Conservative Corner (my brother, Dan)
Naked and Unashamed (my brother, Scott)
Crazy Aunt Purl
(my friend Laurie)
There's Pie In the Lunchroom
(my friend Chuck)
Too Fat For Ponies
(my friend Sam)
Nashville Junk
(a Tennessean insider)
Recent posts:
2006
Jan 16-20, 2006
Jan 3-11, 2006
2005
Dec 27-30, 2005
Dec 19-22, 2005
Dec 8-16, 2005
Dec 1-7, 2005
Jan. 27, 2006
In Springfield, Mo. a man with a homemade needle gun went door to door selling his services as a tattoo artist. Amazingly, he got some takers. What's not so amazing is that everyone got infections and now must get checked out for hepatitis and HIV.
I'm not a big fan of tattoos, but if you're determined to get one, go to a reputable studio. Check out the facility and make sure the place is clean and hygenic. Don't be stupid.
An interesting aside: I told a co-worker about this story and we both cracked wise about how dumb it was to get a tattoo from a door-to-door jerk. Then I tried to get cute.
"Where'd you get your tattoo?" I asked, figuring she didn't actually have one. She paused.
"Did I tell you I have a tattoo?" she said.
"No!" I laughed. "I had no idea you were inked."
"Aaah!" she yelled. "Busted!" Heh. I didn't press it further, not wanting to invade her privacy. It's really none of my business. I was just playing around. But what it does show you is that you never know who's sporting ink.
Speaking of being stupid, do you know what's really stupid? Underage drinking. But what's mind-blowingly stupid? Getting off with a stern lecture from a judge, then going out the next day and having a big party in which you take drunken photos of yourselves flipping the judge a bird and posting them on a website.
The judge had chastised nine students caught drinking at a Troy high school prom last spring. That would be the end of it, he figured.
It was, until Judge Michael Martone stumbled across a Web site weeks after the students had been sentenced to probation. Leering back at him from his computer screen were some of the same students from Troy Athens High School, now in college.
On the site, they were giving him the finger. They were toasting him with cups of beer and chugging shots of Jagermeister liqueur. They were posing with beer cans stacked almost to the ceiling, and retching into toilets at Michigan State University.
The Web site's headline said: "F U Martone. ... Night after court/ Hahaaa."
Of course the judge got the last laugh. He drug them back into court and sentenced the honor student who created the web site to 30 days in jail, coinciding with both Christmas and New Years. Her friends got 15. He also made her explain the meaning of every profanity in open court. Heh.
See, the thing is that the judge in the case is a big crusader against underage drinking. He'd made a presentation at the high school a few weeks before the original incident. In fact, it was while searching for a press release on one of his anti-drinking programs that he found the site the kids put up. Not smart for an honor student.
Make of this what you will. Bush has nominated Noel L. Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Division for a federal judgeship. That, in an of itself is a good thing. However, Hillman is the man in charge of the Jack Abramoff investigation and has now stepped down as head of the PID so he can prepare for confirmation hearings.
Is Bush trying to throw a monkey wrench in the works? I don't know, but I don't like the timing.
I like to think that I have a pretty decent sense of humor. I like to laugh. My Sirius box is tuned to the comedy stations more often than the music channels. But I just don't get a lot of what passes for humor on the right.
Take the Queen of the Harpies, Ann Coulter. She claims to be funny, but I don't get it. She just seems mean. At a recent speech she said someone should poison Supreme Court Justice Paul Stevens because we need more conservatives on the court.
Am I missing something?
Have a good weekend.
Jan. 26, 2006
On this week's episode of "Fear Factor" the middle stunt, which is usually the gross stunt, had an odd twist. The contestant sat in a barber chair surrounded by diagrams of bad haircuts. The chair was spun and whichever diagram the contestant's head wound up pointing to was the haircut the Fear Factor barber was going to give the contestant.
When I saw this, I thought "how lame is that?" That's not a stunt. Who can't sit back and get their hair cut? Eating giant camel spiders, that's a stunt, but a haircut? Come on!
To my utter shock, the first woman to sit in the chair refused to get her hair cut. She gave up a shot at $50,000 rather than have her long, blonde hair cut. Unbelievable. That left two couples. The second couple sat down and completed the stunt. They got patches shaved in their heads. They looked terrible, but they were still in the running for the money.
