Month: March 2010

Adrastos, Current Affairs, Immoral Values, Malakatude2 Comments

Malaka Of The Week: General Jack Sheehan

Peter Adrastos Athas

This week’s “winner” is retired Marine Corps General and former NATO Commander Jack Sheehan. The General is not only against gays serving openly in the military but has claimed that nellyDutch soldiers were responsible for Serbian atrocities at Srebrenica: The Dutch government and military responded with anger and contempt after General John Sheehan, a retired marine corps officer who was Nato’s supreme commander at the time of the 1995 atrocity, told a US Senate hearing that gay soldiers in the military could result in events like Srebrenica. In July 1995 Bosnian Serb forces overran the Bosnian Muslim enclave under the … Continue reading Malaka Of The Week: General Jack Sheehan

Athenae, Economy10 Comments

We’re All Somebody Else

Health care to pay for filthy immigrants, sluts, crackheads, welfare queens and anchor babies: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most Americans believe thehealthcare reform plan in Congress would help the poor and the uninsured, but say it would be less likely to benefit other groups including themselves, according to a poll released on Friday. The March 17 Gallup survey of 1,009 U.S. adults, which coincides withPresident Barack Obama‘s final push for approval in theHouse of Representatives, also found large minorities of Americans who worry the legislation could make things worse for middle-income families and the United States as a whole. Fifty-nine percent … Continue reading We’re All Somebody Else

Doc, Immoral Values, Of Interest9 Comments

“It never goes away…”

Kurt Dussander: To the whole world, I am a monster… and you have known about me. Go ahead, call the police. But just remember this: when I am caught, when those reporters stick their microphones in my face, it will be your name I will repeat over and over again. “Todd Bowden… Todd Bowden. Todd Bowden, yes that was his name. For months, almost a year, he wanted to know everything. That was how he put it… yes… everything.” Todd Bowden: You’re crazy. They’ll never believe you. Kurt Dussander: It doesn’t matter. And besides, lying to judges and reporters isn’t … Continue reading “It never goes away…”

Adrastos, Congress, Current Affairs, Religion4 Comments

Stupak’s Nunsense

Peter Adrastos Athas

I love to quote Joan Walsh so I’ll do it again: Stupak’s entitled to his opinion on the issue. But he went beyond what was necessary, yesterday and today, in disrespecting the 60 Catholic nuns representing 59,000 sisters who bucked the Catholic bishops and came out for the bill Wednesday, declaring it “the real pro-life position.” “When I’m drafting right-to-life language, I don’t call up the nuns,”Stupak told Fox News. Instead he said he consulted “leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and the National Right to Life Committee.” <SNIP> There was a way for Stupak to say he disagreed with … Continue reading Stupak’s Nunsense

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media2 Comments

Go Look What You Helped To Do

Remember ourMake Better Journalists project?More of the stories about what the schoolkids we helped are doing just got posted: With the video camera purchased from your financial support, our class was able to produce a bi-weekly, 18-minute broadcast, reporting on a variety of subjects from sports and a protest march to prom and profiles on individual students.. My personal favorite broadcast was our very first in which four students followed over 400 teachers and students from our school to the district headquarters in a protest march over the lay-off of 88 teachers. The students passed the camera back-and-forth while also … Continue reading Go Look What You Helped To Do

Athenae, Congress6 Comments

The Goal

This morning, readingEzra: According to a Democratic source, CBO has finished its work and will release the official preliminary score later today. But here are the basic numbers: The bill will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years and reduce the deficit by $130 billion during that period. In the second 10 years — so, 2020 to 2029 — it will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion.The legislation will cover 32 million Americans, or 95 percent of the legal population. Emphasis mine. You get everybody health insurance, great.You still have shit like this happening: Listen to this story from … Continue reading The Goal

