Month: March 2004

I am outraged. Outraged!

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How dare David Crosby do such a thing:

NEW YORK – Musician David Crosby was arrested on marijuana and gun possession charges early Saturday at a Times Square hotel, police said.

Crosby, 62, a two-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had checked out of the hotel but left a piece of luggage behind, police said.

A hotel worker found the bag and went through it looking for identification, and called police after finding marijuana, a .45-caliber handgun and two knives, authorities said.

Smoking. He dared to bring smoking materials into a New York City hotel. Oh, don’t try and pretend that he was just bringing it through; he was planning to take big heaping carcinogenic puffs of smoke and release them on an unsuspecting, pristine Manhattan. Yes, at least it was marijuana, not tobacco, but that’s no excuse. You can bet that he keeps some of those dirty cigarettes around him, too: no, he’s got the look of a pipe smoker. Or maybe – horrors! – he does snuff.

Thank God for Bloomberg, that’s all I have to say.

(Via a ‘shocked’, not ‘outraged’ OTB)

Moe

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Arrgh…

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An entire post about the RNC and Moveon and a recent letter sent by the former to target activities done by the latter and campaign finance rules just got flushed into the ether. Grumble, grumble, groan. Anyway, to summarize (because I don’t think that I can summon up the deathless prose that graced the original): … Read more

Toast and Bitter Revenge.

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Steven Taylor has altered the Toast-O-Meter’s format to reflect Kerry’s effective capture of the Democratic nomination; there are some changed categories and a couple of new ones. Personally, I expect that a see-saw will be be a better metaphor than a toaster for this election (up to the primaries, at least), but that’s just me. … Read more

Damn, they sort of need Esperanto, huh?

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I mean, on the one hand it’s easy to mock the European Union about their latest translation problem. On the other hand, you try translating the entire legal code of a multinational political entity into a variety of languages, including Maltese (a language whose rank on the Most Popular Tongues list is in serious danger … Read more

Greenbacks and Spam

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Would you buy it with a dime? Would you buy it for some time? Would you buy it if you’re poor? Would it make you write much more? If e-mail was no longer free (something geeks around the world are debating, mostly as a response to the scourge of spam), how would that change the … Read more

Well founded fear

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The central requirement for political asylum in the U.S. is to show that you cannot return to your country because of

“persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Does anyone notice anything missing from that list? Anyone? Bueller?

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Last but not least…

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… the Commissar linked to this narrative of a Ukranian* woman’s bike trip through the Chernobyl area. The translation is spotty, but easy to follow, and some of the pictures are subtly disturbing to even the most enthusiastic nuclear supporter (like myself, more or less). Well worth checking out, in other words.

And that, oh my droogies, is it for the night. From me, at least.

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That Taranto. What a scamp he is.

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Turns out that Senator Kerry’s* apparently on the record as opposing the banning of ROTC from colleges that receive financial aid – which, as James Taranto helpfully points out, is already the law, but still. Taranto argues that this would be a good thing for Kerry to play up as a Sister Souljah moment (the various bans are mostly there because of the extremely hypocritical and discriminatory policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” existing in the US military**): I disagree. The last thing that Kerry wants to do is remind the gay community that he is already not the most vocal supporter of gay marriage out there.

Naughty, naughty, James.

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Passing the buck.

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Via BlogSFERICS we see this amusing tale – well, amusing to everybody except the poor LA Times reporter who wants people to make that he was writing about “an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean” instead of “an incomparably glorious and goofy anti-abortion” one. One of those automatic replacement of phrases thing (the opera in … Read more

I got lotsa post-it notes today.

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1). In a plea for attention, Chefyamabushi has linked to us. The egoboo that comes from being sought after for links, coupled with the fact that I’m lumping a bunch of blog-related links together, has led me to note this. And link him back, of course. Besides, he liked the kitten. 2). Has anyone else … Read more

Fine, Fine, You’re Being Credited. Happy?

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Wonkette goes to some trouble to thoroughly debunk rumors (from Page Six of the New York Post, no less!) that Senator Kerry plans to give Terry McAuliffe the axe. I’m still trying to figure out whether she’s just making fun of Drudge’s often-hysterical (both of the major definitions apply here, actually) writing style or not. … Read more

But they said nice things about McCain.

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Or, Why Johnny can’t spend George’s Soft Money.

Also from the Weekly Standard’s David Tell comes an article about certain rulings about McCain-Feingold – and why it’s continuing to have the same effect on Democratic soft money fundraising as a .45 caliber hollowpoint bullet has on the average human spine:

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Starsky & Hutch? Has Hollywood completely given up on hiding the crack abuse?

