Another reason to vote for Melissa Bean and against Phil Crane: the list of sitting Congresscrittes who took dirty money: Tom DeLay PAC Contributions, By State Yep, Crane took about $10,000 – amazing. He manages to be a do-nothing at taking graft, too. Lots more Rethugs took way more, and quite a few didn’t take much or gave theirs back. So he’s bumping along in the middle.
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Regarding yesterday’s plane crash in Missouri: when this kind of thing happens, the airline inhibits the internal flight information that we can look up in the reservations system. There’s just no sane way to to update flifo with “Plane crashed” and not seem really crude and heartless. Normal flifo for that flight for today shows that it’s been cancelled, but with no explanation: 2AA5966/20OCT« AA5966/20OCT CORPORATE AIRLINES STL 642P B14 IRK 734P 1FX CANCEL STL -IRK - *1001 Flifo for yesterday’s fatal crash simply comes back 2AA5966/19OCT« FLIFO DISPLAY AND UPDATES INHIBITED.
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I gave Media Matters some money, a few minutes ago. They’ve made my day. In fact, I’m so cheered up generally that I’ll actually talk about something other than politics for a minute: the proposed film of Pattern Recognition. One of these days (I’m shooting for November 3rd or 4th, you know) I’ll get back to nattering on about something other than my nascent interest in politics. I’m pretty cheered up generally by a lot of the things linked at Media Matters, a site I’ve run across before. So I added them to my Bloglines list. They’re probably a little…
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It’s been interesting tracking citations of the Ron Suskind article; that paragraph about how reporters and other people who think about the issues are part of the “reality-based community” has been making the rounds. And now Joey, soon to be known as Engaged Guy, has created a handy graphic. I can’t wait to see this mutate into buttons, shirts, web banners, and so on. So far, it’s showed up in a bunch of articles gathered at The Smirking Chimp (natch), plus lots of other commentators at major news sites, plus blogs, yadda yadda. Apparently we’re all shocked and awed that…
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People ask how we do the job we do, and there’s another answer, too: because of you. We fight, and you hope. The act of taking up that banner links everyone together, even if you never take up a weapon. Freedom doesn’t mean isolation; it means connection, and admittance to a club with a wide-open membership. We have a common desire, it’s just the execution that’s different. People ask how they can support us. It’s very simple. Vote. I don’t care who you vote for, I just care that you do. Our deaths, our injuries, our sacrifices, are all payment…
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Oh, yes, I’ve been wanting one of these for a while now. David has one, and his photos always come out with much more depth and richness than my current camera can give. In the May road trip album, all the pictures I took in Moab of rock art came out pretty “meh” because of the glare, and the fact that I couldn’t change focus (much) on my camara – it has digital zoom, which I found did not work very well on pictures I took for the England trip. David’s, meanwhile, came out much better, though a stepladder might…
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Kerry, we acknowledge, stands to the left of this newspaper on many issues. To restore fiscal order and responsibility, he must leave behind some of the social programs he favors. As a practical matter, a check on his more liberal instincts might be provided by a Congress that is likely to remain in Republican hands – although this Congress has aided and abetted the Bush administration’s building of record deficits. My God! The Daily Herald, a conservative suburban newspaper with a distinctly faith-based, family-oriented slant (Holy Moly advertises in it occasionally) endorses a Democrat challenger over a Republican incumbent. It’s…
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The Chicago Tribune has endorsed George W. Bush for President. Apparently the editorial was written by a journalist who, in spite of the many proven omissions, prevarications, contextual elisions and flat-out lies put out by the administration, spouts the same tired “strong leader, working hard” party line. It’s particularly shocking given that they have endorsed Bean over Crane, Obama over Keyes. Perhaps the Trib is merely attempting to preserve the appearance of non-partisanship, because the editorial is thoughtfully and carefully written. However, the arguments for retaining Bush and rejecting Kerry smack a little too much of shopworn Republican talking points.…
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Something I’ve been meaning to do: I’m going to set upInline Trackbacks using one of the methods at Elise’s Learning Moveable Type. It looks pretty straightforward – I’ll be able to do it as a PHP include. Just not right now – too many other irons in the fire.
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During an appearance to promote his children’s book on “Live with Regis and Kelly,” O’Reilly said he’d been repeatedly threatened with lawsuits and bodily harm over the past few years. He said he knew that by filing his lawsuit, he could perhaps ruin his career. “If I have to go down, I’m willing to do it,” he said. “I’m going to take a stand. I’m a big mouth on the air and I’m a big mouth off the air.” That’s very generous; but sorry, not interested. Sorry about the Salon quote – if you want to read the full article,…