Still enjoying politics

The quote that keeps on giving:

U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Condoleeza Rice, September 13, 2005:

I think that the most interesting thing to me about Iraq is that politics has broken out in Iraq in a really major way. And the Iraqis seem to enjoy politics.

Patrick Quinn, AP, December 23, 2005:

Iraq’s leading Shiite religious bloc said Friday it is ready to discuss Sunni Arab participation in a coalition government, while thousands of Sunnis and some secular Shiites demonstrated in the streets claiming election fraud.

Reacting to growing protests over the Dec. 15 ballot for a new parliament, Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari urged Iraqis to have faith in the electoral process. He made the call after meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who announced the first of a possible series of U.S. combat troop reductions next year. [...]

About 20,000 people took part in a mass demonstration organized by 35 Sunni Arab and secular Shiite political parties after Friday prayers.

Many people outside the governing Shiite religious-oriented political bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, allege last week’s elections were unfair to Sunni Arab and secular Shiite groups.

“We refuse the cheating and forgery in the elections,” read one banner at the protest in southern Baghdad.

Yes. The sense of enjoyment is palpable.

Technorati Tags: Iraq

Meme of Four

Since it’s unlikely that Kevin Drum will pass the Meme of Four quizzie-thing directly to me, I’ll just steal it.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life: Bookstore clerk, transcriber for a blind attorney, dishwasher, cook/waiter

Four movies you could watch over and over: Fargo, Tombstone, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which really counts as three, but what the hell)

Four places you’ve lived (as opposed to merely visited, as in two questions hence): Georgetown, SC; Whiteman AFB, MO; St. Louis and environs…only three, I’m afraid

Four TV shows you love to watch: House, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Bernie Mac Show…again, only three, unless you count NFL telecasts; The Amazing Race used to be on this list, but times have changed

Four places you’ve been on vacation: London, Paris, Seattle, Portland (OR)

Four websites you visit daily: The first four I hit every day - AMERICAblog, Daily KOS, Eschaton, The News Blog. I do visit others daily, but you only asked for four

Four of your favorite foods: Not recipes, just foods? Chicken. Burgers. Fries. Salmon.

Four places you’d rather be: Bath. Portland (OR). Charleston (SC, the historic district). And, at the moment, my house in Dogtown.

Who volunteers to catch the meme next? As they say in the military: You, you, and you.

Technorati Tags: Memes

Day of the Dead (Friday before Christmas edition)

Oy vey. Why did I not take today off?

It’s a ghost town at work, which is when the really disturbed people come in. Folks who need special attention, who whine and wheedle, who come without social skills or basic computer literacy (it’s really good to have one or the other, if not both). Maybe such folks are always around but harder to notice when traffic is higher.

No such luck today.

My only respite was given me by Lauren at Feministe: Nanaca Crash (turn your volume off before visiting). Boy, Japan is one twisted culture, I tell ya what.

Technorati Tags: Work

And bells pealed joyfully all across New York

Or perhaps not. At any rate, the transit strike has ended. Contract negotiations to resume. Gothamites, commence to shoppin’ (as soon as the trains and buses start moving again, whenever that is). