|
|
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
|
|
| |
Delay is going down. Today's
vote by the Republican leadership to allow a divided ethics committee
to open investigations is the end of the road for Delay. He will be
replaced as Majority Leader by Roy Blunt. The Republicans will also use
this to run retaliation - nothing like getting a twofer - against
Democrats. [BOPnews]
11:16:13 PM 
|
|
Appropriate...
The
wingnut war against privacy rights and the separation of state and
church is hard to laugh at. We are slouching towards Gilead day by day.
But sometimes laughing is the only alternative. That's why I'm putting
here the immortal words of Monty Python:
Every Sperm Is Sacred Lyrics
Artist: Monty Python
Album: The Meaning Of Life
DAD:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.
I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.
You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,
Because
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
GIRL:
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
MUM:
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.
MEN:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
WOMEN:
If a sperm is wasted,...
CHILDREN:
...God get quite irate.
PRIEST:
Every sperm is sacred.
BRIDE and GROOM:
Every sperm is good.
NANNIES:
Every sperm is needed...
CARDINALS:
...In your neighbourhood!
CHILDREN:
Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
FUNERAL CORTEGE:
God needs everybody's.
MOURNER #1:
Mine!
MOURNER #2:
And mine!
CORPSE:
And mine!
NUN:
Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
HOLY STATUES:
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.
EVERYONE:
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaaate!
Not
that I'm aiming anything at the Catholics (though pope Ratzo is another
thing altogether). The whole thing just seems to go so well with
today's extreme clerical wingnuttery. Now I hope that you will keep
humming this at all sorts of inappropriate moments...
[ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES]
11:08:09 PM
|
|
Bush's Job Growth: You Want Fries With That?. Just
when I think I can stop ranting about the economy, I find another
nugget – no, pearl – of sheer incompetence by the Bush administration.
This is the administration that really just keeps giving. You almost
have to respect the high degree of ineptitude these idiots have when it
comes to economic matters.
Bush went to an ivy-league school to get an MBA, and all we got is a shitty economy. [BOPnews]
11:07:02 PM
|
|
Zero-Sum Grand Strategy: Just Say No!.
Robert Kaplan has annoyed the highly-intelligent Praktike:
Robert Kaplan is Afraid | Liberals Against Terrorism:
I have to say that it would be deeply unfortunate and downright foolish
if America and China backed themselves both into a 'second Cold War,'
as Kaplan puts it. It could only be the result of a mutual
miscalculation. There's no doubt that we should be prepared militarily,
and we shouldn't be naive in scrutinizing Chinese intentions. I admit
that I have my own inchoate concerns about Chinese nationalism, its
drive for new energy supplies, and its rumblings over Taiwan. But there
are obvious and important differences between the Soviet Union and
China, just as there are differences between the late 19th Century
balance of power that Kaplan so lovingly uses as an analogy (which, as
every schoolboy knows, collapsed after Bismark departed the scene) and
the current state of play in the Pacific region. The Soviet Union was,
notably, communist and autarkic. China, by contrast, is developing via
an export and FDI-led strategy--meaning that it understands that
wealth, power, and geostrategic influence are best created by means
other than territorial aggrandizement. The (nominally) Communist
Party's internal legitimacy rests upon its ability to improve the...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
6:11:22 PM
|
|
"That's just normal." USA Today reports that "all five Republicans on the House ethics committee" have either taken money from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's leadership PAC for their campaigns, given money to DeLay's defense fund, or both. Plus: A show of support. [Cursor.org]
1:36:54 PM
|
|
Hall Of Same.
Welcome To The Hall Of Same To honor the end of Bush's 60-day "town hall" tour to talk up his Social Security plan, The Daily Show's Samantha Bee learns how to stage her very own fake town hall meeting from...
[TomPaine.com]
9:09:02 AM
|
|
Durable Goods Orders I'm not a regular follower of durable goods orders, and I don't generally pay much attention to whether it goes up or down in any particular month. This morning's release was slightly more eye-catching than usual, however; durable goods orders have now fallen for three consecutive months, which starts to look more like a trend than temporary variation...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for long-lasting U.S.-made goods plunged unexpectedly in March, the biggest drop since September 2002, the government said Wednesday.
A sharp drop in orders for aircraft pushed new orders down by 2.8 percent, the Commerce Department said. Excluding the volatile transportation category, orders for durable goods -- pricey manufactured items meant to last three years or more -- sank 1 percent, the department said. Revisions moved the previous months' reading lower as well. Commerce adjusted the February durable goods orders down to a 0.2 percent decline from a 0.5 percent increase, and revised the durable goods orders ex-transportation lower to a 0.2 percent drop from unchanged.
