So…ummm…whatever. Is there any chance we can get him to take this bullshit with him?

I don’t know why this hits such a nerve with me, but Andrew Sullivan’s obsession with the Theo Van Gogh murder (or rather his obsession with the left’s response to the murder) drives me up the wall. His latest post in the series prompted me to write this letter to him :

Y’know, I haven’t heard Spielberg or Scorsese talk about the murder of Margaret Hassan either. Does that mean they sympathize with terrorists? For someone so fond of citing the principle of Occam’s Razor, you seem to be going out of your way to tarnish those who aren’t as vocal in their denouncements of this obviously heinous crime. The simplest explanation here, that everyone is outraged by the senseless murder of a filmmaker and that they don’t really have much to say about it other than that, is the one you are completely unwilling to accept.

Yes, I’m aware of those assholes you quoted who implied that Van Gogh had it coming, but they don’t speak for the left any more than queer-bashing fundamentalists speak for the right. You’ve turned your outrage over one column into an attack on everyone who isn’t as vocal about this crime as you are. That is, an attack on everyone on the left who doesn’t share your obsession over the Van Gogh murder.

By the way, could you at least be a little consistent about it?? First, you spent a week bashing “liberal columnist[s]” who didn’t write about the crime. Once Salon did a feature story about Theo Van Gogh, you changed your tune. Now, without any warning, your crusade is against the Hollywood elite (the same folks you’re quick to write-off as out out-of-touch airheads every time they say something you don’t agree with). I haven’t heard a peep about this story from NASCAR drivers or any of the chefs on the FOOD Network, perhaps you can target them next??

So please, please, please spare us any more of your self-righteous blather about the murder of Theo Van Gogh. We get it. You’re a better person than anyone on the left because you won’t stop talking about this tragedy.

If this was a conservative blog like Instapundit, this is where I’d throw in a snarky attack like “Let’s see if he’s man enough to print this letter” that not only implies that my target is too weak to print dissenting opinions, but that my letter was so badass that it’s impervious to criticism. I’m not that full of unearned bravado or contempt for my (for lack of a better word) opponent. I doubt this letter will get a response (I’m sure he gets a ton of email), but if it does, I’ll let you know.

UPDATE : Shit. As someone in comments helpfully pointed out, I mixed up the names of the murdered Iraqi aid worker and that lady from the Capitol Gang. Needless to say, I’ve updated the original post and will follow the lead of my favorite cult leader by making myself “available for stoning or crucifixion” at some point in the very distant future.

As I was watching a story on CNN this morning about the possibility of using biometric technology to replace credit cards (and wondering whatever happened to the mandatory bar-code tattoo idea), this all too frequent question popped into my head : How are financial systems able to count our money down to the exact penny, but we have trouble collecting and counting votes with a decent degree of credibility?

The reason for this difference is that fraud and identity theft ultimately hurt the financial companies, not the consumers. Whenever your credit card is stolen, all you have to do (usually) is cancel the card and dispute the charges. At the end of the day, the criminal shopping spree is funded by the credit card company or bank. For that reason, it’s really in their best interests to make their systems as secure and fool-proof as possible.

With voting systems, however, there isn’t the same level of accountability. With hundreds of thousands of votes uncounted for one reason or another, we’re expected to accept the reasoning that they would equally help all parties on the ballot. Besides, as long as it doesn’t change the outcome, who gives a shit about the uncounted ballots, right? And all that voting equipment is soooo expensive. This kind of sloppiness would be unheard of in any financial transactions, so what would happen if we applied the same level of risk to our electoral process that we do to our bank accounts?

Nevermind how this rule would apply to the current political situation, what would happen if every undervote, overvote, “spoiled” ballot, and miscellaneous vote problem were always counted against the incumbent? Just imagine for a moment the amount of pressure there would be on our elected officials to fix this problem if they were facing opponents who would instantly gain thousands of extra votes without having to kiss any additional asses? I know it’s an incredibly stupid idea, but I guarantee we’d have all these Diebold hacking, paper trail lacking, chad hanging problems solved pretty goddamn fast.

Since the over-commercialization of everything in our society has seemingly transformed the twelve days of Christmas into a good 30-40, I guess it’s never too early to evoke the Christmas spirit. Since politics is the name of the game here, lemme endorse this new bit of senate branding :

Please tell me I’m not the only one who picked up on this dichotomy during the VP debate :



Ho ho ho…

UPDATE : For those of you who are scratching your heads over the “Mr. Potter” reference, here’s a hint :

Seriously, I know it’s fashionable to say that both parties are controlled by corporate interests, but here’s yet another example of the disparity between the two parties :

The top-giving corporate political action committees didn’t hedge their bets in the fall elections despite the narrow division between the GOP and Democrats in Congress.

They favored Republican candidates 10-to-1.

Of 268 corporate PACs that donated $100,000 or more to presidential and congressional candidates from January 2003 through the middle of last month, 245 gave the majority of their contributions to GOP hopefuls, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Political Money Line campaign finance tracking service.

Jerome Armstrong has more details over at MyDD :

See, if we had a Democratic party leadership with some steel for action to change the status quo, they’d come out with a PR asking Democratic party voters to stop going to Wendy’s if they are going to only contribute to Republicans. Instead, we get the likes that are grateful for the 7% in crumbs, which is good enough to buy off their silence.

Overall, the list of Corporations that give more than 50% of their contributions to the Republican Party numbers 254. On the senate side? There is only one Corp. that gives above 60% to the Democratic party, CableVisions Systems at 78%, and 22 others in the 50-59% range. It’s a 10:1 ratio in the number of corporations favoring Republicans over Democrats, but for the actual money, it’s much higher, 25:1 or greater.

The GOP has the corporations in their pockets writing the laws. The only way the Democratic party can possibly counter is through having leaders that recognize the power of a million individuals nationwide being a part of a netroots/grassroots effort to reform the political system.

The best thing the Democratic party could do for itself is to pick a DNC head like Howard Dean who can mobilize grassroots contributors and give the party enough financial indepedence to tell the corporate donors to take a hike.

Last week, Andrew Sullivan chastised “liberal American columnist[s]” for their apparent silence on the murder of Theo Van Gogh saying “Do you think if a member of the religious right had killed a Hollywood director they would have managed to say something?”. Of course an American religious nutjob killing an American director would be bigger news in America, but the relative silence on this particular incident when held against the hypothetical outrage on a fictitious incident just proves his point. Or something. This is an especially odd attack since, as far as I can tell, Van Gogh’s murder isn’t that big a story anywhere in America, not just in the liberal press. Today, much to Sullivan’s chagrin, Salon did a feature article on the Van Gogh murder.

Never one to let the facts get in the way of misguided rage, he now complains “Hollywood’s relative silence becomes all the more repulsive.” If Barbara Streisand and Tim Robbins take stand against this murder (as if something obviously evil like this needs to be repudiated), would Sullivan even bother listening or would he just complain that the Hollywood liberals should just keep their mouths shut? And if the Hollywood elite follows the liberal columnists in going public with their outrage, what group would Andrew choose next to implicate for their perceived tolerance of Islamofacism?

Here in America, when our leaders lie us into a war and then completely fuck it up, we re-elect them with a mandate to do more of the same. On the other side of the pond they take gross dishonesty and incompetence a little more seriously :

A motion to impeach Tony Blair for “gross misconduct” over the Iraq war has been tabled in Parliament.

A total of 23 MPs have put their names to the motion, which is the first attempt to impeach a Prime Minister for 198 years.

The MPs say that the Prime Minister misled Parliament and the country over the case for war, destroying “the fundamental principle of parliamentary democracy”.

The group wants a select committee to be set up to examine the Prime Minister’s conduct in relation to the war and to consider whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach him on charges of gross misconduct.

It says the Government should consider the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group, that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and the declaration by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, that the war was illegal.

The group also wants the committee to consider whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach Mr Blair on charges of “gross misconduct in his advocacy of the case for war and in his conduct of policy in connection with that war”, the MPs demanded.

Don’t fret, fellow Yanks. Here’s the smoking gun that will make impeachment of our leader inevitable :

Happy Turkey Day everybody!

Okay, let’s take a short break from the politics, shall we? Let’s talk music, movies, TV, etc. Here’s what’s been on my media plate lately :

MOVIES – Loved The Incredibles (which we’ve discussed already) and I’m really looking forward to The Life Aquatic. That Lemony Snicket movie looks pretty good too, but I need to hurry up and read the other books first. Other than that I haven’t paid much attention to what’s coming out soon.

MUSIC – I don’t care what the purists say, The Beatles’ Capitol Albums box set kicks ass. Even if it is a bastardization of their British releases, some of the mixes sound better with the added reverb and fake stereo. I hope they continue the series and include the soundtracks to Help and A Hard Days Night (complete with the instrumental bits) and the interview disc The Beatles Story.