The last couple stepped up. The chick sat in the chair and it spun around to "completely bald." She had long beautiful black hair. She's a beautician. She'd been trash talking about how she was going to go through with it and beat the other couple tomorrow. Refusing to do the stunt would leave only one couple, which meant they automatically win $25,000 and they bring back everyone for the final stunt to compete for the other $25,000.
She chickened out. She was all set to do it and her boyfriend said "How long before you'll be able to do something with your hair again?" "Eight months," she replied. "Then you wear a wig for eight months," he said.
That scared her. "No way I'm wearing a wig" and she quit. Heh. Dollie and I both yelled at the TV. What a bunch of vain people. $25,000 will buy a very nice wig or hari extensions or whatever. Regardless, it grows back.
"If we were on 'Fear Factor' I'd be high-fiving you over this stunt," I told Dollie. "I'd just be happy I didn't have to eat something."
Today marks day two of the Senate debate over Alito. Here's the thing, there are more than 41 Democrats ready to vote "no" but not enough to support a fillibuster. I cannot understand why the Dems think a large opposition vote will send some kind of message to the president.
Look, people, fillibuster this man. That sends a message to the president. Why are you keeping your powder dry on this? If you're not going to do it to preserve Roe, then do it to preserve the checks and balances in our government. Do it to protect your own power with respect to the other branches.
What are they afraid of? That the Republicans are going to call them obstructionist? So what? I've got news for you, the Republicans are going to find some name to call you no matter how you vote.
All I hear from the Democratic party when they want money is how important it is to donate because they're the only thing keeping right-wing extremists off the Supreme Court. Then they rollover for Samual Freaking Alito? This is disgraceful.
They said the same thing about Clarence Thomas. He squeaked through with the lowest number of yes votes ever. Did that send a message to Poppy? Who cares! Who freaking cares! Here we are years later and Thomas is still on the court and he's about to be joined by someone even more conservative them he is.
I called my senators, but my senators are Frist and Alexander, they're both Republican and are weak on the Constitution. They have no problem giving over so much power to the executive branch.
This is deplorable. Fillibuster Alito, Dems. If you lose, at least you fought for what's right. If you let this one get by without doing everything you can to stop it, you'll never get another cent from me.
Both the WaPo and the LAT picked up the story about the Bush administration not supporting the 2002 proposal to lower the FISA standards. The administration has responded, but as Think Progress points out, the response rings false.
The Justice Department has issued a 42-page white paper describing how they believe Bush's NSA domestic spying operation is legal. At CBS, attorney and legal analyist Andrew Cohen describes the paper like this:
"The first time you read the "White Paper," you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution. The second time you read the memo, you have plenty of questions, legal and otherwise, about many of the assertions it contains. The third time you read it, you wonder if the conservative Supreme Court won't, in the end, somehow recognize its breathtakingly broad view of executive power."
A Balitmore woman installed security cameras because someone has been stealing her prescription painkillers. She caught the guy on tape. It was her neighbor, a local sportscaster.
Jan. 25, 2006
Let's turn back the clock to September 2005. Katrina had just wrecked the Gulf Coast and America was horrified by the slow response by FEMA. Bush promised to get to the bottom of it.
"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Mr. Bush said. "We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD attack or another major storm."
So here we are in 2006 and the Senate is holding hearings into the federal response to Katrina. What is the White House doing? I believe the term is stonewalling. Of course you wouldn't know that to read the headline in the New York Times: "White House Declines to Provide Storm Papers."
It seems that newly uncovered documents show that the White House received warnings 29 hours before Katrina hit that New Orleans would flood. Bush went fishing.
You will no doubt recall that Bush told Katie Couric that "Nobody could have predicted that the levees would fail."
Well, except for, you know, the Department of Homeland Security. The stonewalling has gotten so bad that even Joe Lieberman, the Republican's best friend in the Senate, is getting upset:
"There has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation that we have a responsibility to do," he said.
The White House won't turn over documents related to the storm and won't let administration officials testify. Look again at what Bush said in September:
"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Mr. Bush said. "We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD attack or another major storm."
Well, what has he done? He said he would take the lead, but it's been months and we've seen nothing. Here's the funny part. The White House claims that, although they won't turn over documents or let their staffers testify before Congress, "The White House and the administration are cooperating with both the House and Senate."
It is the typical up-is-down/black-is-white statements coming from this administration. I can only hope America is getting as tired of this as I am.
In Albany, a case against two Muslims who may have been involved in a plot to sell missle launchers to terrorists is in jeopardy because the wiretap used to hook them may have been illegal. This would be the part where I say "I told you so."
Fruit from a poisoned tree is not allowed in court. So, if Bush's domestic spying program is illegal, then we cannot use that information to actually convict anyone.
All that being said, it appears that this case is trumped up anyway. The two Muslims involved are members of a Mosque and were approached by undercover agents. They were offered $10,000 to broker a deal for missle launchers for a phony terrorist organization and a phony terrorist plot.
Granted, the two of them should never have agreed, but this appears to be a classic case of entrapment. If the only terrorists or terror plots are concocted by the cops, then you haven't really uncovered anything, right?
Good editorial in the WaPo about the White House and Abram-mam-off. Also in the Post, Harold Myerson outlines his argument as to why the Bush administration will go down as the most incompetant in history:
"It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running."
Cindy Adams, a gossip columnist for the NY Post, had this tidbit buried deep in today's column:
Jack Abramoff's partner Mike Scanlon admitted to digging up former Congressman Robert Livingston's private life. Set to become speaker, Livingston then got sidelined for Tom DeLay's man Denis Hastert. Prosecutors now checking if Abramoff and Scanlon took Livingston down at DeLay's behest.
You'll no doubt recall that, when Newt resigned his seat after word of his affair came out, Livingston was set to become speaker of the House when word of his affair surfaced and he resigned, leaving the speakership to Hastert. I assumed at the time it was Larry Flynt's fault. He was the one with the cash reward set up for dirt on Republican politicians. Do you suppose Tom DeLay was nasty enough to turn on his own party leadership?
I do.
Rozzy was up all last night with a cough. Dollie is home with her today. I swear, it is impossible to keep both the kids healthy at the same time for more than a day. And I know what it is -- parents who send their kids to school and daycare when they're sick.
Just last week I went to pick Rozzy up from daycare and I heard one of the teachers say she needs to call "Jeremy's dad" because he's got a fever of 102.1. That's ridiculous.
If your kid is sick, stay home and take care of him or her. Don't send her to school to infect the others. That seems like a common sense thing, but one thing I've learned over the years is that there are few things more uncommon than common sense.
Ugh, what a horrible way to die. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr was just convicted of "negligent homicide" in the death of Iraqi general Abed Hamed Mowhoush. According to accounts, Mowhoush -- who had turned himself in to U.S. forces because they were holding his sons hostage (in violation of the Geneva Convention) -- was turned over to Welshofer for interrogation.
After he was beaten for 30 minutes with a rubber hose, the general was taken to the roof of the prison and held upside down while soldiers poured water up his nose. Then Welshofer stuffed him face first in a sleeping bag, tied him up with electrical wire and sat on his chest until he suffocated.
This, it was determined, was "negligent homicide." The right wing cannot argue that the Geneva Convention does not apply in this case because the general was a uniformed officer of an enemy army in time of war. He should have been treated humanely. Instead he was murdered and the soldier who did it will not serve any jail time.
According to the LA Times, a day after killing the general, Welshofer asked for another sleeping bag so he could continue using the technique.
Jan. 24, 2006
A little more on Gen. Hayden's talk at the National Press Club. It seems that the man at the NSA who is supposed to be guarding our civil liberties, doesn't know the Constitution very well. Editor & Publisher has the transcript. Here is an excerpt. Knight Ridder reporter Jonathan Landay asked Hayden about the domestic spying program and the legal standard the NSA used.
LANDAY: I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --
GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.
LANDAY: But the --
GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.
LANDAY: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.
LANDAY: But does it not say probable --
GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --
LANDAY: The court standard, the legal standard --
GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.
LANDAY: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause."
And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place of probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?
GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.
Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. ... The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.
BZZZZT! Wrong, general. While the 4th Amendment does protect us from unreasonable search and seizure, it says that the legal standard is "probable cause." And while that may be an inconvenient fact for the White House and the NSA, nevertheless, it is the Constitutional standard upon which this country was founded and to which the president vowed to uphold.
Bush is still spinning this, too. In Kansas yesterday he said "You know, it's amazing that people say to me, 'Well, he was just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?"
Well, Mr. President, you didn't brief Congress. You told a handful of people on the intelligence committees in both houses. That's not briefing Congress. In fact, as I've pointed out before, simply briefing a few committee leaders is in itself a violation of the law.