Athenae, Congress3 Comments

All For It

Republican: Let’s have a public option! Congressman Shadegg believes health insurance companies should have to compete for our business as individual consumers. Forcing them to compete, even through a public option, would be better than an individual mandate which will not work. Now that that ship’s sailed, now that anything resembling public health care has been characterized as a nonstop Nazi death panel disco party, now that it’s basically an individual mandate or nothing, now he’s all for what six months ago he would have characterized as the anti-christ. Now he’s all about it. Nice. Way to show up on … Continue reading All For It

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media1 Comment

Old Media Values

For about 30 years this has been true: Lear Center Director Martin Kaplan, Seton Hall University researcher Matthew Hale and a passel of unusually resilient graduate students plowed through nearly 500 hours of news from eight Los Angeles television outlets, drawn from 14 random days last August and September. They found out, in essence, that the average half-hour of local news is neither very local nor very newsy. In each 30-minute segment, more than eight minutes go to advertising. An additional 7 1/2 minutes focus on stories outside Southern California. Sports, weather and teasers (touting the dreck scheduled later that … Continue reading Old Media Values

Michael F3 Comments

An ℞ of My Own re: The Health Care Debate

FromAlbum3 You know, I’d prefer that the debate be on the merits of the bill; however, at this point the only people who seem to think the Republicans are demonstrating even an iota of good faith are your contemporary press corpse, who dutifully repeat every Rethug charge without ever bothering to do the sort ofbasic research on whether a particular procedural matter is routine or not. The sort of research someone can do while participating in an online chat. Well, fine: if they want to act like that, and if they want to defend the old ways, then Thorazine for … Continue reading An ℞ of My Own re: The Health Care Debate

Music, VirgoTex3 Comments

Soul Deep: RIP Alex Chilton

Stunningly sad news just breaking that Alex Chilton died this afternoon of a heart attack. Chilton was truly one of the big ones, an impossibly, ridiculously, talented writer and performer. As Whetjust noted on Twitter, of the uber-hitThe Letter: alex chilton: SIXTEEN WHEN HE RECORDED THIS I remember in the early awful days of Katrina aftermath, Chilton was one of the NOLA musicians whose whereabouts no one was able to confirm for a few days. I remember what a gift it felt like, in the middle of that huge sad story, to hear he was okay after all. When I … Continue reading Soul Deep: RIP Alex Chilton

Athenae, Immoral Values8 Comments

More Than This

Clearly my marriage will go straight to hell for looking at these pictures: We have a feeling, even though we are old, that some girls are bringing girls to homecoming/prom/fancy-wear day dances these days. Amirite? Are you one of those girls/boys?Well let’s celebrate those photos everyone is so f*cking afraid of! VISIBILITY, LADIES! I am just now combing through my own memories of high school to try to figure out if anyone I knew brought a partner of the same sex to prom. I don’t think so, though my own memories of that time aren’t good ones, so I doubt … Continue reading More Than This

Athenae, Congress10 Comments

Weathermen

Natch: Rather than believing that this blind pig suddenly found an ear of corn, my guess is that the Dick Whisperer put his finger to the wind and sensed thatHCR is going to pass. Since he always wants to sit at the cool kids’ table in the cafeteria, he’s started to lay the foundation for the inevitable “I saw it coming” piece that will allow him to play reindeer games with the Democrats. Which isn’t so different from anyone else, really: People like winning. If I haven’t written about the ins and outs of HCR this week, it’s mainly that … Continue reading Weathermen

Sports, Television, VirgoTex, Web/Tech6 Comments

I didn’t think it was possible for me to like Heineken any more than I already do

We’re going to open an old wound here, so get ready. It will be worth it. Remember thosesexist Super Bowl ads that pissed us off? That’s a rhetorical question becauseI know you do. Of the six car ads run during the Super Bowl, that chauvinistic Dodge Charger “Man’s Last Stand” ad was scored as the least effective across the board. It also, surprising no one, came in dead last in with female viewers, per the2010 Hoffman/York PURSEuasion Report on Super Bowl advertising effectiveness to women. According to a report from Kelley Blue Book, while the ad got very high ratings … Continue reading I didn’t think it was possible for me to like Heineken any more than I already do