TV – I got the Freaks & Geeks DVD’s for my birthday and it’s now one of my favorite shows ever. Go figure, since I loved Paul Feig’s book Kick Me as well as the semi-followup series Undeclared. As far as current shows are concerned, everyone should watch Arrested Development. It’s one of the funniest and smartest shows on TV, and by that I mean that it’s going to get canceled any day now.

BOOKS - Here’s where we end up back in the realm of politics. I’m about halfway through Lakoff’s much-praised Don’t Think Of An Elephant. It’s pretty damn good so far, but so far it seems like he’s a lot better at identifying problems than solving them. By that I mean, I think he’s done a good job isolating Republican frames, but I’m not as big fan of his ideas for senate frames. I’ll have more to say when I finish the book. I’m also fighting my way through The Second Bill of Rights, which is fascinating, but really drags in parts.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t mentioned my current addiction to Mario Vs. Donkey Kong for the Gameboy, or the new Looney Tunes DVD’s, or the Shins CD that’s been stuck in my car for the last three months….

Not only does England have universal healthcare, but they also have the coolest weirdos ever. In the past year they’ve had the Spider-Man protester…

A man who spent six days barricaded atop a construction crane in central London dressed as Spider-Man climbed down Wednesday.

David Chick had dressed as his daughter’s favorite comic book character to lobby against what he said was a legal system that kept him from seeing the girl.
. . .
Chick, 36, was protesting to highlight the difficulties some separated or divorced fathers have in gaining access to their children. His friends say he has not seen his daughter for eight months.

…the Batman protester…

Holy intruder! A protester dressed in a Batman costume scaled the front wall of Buckingham Palace on Monday and perched for more than five hours on a ledge near the balcony where the royal family appears on ceremonial occasions.
. . .
Two police officers in a cherry-picker crane removed the protester, Jason Hatch, from the ledge at about 7:15 p.m., 5 hours after he climbed up. His Batman mask removed and a white helmet placed on his head, he waved and clapped as the crane lowered him to the ground.

Hatch, 33, from Gloucester, is a member of the Fathers 4 Justice group, which is campaigning for greater custody rights for divorced or separated fathers and has staged a number of prominent stunts to promote their cause.

…and now the Santa Claus protester.

A British man dressed as Santa Claus scaled the main gate of Buckingham Palace and chained himself to the top of a pillar Tuesday before police pulled him down, the latest such costumed protest by a group campaigning for more rights for divorced or separated fathers.
. . .
The campaign group Fathers 4 Justice identified the man as David Pyke, who has demonstrated before at the palace. In September, dressed as Batman’s sidekick Robin, he accompanied fellow protester Jason Hatch to the royal residence. Hatch, who was dressed as Batman, climbed onto a palace balcony, where he remained for several hours, but Pyke was not as successful and was quickly removed.

So, what’s the deal here? Are the divorce laws in England really that draconian or is there just a surplus of crazy divorced dads over there?

You wanna feel really out of touch and completely repulsed?? Check out this snippet of an interview with G. Gordon Liddy (via Andrew Sullivan) :

He turns to me and smiles. “So – where do we begin?” he says. I try to smile back and say as sweetly as I can, “How about with Adolf Hitler?”

The Fuhrer was G Gordon Liddy’s first political hero. Liddy was a sickly, asthmatic child when he grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, in the 1930s. The town was full of ethnic Germans who idolized Hitler. Liddy was made to salute the Stars and Stripes Nazi-style by the nuns at his school; even now, he admits, “at assemblies where the national anthem is played, I must suppress the urge to snap out my right arm.” His beloved German nanny taught him that Hitler had – through sheer will-power – “dragged Germany from weakness to strength.”

This gave Liddy hope “for the first time in my life” that he too could overcome weakness. When he listened to Hitler on the radio, it “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before,” he explains. “Hitler’s sheer animal confidence and power of will [entranced me]. He sent an electric current through my body.” He describes seeing the Nazis’ doomed technological marvel the Hindenberg flying over New Jersey as an almost religious experience. “Ecstatic, I drank in its colossal power and felt myself grow. Fear evaporated and in its place came a sense of personal might and power.”

A-ha. So, Mr Liddy, do you feel that your early, formative love for Hitler shaped your political behavior later in life? “Oh, no,” he says somberly. He renounces Hitler’s war against the Jews as “evil” and flaunts his support for Israel’s hard right as evidence he is not an anti-Semite. “It was part of my childhood, that’s all,” he says.