A new Gallup poll shows that 51 percent of Americans think the Bush administration was wrong to intercept calls inside the U.S. without a warrant and 58 percent want a special council appointed to investigate. Ouch.
With me so far? Now here's the kicker.
In 2002, Republican Sen. Michael DeWine of Ohio proposed an amendment to FISA which would have lowered the standard from "probable cause" to "reasonable suspicion" for non-U.S. citizens. That was Senate bill S. 2659. The Congress asked the Bush administration for their position on this change. The response came from Justice Department lawyer James A. Baker, council for inteligence policy.
In it, Baker gave two reasons why the Bush administration would not support this change. 1) That they have had no trouble getting warrants from the FISA courts and 2) the change was unconstitutional. He also added that lowering the standard may jeopardize prosecutions of terrorist suspects.
S. 2659 failed to pass. Now follow me here, if the congress failed to pass a bill which lowered the standard for getting a warrant from the FISA court, then it is ridiculous for the Bush administration to suggest that the Congress somehow signed a blank check for him to bypass the FISA court alltogether.
Let's look once more at the creative reasoning used by the Bush administration for their illegal domestic spying program:
We had to do it because the FISA courts are too slow. Wrong. FISA allows you to request a warrant up to 72 hours after you start tapping the line.
We had to do it because Congress wouldn't lower the standard for getting a warrant. Wrong. The Bush administration opposed lowering the standard even while they were already bypassing the FISA courts using a lower standard.
The question remains, why didn't Bush just seek the warrants?
Whenever there is trouble for the Bush administration, they like to warn Democrats not to make everything "political." Don't try to score political points against the president or you're supporting terrorists or you're undermining the troops. It's hogwash, but what can you do? The act itself is a cynical attempt to score political points.
Now we have the bin Laden tape and the right-wing pundits all got the same talking point: Osama sounds like a Democrat. Hannity, Limbaugh, Mathews, Gibson, Gingrich they all said the same thing. They're trying to score political points because what the bin Laden tape really reveals is that Bush hasn't captured bin Laden.
If you want to play the who sounds like bin Laden game, think about the points made by Cenk Uygur:
Osama bin Laden wanted regime change in Iraq because he felt Sadam Hussein was a dangerous leader with too much power.
bin Laden predicted disaster for America if we invaded Iraq. So did Poppy Bush, Dick Cheney (when he was secretary of defense under Poppy), Brent Scocroft and James Baker.
Osama said that Clinton's immoral acts in the White House brought shame on America. So did the Republican leadership. He believes that there should be no separation between religion and government, just like Tom DeLay.
The fact is that the majority of Americans want to pull out of Iraq. Does that make them all terrorist sympathizers? If so, I guess Bush can tap all their phones.
Here's a quiz. Try and see if you can pick which quotes came from bin Laden and which from Falwell and Robertson. You get all those right, then you can tell me I sound like Osama.
Then we have Halliburton -- the mega corporation formerly run by Dick Cheney and recipient of several single-source no-bid government contracts to supply our troops overseas with mail, food, water and other essential supplies. They have a great deal lined up: it's a cost-plus contract, meaning that whatever they spend, the tax payers will cover it, plus a little extra for profit.
This, combined with a total lack of oversight by the Republicans in Congress, has lead to some incredible abuse.
Only recently, we discovered that Haliburton was responsible for exposing a military base in Ramadi to untreated water -- water twice as contaminated as the Euphrates River. And even though it was exposed by a company whistleblower and documented by internal emails, Halliburton refused to inform the camp residents that they were responsible for so many people becoming sick.
To be fair, Halliburton supplied bottled water for drinking, but the untreated water was used for everything else: laundry, washing your hands, showering, making coffee and brushing your teeth.
Raw sewage was dumped upstream of the intake. A little chlorine isn't going to kill cholera.
UPN and the WB are going to be collapsed into a single network to launch in September called the CW.
Insight Magazine, which is owned by the Washington Times, is reporting that the Bush White House is preparing for impeachment. I don't put much faith in Insight and the story is pretty thin. I'm sure someone in the White House is preparing for the worst in the same way that someone it probably preparing for an alien invasion.
Jan. 23, 2006
Long, wet weekend. It rained and rained and rained. That's what we get in Middle Tennessee: first the cold, bitter weather with no precipitation, then as soon as it gets above freezing, the rain comes. Miserable.
