenge would be much easier, although the fact that the exchange rate changes every minute does make it a little trickier. The Blonde Beachers start out on Gold, but predictably neither of them is good at math, so eventually they decide to switch tasks. The Gay Brothers and the Poker Players both pick Gold, and the Gay Bros have a calculator. They again team up with the Poker Players and both teams pretty much breeze through the challenge.
Meanwhile, the Blonde Beachers finish their hookahs. Next up is the Leap of Faith. They have to ride a water slide down six stories, through a pool filled with sharks and into another pool (which is safe). The Beachers manage it with no problems. Next up: the Pit Stop, where they receive "personal watercraft"; no mention as to what kind of watercraft, but I'm guessing something like a Sea-Doo
Next come the Poker Players, and the Gay Brothers, then the Farmer and Son; in addition to his pink hair, the son's got a lot of tatts on him.
The big drama in the race comes next. Mika, one of the Christian Country pair is deathly afraid of heights and doesn't want to take the Leap of Faith. At moments, it looks like Canaan, her boyfriend is about to force her down the water slide. Eventually, the Harlem Globetrotters, who had been in last place, show up and discourage Mika from going down the slide. It's kind of sleazy, but you gotta do what you gotta do to win, and sure enough the time is up on Mika and Canaan and they have to yield to the Globies, who can't get down the slide fast enough. Canaan tries going down first, but predictably Mika is still too petrified, and slinks down the staircase. The Globies make it to the mat, while the Christian Country pair are Phil-Liminated.
Comments: It seems a big mistake not to have a bunching maneuver in this episode, as the Blonde Beachers had about a 90-minute head start on everybody, and are easily first to reach every challenge and first to complete them. I believe they have won three legs so far in this series, and definitely look like the team to beat.
Stunning News: Women Pay More for Health Insurance
I'm completely mystified. How could this possibly be so?
Checking the "female" box when buying health insurance is likely to cost extra — perhaps up to 50 percent more than a man would pay for the same coverage.
Oh, wait:
Gender-rating — or what some term as flat-out sexual discrimination — is linked to the simple fact that women, particularly those under age 50 or so, go to the doctor more often than men.
So they're more expensive to insure? The horror. Predictably, some very stupid liberals are up in arms about this:
Isn't that great? Because women are the ones who bear the physical burden of gestation and the responsibility that entails, they are paying up to 50% more in premiums. When Jon Kyl whined about not wanting to pay for maternity benefits, he was defending that status quo.
Of course, women also pay less for life insurance (because they live longer) and less for auto insurance. Why do I suspect this "discrimination" will not be remedied by ObamaCare?
For those who don't remember his wacky noontime show, it's impossible to explain. It was obviously the inspiration for the Pee Wee Herman show. About all I can remember is the couple inside the cast-iron stove; one of the signature lines was "Cool it, Reba," aimed at the wife. And of course, the Mouse:
Later that year he invented a dance called "The Mouse," a loony version of the Twist in which Sales bared his upper teeth, raised his hands to his ears and wiggled his fingers while chewing in time to the music. He performed it several times on "The Ed Sullivan Show," where he met dancer Trudy Carson. They were married in 1980.
They miss the real trick of the Mouse, which was that Soupy would skip left and right as he sang the song, and sometimes he would skip twice in one direction, which us kids tried hard to do and mostly failed.
I missed the beginning of last week's episode and while I found it interesting I couldn't get a handle on a post. I was certainly sorry to seem Team Asperger's get Philiminated for the loss of a passport; about the only gag I can come up with is that they say you're never alone with a schizophrenic, and you're never together with an Asperger's.
Teams are told to head to the Persian Gulf, to find the world's tallest building. Of course, that immediately said Dubai to me, but one team (hilariously) tries to find the country called the Persian Gulf. There's some bits about how some teams stop at the local internet cafe and others go straight to the airport, but for once there's no difference; all teams end up on the same flight.
That's the one there. Of course, everybody (including me), is thinking some dramatic hang-glide or rappel down the face of the building, but instead the teams just go back down the elevators. Cool scenery, but WTF? One team decides to go for the fast forward, on the idea that if all of them go for it, they'll fall behind the guys waiting below for the next elevator. And when they get to the bottom, they try to pretend that the challenge above is really intense. Obvious problem; all the teams went up and came down less than 15 minutes later.
The Blonde Beachers go to the Fast Forward, where the task is to drive a Formula One car on a 50 seconds or less lap. Beach Boy does it the first time, removing much of the drama from the episode especially when it is revealed they will be driven to the pit stop in a Maserati.
