Strawman

This is interesting as well...CBS calls bullshit on Bush. And he debated at Yale. He knows what he's doing.

This was news a few days ago, I just didn't get to add it.

The Pew Research Center released the funniest (funny/sad) poll results on the 15th of March. Respondents (among other questions) were asked to give a one word description of George Bush. The results are below. Here is the link to the Pew site's poll and analysis.




























I like the people who gave the answer "president". That answer didn't make the cut the last two times the poll was given. Was this group just less creative? Carbon based life form should get a few next time. Maybe they didn't want to pick a side. I did notice that good was given a few more times. Unfortunately those three new people who said "good" were outweighed by the "ass" contingent by more than a 2:1 ratio.


Check out the link, there are some other interesting results. Especially the "Changing Impressions of Bush's Ideology". I think maybe the republicans who are unhappy with Bush are using the rationalization that he's turning liberal or "is" liberal as justification for their viewpoints.

Also, the comparison of Bush to Reagan in terms of how "in touch" they are with government. Wasn't Bush supposed to be the return to those halcyon Reagan years?

Texas Primary recount halted, Chicago...

Texas halts their primary recount due to "irregularities": link here (thanks to the Bradblog and democraticunderground) "Apparently, McKerley said, new electronic voting machines provided by vendor Hart InterCivic are not printing ballots for every vote cast on the machines."

Ready4change on democraticunderground brings up the question: [paraphrase without sarcasm] Are the irregularities favoring one party over the other? Specifically, Republican over Democrat?

in related news:

NBC reported that a machine had been stolen in Dallas: link here Thank God the people in charge have assured us that the machine can't be used to hack into the system! I wonder though if the information gleaned from the machine could make it easier to rig future elections? Truthfully, I'm less afraid of the thieves than of the people in charge.

24 California citizens suing Secretary of State over his conditional certification of DIEBOLD voting machines despite their numerous flaws: link here Will this lawsuit be concluded before the mid-term elections? the 2008 elections? We can only hope.

South Dakota...death of the modern Republican Party?

So, I should've written about this when it happened last week, but I'm on a weird schedule. You know how it goes.

Will South Dakota's law preventing abortion except in the extreme case that the pregnancy threatens the mother's life be.... what the fuck will it be?

Republicans seem to have been pushing for this for at least the last 6 years. The renunciation of that vile activist Supreme Court decision so many years ago. The SD law, signed (and followed, more heinously, by a law setting up an ANONYMOUS legal fund to defend the law) last week by SD governor Mike Rounds could be the shot heard round the hill or the death knell for congressional republicans.

While confusing, the idea is to fight for something just hard enough to look like you're fighting, but not hard enough to actually get it because then you don't have anything to fight for anymore and your opponents suddenly do. Republicans (and I'm talking about elected Republicans) never really wanted to strike down Roe vs. Wade. Restrict it slowly, very slowly (like once every one or two terms by tiny bits...) that's okay, no one will notice.

Unfortunately for the Republican party, SD didn't get the whole message. They actually thought that the Republicans wanted incest and rape victims, underage girls and unwanted mothers to carry their babies to term. They actually believed the hype that that's what the American people wanted as well. It was a "mandate" after all. The truth, according to a recent Newsweek article is that 2:1 Americans believe in the basic tenets of Roe vs. Wade. Where they tend to differ is on distinctions such as parental notification (which is an iffy subject even to the most liberal and really should be decided on a case by case basis....which it can't be because that would require a trial for each case).

Anyway, ranking Republicans are shying away from this issue and it looks as if Ole Miss' might be following SD's lead. Why aren't the Dem's stepping up? Go ahead and guess... Cause they always lose on the abortion issue. It just SOUNDS better to be against abortion cause there's no way to misunderstand that stance while a nuanced and considered approach can be made to sound like revisiting Hitler's Germany with very little effort.

Do I think Dem's need more balls? Yes. Do I envy the job? No. Do I think questioning myself and then providing the answer is a little pompous? Of course.

Ding...ding......dead

So, Slobodan Milosevic is dead. As I listened to the radio (mostly the BBC since it's the weekend) throughout the day the idea that his death might not have been natural seemed to gain volume. I doubt he was poisened. He was sick, that was established, and he thought (the day before he died) that he was being poisened was reported.

The question that I automatically ask myself is "Who would benefit?" The truth is that he was never going to see the light of day again. The only group that would benefit from his untimely death would be his supporters or the nationalist party of Yugoslav if he was considered a matyr for "the cause". Noone else had anything to gain.

A commentator on the BBC, a journalist who had spent a lot of time with Milosevic prior to his death, said that he was a communist who transformed into a nationalist at the fall of communism but who was really neither. Instead he was an opportunist that only cared about his own power and wealth. I'm inclined to believe that assessment from what I've read and heard, though I could easily be wrong.

Just a little note...

I just wanted to say that the comments that are erased are not real comments; people can post whatever they want as long as it's not a blatant ad for penis enlargement. I've had a lot of those since I've been gone. Seriously, I've all about free speech as long as you're not using a free forum to make money for yourself.

get me as much of that juice as you can

jeffrey k skilling sez: "get me as much of that juice as you can"around a giant bearhug as they defrauded investors and wall street. I get a warm feeling when I hear enron executives getting all lovey-dovey in the boardroom as they bled their investors and employees dry. A business culture that rewards carnivores won't quit when the chips are down and it's every man for himself in the courtroom. ( a paraphrase from the whistleblower who exposed the shiesty accounting "practices" of enron and fastow).