This morning I was watching the news and I saw a really great commercial from the “No Recall” forces. In it, they listed a series of accomplishments by Gray Davis and the Democrats on the environment, workers rights, etc., followed by the warning “The Republicans opposed every one of these reforms. If this recall goes through, what will they try to recall next?”

This was by far the best anti-recall message I’ve heard yet from anyone. They’re clearly keeping this thing in perspective and reminding people that if Davis is recalled, they’re just opening up the state to all sorts of Republican garbage.

As I was watching the commercial, I was thinking to myself “Gee, it sure would be swell to post a link to this neat-o ad on my site!” (Yeah, my inner voice sounds suspiciously like Opie Taylor) Unfortunately, they don’t have the commercial posted on their site. Since there was a number on the bottom of the page, I figured I would try calling them to see if they had any plans to post the ad.

As I spoke to the receptionist and explained my situation, she seemed really puzzled that anyone would be calling about one of their commercials, but she forwarded me to the press office anyways. The woman from the press office, unlike the receptionist, was a total bitch. She kept asking me “Who do you represent?” and once she figured out that I was a nobody, she gave me some bullshit about how “the political office” would need to answer my question (even though she never bothered to ask why I was calling). After taking my number, she hung up up me.

Well, bitchy press office lady, I was trying to give you guys from free publicity. Since you wouldn’t give me what I needed to write some good things about your commercials, here’s a couple bad things about your commercials :

1. Don’t you people have spell-check?

Take a look at this frame from their “If 50% plus 1 vote yes on the recall” ad :



I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a “firfighter”

2. Stop stealing from my friend Kyle

In their “Newspapers are calling it a circus” ad, they stole a picture from my friend Kyle’s website Ostrich Ink :



Here’s a clearer copy of the pic from his interview with Angelyne.

Now, I still totally oppose the recall, but it wouldn’t hurt for their press people to show a little courtesy, even if I don’t “represent” anyone but myself.

According to the Guardian, it was Karl Rove. Listen here for details. (link via Atrios) Of course the real problem is that journalists aren’t going to to want to reveal their private sources. So in essence, this has turned into a game of chicken (as Tom Tomorrow put it). I can’t imagine this “game” will last long. Within a day or two the temptation to be the first to name names will be too great for any media outlet to resist. Plus, there are enough people out there that actually know the names that the media will find a way to reveal their sources without really revealing their sources. For those of you haven’t been following this closely, Kevin Drum has been all over this story.

Via NotGeniuses, I came across this interesting post about charitable giving among the wealthy

Why tax the well-off? Because, two recent studies suggest, it’s practically the only way to persuade them to spend money on anyone but themselves. Philanthropy isn’t the answer: a survey from The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that Americans making $70,000 or more dispensed a paltry 3.3 percent of their earnings to charitable causes; in contrast, those making $50,000 to $69,999 gave 5.6 percent, and those making $30,000 to $49,999 gave 8.9 percent. Only at death does the tightfistedness diminish?but even then it’s the threat of the estate tax that awakens the philanthropic spirit. Or at least that’s the conclusion of another new study, which predicts that deathbed donations will drop precipitously if the Bush Administration succeeds rolling back the estate tax. The study finds that the cost of such a repeal, in lost donations and bequests, could be as steep as $10 billion a year?the equivalent of the grants doled out annually by the nation’s 110 largest foundations.

A few points to make about this one :

The disparity between the charitable contributions of the wealthy and the middle class seems like a microcosm of the disparity between the U.S. and every other industrialized country in terms of foreign aid. While we’re the richest country on Earth, we give a lower percentage of our GDP in foreign aid than just about anyone else. According to a 2001 poll, most Americans think we spend 24% of our GDP on foreign aid, when we really spend < 1%. As with foreign aid, the rich may give more in terms of actual dollars, but they aren't nearly as generous as the middle class.

While I’m a big fan of the estate tax (as well as just about every other tax on “unearned income”), I don’t know if I support the idea of the estate tax as an effort to “persuade” the wealthy to give more to charity. After all, you can’t make someone not be a selfish jerk.

What does it say about our society that the biggest incentive for many people to contribute to charity is that they can write it off their taxes? What would happen if we suddenly ended any tax incentives on contributions to non-profit entities? Would all the soup kitchens close? Would the Red Cross have to sell their bloodmobiles? It’s sad to think that the main reason people give away their money is to get out of contributing to our government and look like much more compassionate people than they really are.

This is one of those stories so nasty it makes you want to never eat again :

A man bites into a piece of fried chicken and gets a nasty surprise.
A customer at Popeye’s chicken in Baltimore went home with a three-piece combo, but when he bit down, he realized it wasn’t chicken.

What he found, to his surprise, was a mouse. The mouse was found between the chicken skin and the meat of the chicken.

Okay, you disgruntled fry cooks out there, when you were just deep-frying chicken heads, it was more creepy and funny :

…but deep-frying a rat is really, really gross. I hope whoever did this gets arrested. There’s no telling how many diseases that rat could have had. Uggghhh….

Of all the horrible things that the Bush Administration has done, I didn’t think this would be the story that had legs (Thanks for the head’s up, Kevin.)

At CIA Director George J. Tenet’s request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative’s identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy “yellowcake” uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative’s identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer’s name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak’s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson’s account touched off a political fracas over Bush’s use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

“Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,” the senior official said of the alleged leak.