The other teams all race back to the garage, where cars are waiting. Except the Obnoxious Lawyer and his girlfriend can't find the right place, so they spend a lot of time running around the garage. They go out into the desert, where the roadblock requires one of them to search in the desert for vases filled with water, and fill up their water pouches.
The Interracial Couple decide that the guy should do it, because, as they point out, chocolate melts in the sun. Of course in my case I would say that I should do it as wandering around in ridiculously hot sun is nothing new to me. They all have some trouble finding vases that actually contain water. On the way to this challenge, the Obnoxious Lawyer ignores his girlfriend three times when she tells him not to get off at an exit; this means they're the last to arrive at this challenge.
There's a whole lot of talking about karma in this part of the episode and later. When the White Chocolate finds a vase filled with water, he fills his water pouch, then quietly clues in two of the other teams while heading back.
Next up: Ski Dubai, a four-story skiing center in the middle of the desert. Teams must choose between building a snowman or digging through a pile of snow to find a small (looks to be about 4 inches high) snowman. Initially all the teams choose to dig (and I probably would have too), but aside from the Interracial Couple and the Harlem Globetrotters nobody finds one. So they go for build and despite having to create their snowman in the heat of the sun, nobody has much trouble. So when the Obnoxious Lawyer and his wife get lost again (!) but eventually show up and choose to build, they're pretty much hosed; you can only pick up time in something more random. Sure enough they are the last team to the mat and Phil-liminated.
Team To Beat: Blonde Beachers look pretty good so far Watch Out For: Harlem Globetrotters Designated Villains: See next week's episode
I have been critical of Rush Limbaugh in the past, and I probably will be again. But this claim that Rush has often uttered racist quotes on the air is ridiculous. First, there are sites like Media Muttheads, which transcribe every word Rush utters. Second, Rush would be called out on it by conservative listeners.
Update: One bogus quote that is floating around is this one:
“Let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back. I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
It's a phony quote, but the funny thing is that if you take that last bit out, lots of liberals have said the same thing. Travis Darby, a blogger at Salon:
If we can afford to spend nearly a trillion dollars bailing out the predominantly white bankers whose greed got us into this recession, what's another trillion to pay back the people who helped build this country through the blood and sweat of their forced labor?
"I haven't and I don't think I would even go to the point of talking to Tony Dungy, Jim Caldwell, Dwight Freeney, talking to those men and seeing what their positions are. I'm very sensitive to know there are scars out there. I think as a nation we need to stop it. Our words do damage and it's something that we don't need. We need to get to a higher level of humanity and we have."
Well, if Irsay did go to the point of talking to Tony Dungy, he might be surprised by his response. You see, Dungy appeared on the Rush Limbaugh show in January of this year:
RUSH: I have been looking forward to the next few minutes ever since this interview with Coach Tony Dungy was put together. Recently retired from the Indianapolis Colts, coming off the million copies of his first book Quiet Strength. This book is Uncommon, is the title, Finding Your Path to Significance, the subtitle. Coach Dungy, welcome here. I can't tell you how thrilled and honored I am to be able to speak to you, sir.
COACH DUNGY: Well, thank you, Rush. I feel the same. It's great being on with you and thank you for having me.
AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke Royals. Even though he couldn't get the job done against the Twins, his pitching in late August and September was amazing, almost as amazing as the job he did in April and May. In June and July and early August he was merely terrific.
AL MVP: Joe Mauer, Twins. A catcher hitting .364 with power? No questions left to answer; Mauer is the best player in baseball today.
NL Cy Young: It's clearly either Carpenter or Wainwright; I'll take Carpenter's +13 W-L record over Wainwright's +11, and the league-leading ERA. Plus Carpenter's a terrific story after missing most of the last two years.
NL MVP: Well, I've tried to avoid it all season, but I'm going with Albert Pujols. Chase Utley, who's still my favorite player in baseball right now, did not perform in September, and Pujols was the usual Albert. The only question remaining about Pujols is whether he's the greatest hitter of all time.
I suppose I understand why they would feature Vietnam so prominently on the Amazing Race (in this series and at least one other); there are a lot of people in the US who are probably interested to go back over there, living their prime vacationing years.
In the opening, the riverboat everybody got on during the last episode travels upriver, but apparently not everybody was paying attention, as the fourth couple, the Obnoxious Lawyer and his fiancee, think they are still in Ho Chi Minh city and decide to start looking around for the playhouse that is mentioned in the first clue.