<geek>
Took Max to the HeroClix tourney on Saturday for "New Guy Night." They held it after the regular tourney, which was a 500 pt tournament in which all figs had to be from the same team. Very fun. Instead of the traditional Justice League, Batman Family, Avengers, Fantastic Four or whatever, I ran a Shield team.
It was mostly soldiers and police in riot gear getting knocked around by guys in capes, but it was fun. There were 14 of us that day which is huge.
Afterwards, Max and I sat down and I showed him how to play. For our trouble, we each received a limited edition Superman fig given only at "New Guy Night" events. Sweet.
As we were playing, Max noticed that someone had a Captain Mako fig. Max likes Capt. Mako because he's very shark-like and what little boy isn't fascinated by sharks?
"I'll trade you my Capt. Mako for your Superman," I offered.
"Deal!" Max yelled. The other geeks looked at me askance because Capt. Mako is much easier to come by for a collector than the LE Supes.
"Hey," I said. "I can take advantage of my son, no one else!"
Of course after the deal was made, all Max would say was "Capt. Mako!" with his hand out expectantly. All the way home: "Capt. Mako, Capt. Mako, Capt. Mako, Capt. Mako."
Sheesh.
</geek>
NBC is bringing back "Friends" for four 1-hour specials. Personally, I don't like the idea because we just said goodbye to the show and there's no reason, other than NBC's flagging ratings, to bring it back so soon.
The holdout of the group, by the way, was Jennifer Aniston, the only one who's had anything resembling a career (with the notable exception of Matt LeBlanc's "Joey") since the show quit production.
They're getting $5 million apiece.
Plus, there's another spin-off in development called "It's a Guy Thing" which will star Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Mathew Perry.
Despite my many hours of television watching, I don't spend a lot on audio/video equipment. I have no surround sound. I have no home theatre system. I have no plasma screen.
That last one may turn out to be a good thing. I read where Australian sports fans are thinking about suing the local televisions channels over some ruined plasma screens. It seems that when you watch the same show over long periods of time (like a multi-day cricket match for example) things that stay on the screen for an extended period (such as the local TV station logo) can get burned into the plasma.
So, you get the logo permanently etched in the screen no matter what you're watching and what channel it's on.
Back in the green and black CRT days of computers, that would be a problem all the time, but modern monitors are supposed to compensate for that. Plasma screens must not.
Hmmm.
It looks like the Seahawks and the Steelers in the extra large SuperBowl. I have no idea who will win and usually pick based on the design of the football helmets. While the Seahawks have a great logo and some dynamic graphics, the Steelers have a classic retro look that harkens back to my youth.
It's a tough call, but I've got to go with the Steelers.
The story is changing again. Remember when Bush said he had to bypass the FISA courts because they just weren't fast enough to keep up with his NSA domestic spying program? Now we have the word of Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy director of the new National Intelligence Agency.
He said that the program required a lower standard than one required by the FISA courts. To whit: "reasonable basis to believe" instead of "probable cause."
That would explain why they couldn't go to the FISA court. But the "probable cause" standard isn't just a product of the courts. It is specifically layed out in the Constitution:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That would be your 4th Ammendment being violated. Now do you see why Gore called this a "Constitutional crisis?"
Now the right are trying to reframe this debate as a national security issue. Take this statement from Karl Rove's speech last Friday:
"Let me be as clear as I can be: President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," Mr. Rove said. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."
See that? You cannot name a single Democrat who disagrees with the notion that we should be listening in on al Queda calls to the U.S. The debate is whether or not Bush has the authority to enact a program of dometic spying that bypasses the secret court specifically set up to issue warrants for wiretaps.
No one is suggesting that Bush shouldn't be spying! I repeat, No one is suggesting that Bush shouldn't be spying. But there are legal ways for him to do it and he has ignored them. He was aware of his responsibilities under the law and ignored them.
That is the problem "some important Democrats" have. It's not the spying. It's the warrantless spying. Is that clear enough for you, Karl?
Meanwhile, Bush has a new name for it. It's not domestic spying. It's not even "freedom listening." It's a terrorist surveilance program.
We took the kids to see "Hoodwinked" over the weekend. It was cute. I particularly liked Patrick Warburton's voice work for the wolf. He was an undercover journalist in the mode of "Fletch" complete with Laker jersey and grey sweatsuit.
Another highlight was a mountain goat that Red Riding Hood runs into. His song about being prepared had Max cackling in the seat. I looked for it on iTunes, but it's another soundtrack that requires you to buy the entire album (at $12) to get any song.
Why do they do that?
