I spent the weekend flying down to Orlando for my best friend’s wedding. I didn’t read any blogs or watch or read any news. Relaxing. You should all try some time.
Archive for July, 2005
Missing Pregnant 25 YO Mother Alert
Latoyia Figueroa is still missing after 8 days. And as tragic as the Natalee Holloway case might be, Natalee doesn’t have a seven year old child wondering where she is, nor was Natalee (to the best of our knowledge) 5 months pregnant.
When will the media cover it?
Wannabe senatorial candidate Michael Steele went buckraking with a man who thinks nothing of leaking information harmful to our CIA agents if it means political gain.
Do we really want that kind of mindset in Washington representing Maryland? I think not.
They stupidly claimed that podcaster Dan Klass of The Bitterest Pill was an addict, when all he was talking about was people being “addicted” to his show. Why does the “paper of record” keep doing this?
Again putting the liberal media meme to death, right-wing loon Ann Coulter explains to fellow winger Brent Bozell on the 7/26 Sean Hannity Show that Bush should appoint a more extreme Judge than Roberts to the Supreme Court because “we have the media now”. Audio.
Unlike a lot of folks on my side of the aisle, I am not kneejerk opposed to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), quite frankly I agree with a lot of their positions, but I think it’s a little disconnected from reality to have Sen. Clinton calling for unity when it’s been the DLC’s modus operandi to piss on any Democrat with a spine out of fear of not appearing moderate enough. What the DLC seems to not understand is that the sort of piecemeal centrism they advocated in the ’90s, packaged masterfully by President Clinton, is the key to electoral misfires by candidates without Clinton’s campaign skill (Kerry, Gore). While Clinton could similarly present populism and champion business, to present such an image nowadays is to simply be Republican lite and to communicate to voters political schizophrenia when they’re seeking someone they can trust with their gut.
I think the DLC is mostly right on business issues and their need to be addressed by Democrats, but wrong on CAFTA. The DLC would do wonders if they acknowledged the major errors of their electoral approach versus the blame game they repeatedly engage in after each election (No, Al Gore was not “too populist”; No, Michael Moore does not need to be pushed away - at least not while Rush Limbaugh is still a White House guest).
(man, this must be my day to be centrist boy)
So apparently there’s a crackup in progress at the AFL-CIO. As a Democrat, I’m supposed to be concerned about this. Union households vote heavily Democratic, and they’re seen as one of the traditional pillars of the DNC. But I seriously question the relevancy of the unions, as currently structured, to our national workforce. I have never had union membership, but from the outside looking in it often appears that while they once strongly advocated for the rights of workers pertaining to what were once luxuries - like the idea of eight hour workdays and “the weekend” - they are nowadays more like a good concept gone bad.
In most other industries, a crack in the monopoly usually leads to benefits for the end users (AT&T for instance), so perhaps instead of a unionized borg, this split will cause the more forward-thinking elements in labor to innovate and get back to basics.
The retailer is banning newspapers that are critical of the corporation… you have to wonder what other kind of stories have been squashed out of fear of this kind of reprisal.
Unlike many of the company’s critics, I’ve shopped at Wal-Mart and on occasion found what I needed at a good price. But in the era after Sam Walton’s death and the company’s growth into an international juggernaut I believe the worm has truly turned. Wal-Mart is a company that trades on its All-America image to trample on American consumers and workers — and the excuse that such behavior is the price of doing business just does not match up with the evidence at hand.
I’m quite liberal, and as against this war in Iraq as much as the next left-winger… but when I see that Jane Fonda is going to go around in a van powered by vegetable oil protesting I sort of throw up in my mouth a little.
Some of these celebrities need to shut up.
The folks at Box.net set me up with an account on their service, and you should really check it out. Basically it’s a file folder in the sky, where you can upload your files and keep them at your fingertips as long as you’ve got a net connection. Comes in real handy.
So I went to my first Nationals game Sunday, and it wasn’t pretty.
I’m far from any sort of expert on baseball (though I did read Moneyball) but unless the Nationals get somebody who can hit a little better than a blooper shot to right field, thy’re going to drop out of first place quickly.
Check out this clip of Bernie Goldberg flipping out on The Big Story.
Your so-called liberal media marches on. CBS is pleased because their anchorman gets White House plaudits
“That’s not the end-all, be-all, but obviously the White House doesn’t hate CBS anymore with Schieffer in the chair,” Moonves said in an interview Wednesday at the TV critics’ summer meetings here.
Does anyone think Andrea Mitchell’s annoyance at being roughed up in Sudan would ring a bit less hollow if our media didn’t need the excuse of a state visit to cover something that’s been going on in Sudan… like genocide?
Priorities.
Sort of ironic, when you consider the GOP’s past “anger” towards those they considered to be lying under oath…
Bloomberg Reporting That Rove, Libby May Be Subject To Perjury Charges
Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.
Lewis Scooter’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn t tell Libby of Plame s identity.
Episode 003Topics: The Supreme court nomination, the problem with persuasion, random observations on the political universe
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Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret
A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.
Plame — who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo — is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.
I wonder when McClellan will talk about previous statements being inoperative?
You should check out this article about Costco for prime evidence of how stupid and anti-worker Wall Street has become. Costco has been able to provide goods at low prices to consumers, while at the same time not treating its employees like indentured servants (ie. Walmart). A radical concept, and Wall Street isn’t amused.
Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco’s customers but to its workers as well.
Costco’s average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam’s Club. And Costco’s health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco “it’s better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder.”
Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street’s assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street’s profit demands.
Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco’s customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers’ expense. “This is not altruistic,” he said. “This is good business.”
That’s all you need to know about John Roberts Jr., the right-winger Bush has picked for the high court.
Sen. Reid:
The President has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry. The Senate must review Judge Roberts’s record to determine if he has a demonstrated commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness. The nominee will have an opportunity to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and make his case to the American people.
The main blog entry here tries to take a stab at Wizbang, who are silly idiots, but actually are on the right track with this.
Many of the commenters on Kos actually get it too, like this one:
These kids watch TV right? And they understand it?
For the most part it is standard English. If they can understand the TV they don’t need a teacher to talk down to them.
John Cole, just about the only sane person left n the right, has redesigned…
the schedule for picking a supreme court justice just got bumped up due to news events…