Actually, HCM city is over an hour away, which adds to the comic delight. As the teams arrive there, they are confronted with some puppet serpents swimming around in a pond; the racers must snag the clues from the snakes' mouths. There's a container with a stamp inside that shows the main post office. Every team gets this immediately except the Obnoxious Lawyer and his fiancee. BTW, since they showed the outside of the PO on the show, here's a reminder of what the inside looks like: At the main PO, the clue is a detour. Teams must either do child's play or word play. Child's play involves dragging a clay animal around the park and collecting balloons, while in word play they must spot the letters in cars circling a roundabout and then combine them into a common word, very important in Vietnam ("independence"). Okay, a little bit of PC nonsense there, but more importantly, only one team picks word play, and it's the oldster couple from San Francisco. It's always a bad sign when you're the only team that picks one challenge.
The Globetrotters, who have won every section of this particular episode, breeze through the child's play challenge, and we see that they are thinking ahead when they pick a stable animal to lead through the park. Later on, Team Asperger's picks a giraffe with dire consequences, and the Poker Players are not careful in selecting a cart, resulting in them losing precious time going back to the beginning. One interesting bit; Tiffany Michelle tells the Gay Brothers to continue on when her cart disintegrates. Perhaps she is starting to feel the usual "who deserves to win this" vibe already?
Next we get a bit about what great recyclers the Vietnamese are; one senses this is because they pull screws out of old VCRs, which appears to be the next task. It's kind of droll, but they spoil the green aspect by giving everybody power tools. The best bit here is the Obnoxious Laywer just pulling things apart with his bare hands and apparently gaining a bit. Aside from that everybody appears to pretty much finish as they started this task, which does not bode well for the older SF couple, who arrive after everybody else has left.
And despite some effort to make it look close, they do indeed finish last, and are Phil-liminated. The Globetrotters win the episode, followed closely by the Blonde Beachers.
Comments: No bunching maneuvers in this episode, but then again there are no long trips that would make that necessary. Lance, the Obnoxious Lawyer keeps talking about how he's a lion; I wonder if he ain't "lying" about being a lawyer. He seems more like a bouncer at a bar.
Some of you may recall my posts on several series of the Amazing Race. After a little burnout on the show, I'm back to cover this season of TAR.
Initial impressions:
1. Interracial couple 2. Poker Players (yay!) 3. Asperger's syndrome guy 4. Songwriters/Christians 5. Harlem Globetrotters (!) 6. Gay brothers 7. Farmer & Son 8. Yoga N The Hood 9. Fiery Colombian Gal 10. SF Internet Couple 11. Blonde Beachers. 12. Obnoxious Lawyer and Girlfriend (Wife?)
Show starts off with a license plate challenge; teams have to locate one of 11 license plates from the area of Tokyo where they are going. The big clue is a symbol at the top of the clue, but surprisingly nobody notices it at first, and so almost everybody picks wrong at first. As it happens, the Obnoxious Lawyer team and Yoga N the Hood are the last teams, but the Lawyer's Wife locates the final plate. Bye-bye, Yoga!
The remaining teams are flying to Tokyo on two separate flights. The Poker Players are pretending to be gals working with the homeless, because they know this will help them seem more sympathetic than if they admit they are poker pros. And suddenly I recognize Tiffany as Tiffany Michelle, the final woman left in the 2008 Main Event. She was pretty obnoxious in that tournament, so I can't root for her any more despite our poker connection.
The teams arrive in Tokyo virtually simultaneously, despite the fact that the first flight was supposed to leave a half hour early. They have to locate a TV station in the base of the Tokyo Tower. It turns out that they are all part of a game show called "Wasabi Roulette". The host spins a giant roulette wheel and the contestants have to eat whatever sushi turns up in front of them. But if it's a Wasabi roll, they have to finish it in two minutes and if they do, they can leave. The first couple of contestants manage it easily, and embarrassingly, the Oriental gal who's part of the Poker Player team is unable to finish in time. Hilariously, and predictably she gets the Wasabi roll again the next turn, and we get the first of this season's "I can't do this," moments. But when we come back, she chows it down.
The teams then have to lead 20 of the people at the game show (all wearing one color hat) through the busiest intersection in Tokyo, and then to a shrine, where the pitstop for this leg is located. Everybody seems to have trouble locating the shrine, but the Blonde Beachers win, and the Poker Players manage to lose two of their audience members. After doubling back and quarreling about how Tiffany was supposed to keep them together, they finally decide to head to the mat. There, Phil advises them that they will have a two-hour penalty. Say what? Yep, this is a non-elimination leg. Apparently they have gotten rid of the old requirement that people give up all their possessions and all their money for the next leg, however, so we don't get to see Tiffany and Maria begging on the streets of Tokyo.
Next destination: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. They all get on the same plane, so the Poker Players have already made up their two-hour penalty, although they have a special task they will have to perform. Once in Vietnam, the teams have to travel by bus to a small fishing village on the Mekong. The first bus leaves an hour and 15 minutes before the second one, but guess what? Neither of them arrives early enough for the task (involving a ride up the Mekong), so they're all stuck until the next morning. Incidentally, the guy with Asperger's does a very kind thing on the bus ride and gives his jacket to one of the peasants on the bus.
One amusing little subplot; the Poker Players and the Gay Brothers are cooperating, getting taxis together and the like. Tiffany and Maria think the GBs are hot, but of course the GBs are not really interested, although they play that way. So both teams are conning each other. The Poker Players have been revealed, by the way, by somebody who approached them in line at the airport in Tokyo.
The next task is to ride up the Mekong and spread mud around a fruit tree. Tiffany and Maria have their separate task of preparing a meal for the harbor master. Fortunately Maria knows the meal well, and he is pleased and gives them their clue, so while they are in last, they are not hopelessly behind.
The mud task provides its quota of slips and falls but everybody seems to leave in roughly the order they arrived. Next task: go back to the harbor and do some duck herding. Apparently the peasants use the ducks to clear their rice paddies of insects that would destroy the crop.
Not surprisingly the mixed-gender teams all decide to use their female members to handle this part, which means we get much shouting and berating on the part of the male team members. The guy with Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism) is the duck whisperer; he seems to glide through this challenge. The Farmer's son kicks a little duck butt, and Tiffany Michelle had ducks while she was growing up, so she does well also.
The final task is to run to a boat on the river. This proves to be a real challenge to locate at first and to everybody's surprise, the farmer and his son (with pink hair?) win the leg and are awarded kayaks. At the end it's a race between the interracial couple and another couple (I think the one with the fiery Colombian Gal) and the interracials win out.
I'm rooting for: Asperger's Syndrome Guy and his buddy. I'm rooting against: Obnoxious lawyer. Watch out for:
Eric the Viking Pundit also has up his account of this episode of TAR.
The preliminary list for next year has been announced. A lot of these guys will not be on the final (15-man) ballot. My take:
Will be inducted immediately: Jerry Rice, Emmitt Smith. These guys are what the Hall of Fame is all about.
Probably will make it this year: Cris Carter, Shannon Sharpe, Gary Anderson.
Really should make it eventually but it will take time: Aeneas Williams, Kenny Anderson, John Randle, Andre Reed, Cortez Kennedy, Richard Dent.
First time on the ballot but no real chance: Eddie George, Rich Gannon.
BTW, one stat that you may not have heard about the astonishing Jerry Rice, one of my favorite players of all time. Did you know that he caught over 440 NFL passes before he fumbled for the first time and over 520 passes before he fumbled and the opposition recovered it?
There are not many rookie quarterbacks who start their careers 2-0, especially when you consider that second game was against the New England Patriots. Tom Brady was last beaten in a regular season game on December 10, 2006.
Kurt Warner of the Cardinals established an NFL record for a single game by completing 24 of 26 passes, for a scintillating 92.3% completion percentage. Warner returned to his 2008 form after a subpar game against the 49ers. Beanie Wells ran well in his second outing, but found himself riding the pines after two fumbles on only seven carries, one of which resulted in a turnover. Matt Leinart looked a little shaky in the mop-up role, and the Cards would probably have had to put back in Warner if Jaguars wide receiver Nate Hughes not decided to try to catch a sure touchdown pass with his helmet instead of his hands. Predictably, the ball bounced off incomplete.
Brett Favre did not throw deep, but he almost as accurate as Warner, completing 23 of 27, but for only 151. His longest completion was for 14 yards.
Human Rights Watch Researcher Collects Nazi Memorabilia?
Heheh, can't imagine where he gets his anti-Israel bias.
His hobby, inspired he said by a German grandfather conscripted into Hitler’s army, was revealed on a pro-Israel blog, Mere Rhetoric Mere Rhetoric, which quoted his enthusiastic postings on collector sites under the pseudonym “Flak88” — including, “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”
Okay, that Flak88 name should be a huge red flag, although the Times fails to mention why. "88" is neo-Nazi code for "Heil Hitler", as H is the 8th letter of the alphabet.