Really? That doesn’t seem to match the historical record. In his autobiography, Liddy admits that, after reading the writings of the notorious anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh, Liddy decided to pick his wife on eugenic grounds. He held out for “a tall, fair, powerfully built Teuton.” Isn’t that behavior at the very least in the shadow of Hitler? “Of course not. Genetics is accepted by everyone.” But a Teuton? My dictionary defines it as “descended from an ancient Germanic tribe. Often synonymous with Aryan.” He waves his hand and says, “That’s how we spoke then. This is political correctness.”

This isn’t just any right-wing nutjob. Liddy’s radio show attracts more than 2 million listeners per day and he’s an infrequent guest host on Crossfire.

Do I think Liddy is representative of the right as a whole? Of course not, but he does attract a much larger audience than that racist asshole who called Condi Rice “Aunt Jemima”. While the Aunt Jemima thing it part of a more disturbing pattern, it’s funny how we on the left are always expected to answer for our lunatics when the ones on the right are much more popular and extreme in their views. I shudder to think what the reaction would be if a prominent liberal like Al Franken said Hitler “made me feel a strength inside I had never known before”.

Let me introduce you to the Congressman Earnest J. Istook. As you may or may not have heard on the news, he’s the one responsible for the 9/11 Intelligence Reform bill getting stalled in Congress, because he inserted a last-minute amendment that would allow legislators the power to look at your tax returns. Sure, there’s more to this story than meets the eye, but the most relevant fact here right now is that this man wants to take advantage 9/11 in order to sneak big brother into your lives :

This man is a hypocrite.

Since phone calls to our representatives generally fall on deaf ears, let me try another approach. Ernie represents Oklahoma’s Fifth Congressional district :



As you can see by the map, the three largest cities in Istook’s district are Oklahoma City, Shawnee, and Edmond. Are the people in these cities fully aware of what their Congressional surrogate is up to? Just in case they don’t, feel free to contact his constituents directly through letters or phone calls to the editors of the Daily Oklahoman, the Shawnee News-Star, and the Edmund Sun or through the local NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX affiliates. If you’d like to hit all these media outlets at the same time, try using the Democratic party’s “Alert the Media” page.

Istook is yet another example of the “What I say at home, stays at home” mentality that controls Congress. He pats himself on the back for being “the taxpayer’s friend” by supporting a balanced budget amendment, but he pats himself on the back for all the government pork he’s brought to his district and supports the president’s tax cuts that are mostly responsible for our record deficit and massive spending cuts. He ran as a “common sense conservative” while promising “integrity”, yet he’s sneaking provisions into a bill that’s a crucial part of our country’s efforts to protect ourselves. The people of Oklahoma deserve to know what kind of back-room sleaziness is being done on their behalf.

UPDATE : Okay, I screwed this one up. The provision was stuck into the $388 billion appropriations bill, not the intelligence overhaul bill. In my defense, I’ve been so hopped up on NyQuil for the past week, it’s hard to keep up with the latest twists in the GOP’s brazen abuse of the public’s trust.

I can’t think of a more appropriate word to describe this sort of thing than “fascist” :

It’s easy to forget how radical a document the U.S. Constitution really is. It demands no oath of fealty to the president or even to God. Officeholders swear instead to uphold the strange, ambiguous, open-to-interpretation document that is the Constitution itself. This is a radical notion because it allows for individual judgments about what that Constitution means?and recognizes that sorting that meaning out can sometimes be a messy business.

It’s worth recalling all this, as we are reminded yet again that neither individual judgment nor messiness seems to be tolerated by the current administration. Sen. Arlen Specter saved his seat as the next chairman of the senate Judiciary Committee by signing a pledge?a pledge that had to be drafted, then redrafted to the specifications of the GOP leadership. Specter had the temerity to offer a descriptive statement after the election?not on its face a warning or a normative declaration of his own intentions, but the obvious observation that “When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, who’d overturn Roe v. Wade, I think [their confirmation] is unlikely,” he said. “The president is well aware of what happened, when a number of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster.” He has said that whether or not he’d vote to confirm judicial nominees “obviously depends on the president’s judicial nominees. … I hope that I can support them.”

Following the firestorm, the pray-in, the retractions, and the bloodletting, Specter’s endorsement could come only after he’d agreed, in writing, to “not use a litmus test to deny confirmation to pro-life nominees” and that he had “no reason to believe that I’ll be unable to support any individual President Bush finds worthy of nomination.” Over his initial objections, he further pledged to support the so-called “nuclear option” to put an end to filibusters: “If a rule change is necessary to avoid filibusters, there are relevant recent precedents to secure rules changes with 51 votes,” he said.