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Jonathan Last takes the time out from committing HERESY!!!!! HERESY MOST FOUL, YES, MY PRECIOUS!!!!! (pause) Umm, right… anyway, he’s got an interesting article up about this years Oscars: Four out of the last five years the award has been given to a beautiful woman who has bravely turned herself into a hag. This string–Hilary … Read more

Most Definitely NOT a Good Thing…

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Not for Martha, anyway… Martha Stewart Is Guilty of All Charges Pertinent Paragraph: Conviction on the charges against Ms. Stewart would carry a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, but federal guidelines could reduce that to about a year. OK, so this time, I’m serious…I’m shocked.

SOx: A Shout-out to the Law-nerds.

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Only for the lawyer-nerds: Professor Bainbridge has written what seems to be an interesting law review article on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (popularly referred to as “SOx”). Basically, SOx is a response to the recent rash of corporate governance scandals, and resulted in the imposition of a series of (very boring) duties on certain lawyers intended to protect the public from corporate fraud.

I pass the article along for two reasons: First, having sat through innumerable boring SOx lectures, it’s great to see something on the subject that’s actually somewhat provocative. Second, as a practicing lawyer, I must say that I find most law review articles written by law professors to be somewhere between boring and useless (those written by practicioners tend to be better, ’cause they usually focus on real-world results*). Professor Bainbridge’s article looks to be neither. So, here’s a shout-out to the good Professor: keep doin’ what you’re doin’.

von

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Not a “Statistician” Indeed…

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Asked why he later backed down from emploment predicitions in a report he signed, Bush reportedly said “I’m not a statistician. I’m not a predictor.” He’s not someone who can run an effective campaign on the job-creating effects of his tax-cut program either, obviously. U.S. employers added just 21,000 positions in Feb. Pertinent paragraphs: America’s … Read more

Beware of lawyers offering advice, if they ask for no fee.

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Were I inclined to offer Kerry advice on a winning message against Bush, I would simply state: Read William Saletan’s recent article in Slate. Then read it again: Yesterday Kerry’s campaign responded to Bush’s ads by accusing the president of “unsteady leadership.” In the Democratic primaries, this accusation worked for Kerry, because liberals think Bush … Read more

Where’s the line?

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There’s one thing I know about losing a loved one to an unexpected tragedy. There’s no right or wrong way to feel about it…all the thoughts you might have about what happened are valid, no matter how disloyal, no matter how unfair they may seem. In my large family, we form a protective circle around … Read more

Normally, this particular Moonbat’s under my radar…

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…but I’ll take the karma hit to show a little schradenfreude about the lovely news that Ted “Terror Widows” Rall’s strips got tossed from the NYT’s website. You can read all the happy details at Rall’s own site – just turn your BS detectors all the way down first, because when I say Moonbat, I … Read more

Last, Best Hope?

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Pejman Yousefzadeh hopes that the author of this article about peaceful reform in Iran* is correct: Iranian activists from all over the political spectrum are uniting over the issue of passive resistance and other methods of civil disobedience. A book published two years ago, entitled Winds of Change, has helped to inspire the movement: The … Read more

HELL LEMURS!!!!!

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Thanks to Amygdala one of the central mysteries of the universe is explained: to wit, why the heck somebody thought that guitar-playing, off-key singing spong-monkeys would be useful in selling (admittedly-tasty) hot submarine sandwiches. God, I really am getting old. I must concentrate on the fact that somebody called these things hell lemurs – which, … Read more

To everybody popping in from Googling crack Pax Romana…

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…the official link to the site’s here. I agree, it does looks highly addictive; I especially like the internal politics version of the game. Very interesting. Moe PS: Favorite Google hit so far: postmodern pirates of the Caribbean. The possibilities are nigh-endless.

Huh?

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Is there a story behind this CNN sign? (Via Yahoo AP Or is it just a random local issue? I’m genuinely curious: I wasn’t aware that the Democrats were having a problem with CNN.

Passing it along, Part II.

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I almost want this to pass without comment. Well, no I don’t: A woman charged with causing a fatal car crash in 1999 says that she couldn’t have been behind the wheel because she was performing a sex act on the driver at the time. . . . . Specyalski claims that Esposito was driving, … Read more

Round on both Ends, and “High” in the Middle

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On the Today Show, this morning, Tim Russert said that if, in the 2000 election, it was “Florida, Florida, Florida,” this time around it’s “Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.” Hailing from the Buckeye state myself (which I’m currently very upset with for its recent DOMA, I must admit), I’m perhaps more aware than most of what’s been … Read more