Update: Okay, commenters urged me to do some research, and at least according to this wikipedia page,
Germany's high-altitude needs were originally going to be filled by a 75 mm gun from Krupp, designed in collaboration with their Swedish counterpart Bofors, but the specifications were later amended to require much higher performance. In response Krupp's engineers presented a new 88 mm design, the FlaK 36. The eighty-eight would go on to become one of the most famous artillery pieces in history. First used in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the gun proved to be one of the best anti-aircraft guns in the world, as well as particularly deadly against light and medium tanks.
Still I find it pretty creepy that a researcher for HRW's nick is a gun that no doubt killed many American aviators.
AL MVP: Joe Mauer, Twins. A catcher leading the league in hitting? Mauer's done that before (2006, 2008) , but he's never combined it with the sort of power--26 HR--that he's shown this season.
NL MVP: Chase Utley, Phillies. In my opinion, he's as good a player (not a hitter) as Albert Pujols. Both are having terrific years, but at some point, somebody has to acknowledge that this guy is a second baseman who's knocked in 100+ runs for the last four years. He's going to do it again this year.
AL Cy Young: Zack Greinke, Kansas City Royals. Look, this kid has star written all over him, he's leading the league in ERA, he's got a fine won/lost record considering his team, he's had some ridiculous lines this year. I really think he deserves it over some of the guys like Sabathia and Verlander who would probably finish ahead of him if the season ended today.
NL Cy Young: Chris Carpenter, St. Louis. Yeah, he's a finesse pitcher but you can't argue with the results. Almost certainly will get Comeback Player of the Year as well.
Joe Gandelman mourns the loss of civility in politics and remembers the time, from about 2001 to 2008, when the party out of power did not engage in petty politics, but put their shoulders to the wheel and helped the president.
The present frenzy suggests that the seeds are now being sowed for a mega-polarized America that could be almost ungovernable in the 21st century if this trend continues unabated.
If Republicans and conservatives make the very legitimacy of Obama his patriotism — even the safety of allowing little kids listen to him tell them to stay in school and think about helping their community — the issue, and link his name to Hitler and/or Nazism, precisely how do they think Democrats and the left will respond next time a GOPer is in power?
The same way they did the last time a GOPer was in power; linking his name to Hitler and/or Nazism. I mean, seriously, Joe, were you stoned the least 8 years?
Those two of you who've been reading me since 2005 (Gayle and Kitty) may remember that I spent a lot of time debunking the claim that there had been plenty of warning that the levees around New Orleans would break in a Katrina-style hurricane. In fact, what I found consistently was that there had been warnings that the levees might be overtopped.
On the night of August 29, 2005, van Heerden was shut in at the state emergency center in Baton Rouge, providing technical advice to the rescue effort. As Hurricane Katrina came ashore, van Heerden and the State Police there were high-fiving it: Katrina missed the city of New Orleans, turning east.
What they did not know was that the levees had cracked. For crucial hours, the White House knew, but withheld the information that the levees of New Orleans had broken and that the city was about to drown. Bush's boys did not notify the State of the flood to come which would have allowed police to launch an emergency hunt for the thousands that remained stranded.
Of course, Palast's claim is missing one small item: evidence.
Here's a suggestion that Mitt Romney run for the late Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate.
Surprisingly enough, this brings things back full circle to Romney, who up to now has been busy laying the groundwork for another presidential bid in 2012. It would be an intriguing thing if, after waiting a day or two out of respect for the late senator, Romney were to downshift and announce he will be a candidate in the upcoming election to fill Kennedy's vacant Senate seat.
Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once statewide, Romney has nearly 100 percent name ID. And, in an environment where President Obama seems to be dragging the Democrats down, he would be a serious threat to the Democratic hegemony in Massachusetts's congressional delegation. Meaning Romney likely would win.
Well, you can probably spot the fly crawling rapidly towards the ointment in that last sentence; it's the word "likely". Romney's a talented politician; so talented that he almost won the Senate against Ted Kennedy back in the 1990s. But he also almost won the presidential nomination in 2008 by running as the "real conservative" in the race, something that would seem impossible to overcome in Massachusetts.
There's talk about how Kennedy's funeral will turn out to be Wellstone II; don't count on it. Remember, Wellstone I came during a favorable year for the GOP, just before the election that gave the GOP a 55-45 vote majority in the Senate. Indeed, Wellstone I was unsuccessful as Norm Coleman took his seat (only to lose it to that idiot Franken).
Romney doesn't need the seat to have credibility with the GOP, and it's silly to suggest that he'd be the favorite to get to the Senate, while he just may be the favorite to get the GOP presidential nomination for 2012 already.