The report offered a generally gloomy picture for factory and business spending plans. Wall Street economists had expected durable goods orders to climb 0.3 percent overall and 0.5 percent excluding transportation. The total level of new orders was at its lowest since June 2004. Durable goods orders excluding defense fell 3 percent, the biggest drop since September 2002.
Orders for durable goods are probably more of a leading indicator than a coincident indicator, but nevertheless, I'm starting to suspect that the estimate of first quarter GDP growth (due out tomorrow) could be lower than the average guess of around 3.5%...
Kash - Kash
[Angry Bear]
9:07:42 AM
|
|
Will the boiling frog twitch? .
Stay with me now, because this is the way it is.
Rachel Maddow yesterday on Kristof's missing punchline:
Nicholas Kristof's column today, N.Korea, 6, and Bush, 0, is a good wake-up call about what's happened over the past few years with the threat from North Korea. [Quote snipped]
But isn't this column missing a punchline?
Who specifically can be held to account for this?
Who's the point person in the administration for weapons proliferation?
Who's, say, the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control? Also via Rachel's weblog, Delay's Time Spent Living in the Pants of Jack Abramoff.
Not unusually, I concur with Atrios that Phil Carter's A Command Performance makes vital points about accountability at the top and how it affects military discipline all the way down. Carter's response to the astonishing outcome of Abu Ghraib investigation, in which numerous people in the chain of command were let off the hook, is spot on:
Talk about cognitive dissonance. In the Army's leadership schools for officers and sergeants, the doctrinal manual preaches quite a different result from the outcome of this investigation. Bottom line: commanders (and NCOs) are responsible for everything their unit(s) do or fail to do, period. A commander, especially a general officer, is not just responsible for those things he/she ordered, but for those things that he/she knew about - or should have known about. This is the essence of the mantle of command, as reflected in several passages of FM 22-100, the Army's field manual for leadership. Unfortunately, accountability is not something the current regime thinks applies to those at the top - where the rot starts.
The right-wingers want to pretend liberals are extremists because we watch Michael Moore movies that suggest that things like the Columbine shootings and 9/11 shouldn't have happened. But we're not the ones who are consorting with the KKK. (Also via Atrios.) And here's some links if you want to know about some highlights of their little party last Sunday.
Crazies are in charge, and the American people have noticed. E.J. Dionne has the headline I'd most like to see:
If you were to prepare a list of the top 10 stories you will never, ever read in a newspaper, one of them would surely include a sentence beginning: "Thousands of angry, screaming moderates took to the streets yesterday demanding . . ." In case anyone was worried about a GOP plan to get rid of the 22nd Amendment, Dionne notes a recent poll that shows Bush losing handily in a presidential match-up between GWB and Bill Clinton. Generally, Americans think the Republicans are way out of line and that far from being "obstructionist", Democrats are doing the people's business when they try to prevent further damage.
That's the good news. But for more bad news, nobody white in Congress is paying any attention to the integrity of the voting machines, and the press continues to behave as if the Black Caucus is on drugs and less credible than the fruitcake fringe. Someone needs to tell them they have this backwards.
Someone should tell the white Democrats, too. The Republicans have been remarkably successful at painting all black leaders who don't work for the GOP as having no credibility, as being just a bunch of paranoid whiners who are trying to distract us with side issues. In fact, the Black Caucus has been raising truly vital questions that need to be heard, and the white folk are being lazy and shif'less and steeped in a criminal culture of graft and corruption. The very idea that a coalition of the GOP and Joe Lieberman can have more credibility than John Conyers and Cynthia McKinney should be treated as the laughable fantasy that it is. [The Sideshow]
8:28:53 AM
|
|
Grownup Republican Watch: Colin Powell. Colin Powell joins the shrill, and adds his blunt opinion of the Bush administation clown show to the chorus as he says exactly what he thinks of Bush acolyte John Bolton:
Joshua Micah Marshall Reports: Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: April 17, 2005 - April 23, 2005 Archives: [T]he former Secretary of State (and Bolton's boss in the first administration) has been doing what amounts to behind-the-scenes lobbying against Bolton's nomination.... Powell is very much not the only Republican foreign policy heavyweight working in private to scuttle Bolton's nomination. But the degree to which he's going public is sort of extraordinary.... Powell did authorize his spokesperson to confirm on the record that he has had recent phone conversations with Sens. Chafee and Hagel about Bolton while quite pointedly giving no reason to think much of anything he said was positive.... The foothold Bolton's supporters have in this fight is their contention that the only reason Bolton's in trouble is that Democrats are trying to take him down to score political points. Indeed, President Bush made that argument just yesterday. But Powells now-public lobbying knocks that argument right out of the park. Republican senators looking to deny the...
[Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
7:17:50 AM
|
|
|
|
© Copyright
2005
Michael Mussington.
Last update:
5/1/2005; 4:29:12 AM.
|
|
|