Adrastos, Bigotry, Diary, Hurricane Katrina & Federal Flood, Law/Justice, New Orleans6 Comments

Red Stick, Night Stick

Peter Adrastos Athas

Yesterday, the Baton Rouge Advocate ran a fascinating as well as appalling story about police misconduct and racism in BR post-K. Baton Rouge police officers routinely harassed black people, resorted to unnecessary violence and conducted illegal searches in the days after Hurricane Katrina, out-of-state troopers claimed in reports recently released by the Police Department. One trooper said Baton Rouge officers referred to black people as “animals” that needed to be beaten down. Troopers also reported that officers said they were under orders to make life rough for New Orleans evacuees so they would leave town. State Police in New Mexico and Michigan cited a pattern of violence and discrimination when they … Continue reading Red Stick, Night Stick

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media, Sports7 Comments

I’m Sorry, I Need You To Step In Now

I’m just … I can’t … guys, I’ve been huffing antihistamines for the past week nonstop and drinking coffee/tea/Diet Coke by the gallon because deadlines don’t care if your husband brought a cold back from his vacation nor do they allow time for natural remedies like sleep and Keanu Reeves movies. And everything tastes like cardboard or metal or metallic cardboard because of the cold medicine, so I’ve been eating pretty much potato chips, sometimes. And forgetting to take my vitamins. And the insomnia is back with a vengeance and the time change didn’t help. I’m not saying this to … Continue reading I’m Sorry, I Need You To Step In Now

Adrastos, Stupid Republican Tricks12 Comments

Deep Tan Thought

Peter Adrastos Athas

What is it with some Republicans and their tans? I just saw McCain’s challenger J.D. Hayworth onRachel Maddowand he seems to be emulating Leader Boner and Charlie Crist. Are they admirers of tanning gods George Hamilton and Zonker Harris or are they poster boys for melanoma? I’m confused and wonder if I should reach for a can-o-tan so I can be orange too… —– Continue reading Deep Tan Thought

Athenae, Law/Justice13 Comments

If Teabaggers Ran the World

Newspaper commenters. These people don’t vote, do they? If you really want to bring down the cost of law enforcement then start with the judicial system. Kill the plea bargaining…mandate full term incoseration…forget the good behavior stuff…dump the technicality BS… Keep the bad guys in jail and stop the need to re-arrest…re-arrest…re-arrest crapola! Then watch the need for more policing go down. Great! Now if we only get the 500,000 federal, state, county, city township laws reduced to a reasonable size as well. Throw out all the laws since 1865; dump 80% of the lawyers; and start over with a … Continue reading If Teabaggers Ran the World

Athenae, Stupid Republican Tricks, Terrorism6 Comments

Department of Defense Mechanisms

Via theCrack Den andIt’s Not a Crack House, It’s a Crack Home, I bring younews that Ross Douthat is a solipsistic prick, basically: Life is so unfair to warmongers, is it not? Then again, the reason our debates are so poisonous and our nation so divided might have something to do with the existence of utterly unaccountable members of the political class that can launch such a war, suffer no real consequences, and then reliably expect to be defended as “decent” and “well-intentioned” people who made understandable mistakes. The unfortunate truth of our existence is that villains do not have … Continue reading Department of Defense Mechanisms

Stupid Republican Tricks, Terrorism2 Comments

Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – recycler edition

Good Monday morning, gentle people – I always have a hard time deciding which putrid little nuggets from Freeperville to share with you, and often skip scrutiny-worthy threads for something gaudy and new to dangle before your eyes. This week’s offal offering is going to be older stuff from Free Republic that didn’t make the cut for one reason or another, but sometimes old cheese is the best cheese. First of all – a piece of smackdown heaven I originally posted on the Great Orange Satan few weeks ago. An oldie but such a goodie it bears repeating: . Washington. … Continue reading Today on Tommy T’s Obsession with the Freeperati – recycler edition