He hit the ball on the screws, there. I do think the liberal zeal for tolerance at any cost leads to conundrums specifically involving Muslims, although of course it's not a significant issue in the United States. More about Condell here.
National League MVP: Chase Utley, Philadelphia Phillies. I realize that with Albert Pujols chasing a triple crown, Utley's unlikely to get the nod, but a second baseman with 23 homers and 70 RBI at the end of July is pretty compelling. And his performance the last three years shows this is no fluke.
National League Cy Young: Matt Cain, San Francisco Giants. I never heard of him before this either, but he's 10 games above .500, and leading the league in ERA.
Team to Beat: Still the Dodgers, although the Phillies are closing fast.
AL MVP: Justin Morneau, Minnesota Twins. A fine player who already has a MVP trophy on his mantle.
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers. Slightly better ERA and many more strikeouts than Josh Beckett. I still like Zack Greinke a lot, but he's not getting any support from the Royals, and that's not likely to change.
Team to Beat: The Yankees have the best record in the league and they've been on fire lately.
The first study of drivers texting inside their vehicles shows that the risk sharply exceeds previous estimates based on laboratory research — and far surpasses the dangers of other driving distractions.
Yes, and let me point out as well that texting while bicycling and riding your skateboard (both activities that I have observed on multiple occasions recently) is hazardous as well.
As a dedicated cyclist, I do see more inattentive drivers on the road these days; the advent of the cellphone definitely made me more cautious around intersections. However, as I start with the assumption that they all intend to kill me, it doesn't change things much.
The conservative equivalent of 9-11 Truthers, who also love to show up at town hall meetings and harangue their representatives. Compare and contrast:
About the only difference is you don't hear the crowd egging on the Truther. But I guess that Obama Birtherism is mainstream Republican now, as Rush has given his seal of approval:
On his show today, Limbaugh told listeners, "As you know, I'm in the midst of another harassing audit from New York State and New York City for the last three years. We're up to 16 different ways I have to prove to New York City and state tax authorities where I have been every day – not just work week – but every day, for the past three years."
He continued, "Barack Obama has yet to have to prove that he's a citizen. All he has to do is show a birth certificate. He has yet to have to prove he's a citizen. I have to show them 14 different ways where the h--- I am every day of the year for three years."
There's the theory that comparative effectiveness review -- particularly when combined with a new IT infrastructure that could eventually help guide physician decisions -- will cut down on unnecessary treatments and allow us to bring high-spending regions of the country into sync with their low-spending brethren.
I like the comeback of one of his commenters:
Your argument is basically, "But he didn't even address the salient impact of unicorn dust and pixie wings".
I've heard all about the promise of technlogy and computerization saving money in health care not for years but for decades. The problem is that any savings on individual procedures immediately gets subsumed by additional demand. Nobody says, "Wow, fewer C-Sections, let's pocket the savings and lower the cost of care." Instead it gets turned into meeting improved access or broader services.
Those of you who are not Irish may only vaguely remember the name, but the Irish among us will never forget Angela's Ashes, McCourt's recounting of a terribly deprived childhood of an alcoholic father and an enabling mother.
It was a huge bestseller; I doubt there are many Irish in America who will confess to not having read it. It is a quite compelling and tragicomic story. Frank and his brother, Malachy, often went hungry because their father would go on a bender whenever he got paid, which unfortunately wasn't often because he was too much a drunk to stick with anything for long.
Where the story does become comical is on those paydays, as Frank and Malachy fantasize all the food they're going to eat when Daddy gets home. But of course as the afternoon turns into evening, and the evening into night, they realize that he's gone on an other bender, and by the time he returns there will be no money left for food.
As a result of his book, McCourt became a prominent professional Irishman and was featured extensively in the PBS series, The Irish in America.
Don't Blame Me, I Voted for the Loosertarian Candidate
Not the dumbest thing Stacy McCain has said, but right up there.
Yes, and how did this happen? Because I voted for Bob Barr in Maryland? I think not. The GOP nominated as its presidential candidate the only candidate in the primary field for whom I could not vote. (S. 2611.) The most electable candidate in the Republican field, Mitt Romney, quit two days after Super Tuesday.
The most electable candidate in the Republican field was the guy who couldn't win in the Republican primaries? How ironic is that?
As I will eventually tire of pointing out, McCain did better than the GOP candidates for Senate in 2008. So far from McCain dragging down the GOP, the GOP dragged down McCain. I can understand why some people want to ignore this, but I don't understand why we should listen to them when it is quite obvious that they are wrong, and when they contributed to Obama's victory with their constant carping about how the GOP's candidate was completely unacceptable.