Just to clarify: In order to claim the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter was forced to abandon future personal or independent judgment?the very judgment the people of Pennsylvania elected him to exercise. He has pledged?in advance of knowing who they are?to endorse the president’s judicial nominees and to vote for a highly controversial GOP rule change to end filibusters and effectively terminate dissent of any sort in the senate.

I wonder how many people realized that they were voting in a one-party state on Nov. 2nd?

John Kerry has released the video and online petition for this “Protect Every Child” bill. Go check it out and sign on today. Here’s an extended description from the site :

A Health Care Plan for Every Child:

Every parent knows the fear of waking up to the cries of a sick baby or a child with an ear infection that will not go away. As parents, we both remember the countless times we called that first pediatrician to get answers to every last question.

But far too many parents have another fear, on top of their child?s health. They worry that a sick child means financial ruin. There are more than eight million uninsured children in our nation. These children are less likely to get a routine checkup, or to get treatment for common ailments like asthma. They miss more days of school. It is a disgrace that eight million children lack health insurance in the richest nation on earth.

Our plan starts by providing health insurance for every child in America. Under the Kerry plan, the federal government will pay the full costs for the 20 million children in the Medicaid program. In return, we will ask states to expand coverage to children in families with higher incomes than are currently eligible, as well as low-income adults. This plan will expand coverage to millions of people and provide much needed relief for states that are struggling under persistent growing budgetary pressures.

The plan will also simplify the health care system so we can prevent children from falling through the cracks. Right now, there are millions of kids who are eligible for federal/state health insurance programs but are not signed up.

There are lots of reasons?sometimes the enrollment forms require the skills of an accountant to figure out. Some states make parents sign up every six months in person, making it virtually impossible for a parent who cannot get time of for afford to lose a whole day of work. Some parents do not even know these programs are available.

Under our plan, kids will be signed up automatically at hospitals, community health centers, and schools. And $5 billion in enrollment bonuses will be available to states as an incentive to find uninsured children and keep them covered. Children do not choose their parents. They do not choose whether to have health insurance. Children deserve a good start?with both high quality education and health care. Under our plan, every child in America will have health insurance, and every parent will have a little more peace of mind.

Let’s hope this is the start of something big and not just a last hurrah for the campaign.

Since it doesn’t seem to be online, you can read the full transcript of Kerry’s statement in the extended entry…
(more…)

So here’s a question for you : Is this an article about a popular television show or the death penalty?

Ray Krone, wrongly convicted twice of killing a woman, is getting rid of a key piece of evidence used against him: his crooked smile.

The exonerated man, once dubbed the “Snaggletooth Killer” and sentenced to death, is getting a winning grin courtesy of the ABC reality show “Extreme Makeover.”

Krone will undergo extensive dental work, a hair transplant, an eye lift, nose job and liposuction on his cheeks. He will spend nearly two months recovering from surgery and meeting with a fitness trainer and nutritionist.

“It’s the embarrassment of being called the Snaggletooth Killer, living with that,” Krone, now lives in Dover Township, Pa., said in a telephone interview before leaving for California, where his cosmetic adventure began Thursday. “My teeth are what they really used to convict me.”
. . .
In 2002, new DNA testing proved Krone was innocent and he was freed. DNA from the crime scene was linked to a man already in prison for another crime.

Unfortunately, I think the best the “Snaggletooth Killer” can expect is to be a guest star on a very special episode of “Fixing Ugly People”. We can’t let people know that there’s any problems with the way capital punishment is administered in this country. He’s an exception that proves the rule, right?

John Kerry will be issuing the following statement today (via Atrios) :

And we must fight not only against George Bush’s extreme policies — we must also uphold our own values. This is why on the first day Congress is in session next year, I will introduce a bill to provide every child in America with health insurance. And, with your help, that legislation will be accompanied by the support of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

There are more than eight million uninsured children in our nation.

That’s eight million reasons for us to stay together and fight for a new direction. It is a disgrace that in the wealthiest nation on earth, eight million children go without health insurance.

Normally, a member of the senate will first approach other senators and ask them to co-sponsor a bill before it is introduced — instead, I am turning to you. Imagine the power of a bill co-sponsored by hundreds of thousands of Americans being presented on the floor of the United States senate. You can make it happen. Sign our “Every Child Protected” pledge today and forward it to your family, friends, and neighbors…

It’s about goddamn time the Democrats started coming up with some wedge issues. I can’t wait to see the President try to explain why poor children don’t deserve healthcare.