It goes without saying that revealing the identity of a deep cover operative in order to embarrass a political rival is far worse than anything Clinton was accused of. This isn’t your standard “every president does it” kinda stuff. This is the work of criminals who are willing to jeopardize national security in order to score a cheap jab at someone they’re pissed at.

Like I said before, I’m shocked that this has gone as far as it has. I can’t help but think this is all revenge for the White House making Tenet give his bullshit mea culpa back in July. Y’know the one where Tenet basically said “I should never have allowed the Bush Administration to lie. I take full responsibility…” I guess George called in his last favor when he asked the CIA to take responsibility for the words that came out of his mouth. I wonder who’s going to take a bullet for his this time?

Environmental regulations are good for the economy

A new White House study concludes that environmental regulations are well worth the costs they impose on industry and consumers, resulting in significant public health improvements and other benefits to society. The findings overturn a previous report that officials now say was defective.

The report, issued this month by the Office of Management and Budget, concludes that the health and social benefits of enforcing tough new clean-air regulations during the past decade were five to seven times greater in economic terms than were the costs of complying with the rules. The value of reductions in hospitalization and emergency room visits, premature deaths and lost workdays resulting from improved air quality were estimated between $120 billion and $193 billion from October 1992 to September 2002.

By comparison, industry, states and municipalities spent an estimated $23 billion to $26 billion to retrofit plants and facilities and make other changes to comply with new clean-air standards, which are designed to sharply reduce sulfur dioxide, fine-particle emissions and other health-threatening pollutants.

The report provides the most comprehensive federal study ever of the cost and benefits of regulatory decision-making. It has pleasantly surprised some environmentalists who doubted the Bush administration would champion the benefits of government regulations, and fueled arguments that the White House should continue pushing clean-air standards rather than trying to weaken some.

One of the biggest excuses conservatives give for opposing regulation is that the costs are an undue burden on businesses. Since most people are morons, this usually gives way to talk of “voluntary regulations” bait-and-switch. Why is it that businesses are the only entities that are allowed to regulate themselves? It’s not like we get to have “voluntary” drug laws or something.

This is tragic and unsurprising

A 4-year-old boy found a loaded gun in his family’s house and fired it through the front door, killing his 5-year-old sister and seriously wounding another boy, authorities said.

An older sister had seen the child pick up the semi-automatic handgun in the house Saturday night and had rushed the other children outside to try to protect them, but the bullet went through the door, hitting them, said Prince George’s County police spokeswoman Cpl. Diane Richardson.

The two wounded children stumbled across the street and collapsed in a neighbor’s driveway, she said. Kimberly Brice was pronounced dead after arrival at a hospital.

Here’s a question out there for you guys : Have you ever seen an article about an intruder being shot by a gun-weilding father? Even if that urbean legend turns out to be true, kids killing each other with guns is so common that this story isn’t big news.

For years I’ve been voting via absentee ballot because trying to get to a polling place on a Tuesday is always a pain in the ass. I think that’s the real reason voter turnout is so low. The majority of Americans don’t want to get up early, skip lunch, or leave work early just so they can wait in line for an hour to vote for someone they don’t care about. One of the many, many things I love about living in L.A. is that I get to vote early.

As I was waiting in line (for only a minute or two) to vote today, I think I realized why so many conservatives think liberals are elitists. While I watched other voters be escorted to their touch screen voting machines, the thought that kept going through my head was “Anyone who votes for Arnold Schwarzenegger is a goddamn idiot!” Although what I was thinking is true, I could see how it would rub some people who are dumb enough to vote for a bad actor with no political experience who’s completely unable to articulate a single position the wrong way.

If you live in L.A. County and you’d like more information about voting early, go to www.lavote.net. And if you’d like more information about how to vote like a retard, go to www.joinarnold.com.

Here’s something that stuck me as kinda funny. Before I mention it, here’s a little background about what a “top level domain” is :

Every domain name has a suffix that indicates which top level domain (TLD) it belongs to. There are only a limited number of such domains. For example:

gov - Government agencies
edu - Educational institutions
org - Organizations (nonprofit)
mil - Military
com - commercial business
net - Network organizations

The reason I bring this up is because I noticed something a little strange today. Have you ever noticed that the official website of the Democratic party is democrats.org, but the Republicans use gop.com. Based on the (rather loose) categories for top level domains, does this mean that the Republicans consider their party more of a “commercial business” than an “organization”?

The post below has me thinking of what other kinds of shirts people would be selling at a Republican Convention. Of all the ones I could come up with, the name of this post is the one I could definitely see being popular.

Speaking of poor people, thanks to our buddies in the GOP, there’s a lot more of them :

Some 1.7 million people in the United States slid into poverty in 2002 and incomes slipped for the second year in a row with blacks particularly hard hit, the U.S. government said on Friday in a report sure to provide ammunition for Democrats in the upcoming presidential race.

The Census Bureau’s annual report showed the number of people living below the poverty line rose to 34.6 million last year, from 32.9 million in 2001, when the national economy first went into recession.

Overall, the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty grew for a second year, rising to 12.1 percent from 11.7 percent in 2001. The poverty line was defined in 2002 as $18,244 for a family of four with two children.

In case there was any doubt about who’s responsible for this, the headline of the article above makes it perfectly clear : Poverty Up Second Year on Bush’s Watch