Unlike Stacy McCain, I will pledge here and now to support the GOP's candidate in 2012. Even if it turns out to be Ron Paul.
They're threatening to vote against any insufficiently "progressive" bill. Given that the One's popularity is disappearing faster than an ice cream cone at the shore, it seems likely that he may have to compromise quite a bit to get a bill through, but if the progressives block it we may get nothing at all. Which would indeed be a pleasant surprise.
There is no way he can get away with telling a story like this and not disclosing who the Republican senator is. And note that after the groping story, Brooks starts talking about how lonely powerful people can be. Weird, very weird. But Brooks needs to disclose who this was.
Unless you were in college around 1975, you probably never heard the German version of Emerson Lake and Palmer, but Triumvirat's Spartacus is far better than anything ELP did. It's a concept album about a revolt against the Romans by a slave and gladiator named Spartacus, as in the movie with Kirk Douglas.
They didn't have a singer like Greg Lake or an organist who could match Keith Emerson, or a drummer like Carl Palmer. And to make matters worse, they were Germans (you can hear it in some of the mistakenly stressed syllables). But what they lacked in technical chops they made up for in an album that should be on everybody's must play list.
They had a couple other terrific albums; Illusions on a Double Dimple is also highly recommended.
I can't remember a song that started with a better hook. The "pow" about 12 seconds in is completely irresistable. The Moodys had some terrific intros: Ride My See Saw and You and Me are strong contenders.
If they had stayed together in the 1970s, I think they could have been a stadium band; they had a terrific catalog and when they reformed around 1978 they still could bring it. They just missed their wave, but at the top, they were as good as any band has ever been.
Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What’s wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha.
How dare Sarah Palin exercise her right to free speech! What kind of ordinary American attacks an politician on the Fifth of July for speaking her mind?
My take? For some of them it's nothing more than snobbery; the Mo Dowd, Andrew Sullivan, Tina Fey axis of weasels. She's not one of "us", they sniff. She went to five colleges in four years, whereas we went to Haavaad. She got married to a guy who's not in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman, or even a lawyer. She had five kids and didn't even have the decency to abort the "defective" one.
For most, it's that she's a traitor to her sex. Women are all supposed to vote Democrat, so therefore she's not really a woman. You saw similar reactions to Clarence Thomas (or indeed any black who happens to be a Republican). They're race traitors (as is Michelle Malkin; Filipinos are supposed to stick up for the Japanese).
And once the treason is revealed, who would feel the need to stick up for the traitor? Indeed at that point it's appropriate to express racism or sexism. Sarah is a bimbo; otherwise she'd been a Democrat, QED.
Lots of speculation that Sarahcuda's resignation as governor of Alaska scotches any remaining chance she had of gaining the GOP nomination in 2012 or later. The timing to me seems quite a bit off; she could have finished out most of her term, quitting midyear 2010 and devote the fall to helping GOP candidates for Congress (the Richard Nixon program from 1966). Now it seems just a little too early.
Departing with little or no warning, after about 30 months in office, is beyond surprising. I'm sure the Lieutenant Governor will do fine, but there's definately a sense of leaving with work unfinished and as her career was just beginning to take off.
I know we've heard a lot of chanting "Governor, it's time to resign," but we meant Mark Sanford.
If she's really bowing out of national politics, this pretty much clears the decks for Mitt Romney.
The sense that something is wrong with our food quickly blurs into the suggestion that everything is wrong with our food. It has too much bacteria but also too many pesticides. It is too expensive, but we do not spend enough money on it. We need fewer corporations, or maybe more corporations run by the yogurt guy. With so much wrong, it is hard to know where to start. And sometimes, in fact, it seems that fixing one problem would create another: Making fruits and vegetables cheaper, for instance, is hard to do if you also want them to be organic.
But despite its overwhelming complexity, "Food, Inc." joins "In Defense of Food," "Fast Food Nation," "Super Size Me" and dozens of other polemical books and films in the necessary effort to convince us that checking out at the supermarket is, on some level, a political act, with consequences for ourselves, our families and our world.
You can guess the point here; those who care about ourselves, our familes and our world (and who have nice disposable incomes) should pay more for food.
I swear, you'd think she was the President the way the media can't resist kicking her at every opportunity. Todd Purdum slants his article from the word go:
Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story.
If there was a disastrous performance, it was by the mainstream media in 2008, which is part of the reason they're in so much trouble these days financially.
The article is tendentious. The most unintentionally hilarious bit comes here:
More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.
Yes, of course, lots of people have the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders lying around for convenient reference, and mention it commonly to traveling reporters. And how about a little pop psychology about the person who's actually the Vice President of the United States, and who's also a bully and an obnoxious jerk?
And then there's this:
What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life?
I dunno, what record of achievement in public life does President Obama have? Purdum's a hack writer and a liberal hired by Graydon Carter; for chrissakes his wife is Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for Bill Clinton. In fact, since Bill came up, I'll let him have the last word on Purdum:
"He's a really dishonest reporter," Clinton said during the tirade that followed, according to Fowler's report. "And I haven't read (the article). There's just five or six blatant lies in there. But he's a real slimy guy."
Reminded that Purdum is married to his former press secretary Dee Dee Myers, Clinton responded in part: "That's all right - he's still a scumbag." The former president added: "He's just a dishonest guy - can't help it."
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.
The two cases handed down yesterday are just two new additions to the trend observed by Jeffrey Toobin, “in every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.” That’s conservative jurisprudence in a nutshell.
Over at the "Moderate Voice" there is a sigh of relief that Obama won the election and so terrible judges like this won't be nominated:
George W. Bush was perfectly within his rights to select Roberts, and the Chief’s credentials remain everything they must be to hold his position. But the man has been nothing short of a disaster for the direction I want to see our highest court going, and if Obama does nothing else right, I hope he at least gets to beat back the tide there. Failing that, he needs to at least preserve the status quo.
There's just one, teeny, tiny little problem. You see, the Obama Administration agrees with Judge Roberts on this one, as even the NY Times admits in a editorial thundering at the decision:
We are also puzzled and disturbed by the Obama administration’s decision to side with Alaska in this case — continuing the Bush administration’s opposition to recognizing a right to access physical evidence for post-conviction DNA testing.
This hints at the real problem in the case at hand. Alaska, where the case took place originally, does not allow a defendant access to DNA evidence (unlike 46 other states). In this particular instance, a convicted rapist has offered to use his own funds to pay for the DNA testing that could exonerate him. Although it is far from certain this would be the case; this particular defendant was convicted on a partial DNA profile anyway:
The state used an old method, known as DQ-alpha testing, that could not identify, with great specificity, the person to whom the DNA belonged. The high court sided with Alaska in its refusal to grant Mr. Osborne access to the physical evidence, the semen. His intent was to obtain a more advanced DNA test that was not available at the time of his trial and that prosecutors agreed could almost definitively prove his guilt or innocence.
I think the state of Alaska is wrong in this instance, and that they should change the laws. But at the same time, I applaud the Supreme Court for not finding another "right" in the constitution buried amid the emanences and penumbras.
If there's a through-line between any of these acts of terrorism and the right-wing rhetoric that abets it, of course, it's the one linking Bill O'Reilly to Scott Roeder, the man who murdered Tiller. O'Reilly more than demonized Tiller; night after night he called him a baby killer, compared him to the Nazis, and suggested that he must be stopped. Roeder stopped him, all right. If I were O'Reilly I'd feel terrible for putting a private figure in my public sights night after night, simply for doing his lawful job. But O'Reilly has no conscience, so he's proud of it.
Well, it is nice to see a liberal standing up to oppose calling people "baby-killers" and comparing people to Nazis.
By Ed Whelan at Bench Memos, "Publius" of Obsidian Wings.
Some forthright condemnation from the right side of the blogs:
The point is, there are a lot of good reasons for bloggers to remain anonymous and Ed Whalen has no right to decide differently just because he got steamed about someone’s response to his analysis. Did Publius commit a crime? Was he slandering Whalen? If not, Whalen’s fit of personal pique looks low, tawdry, childish, and vengeful. The closest Publius got to getting personal with Whelan was in calling him a “know-nothing demagogue.” And this was after making the point that Whelan knew better and was simply pandering to conservative sensibilities.
Jeopardizing a man’s career and family relationships over something so petty is simply shameful.
I admit to being a bit torn here. On the one hand, a blog should stand or fall on the merits of the writing and the arguments made, not on the reputation of the writer. On the other hand, I am uncomfortable that the shield of internet anonymity not allow somebody to make poor arguments and lies just because he knows that they will not redound against him personally. I see no evidence however that was the case in this instance; about the worst that can be said for Publius is that he used ad hominems at times.
Still, I don't have the benefit of anonymity, and I'm just a bit jealous at times of those who do.
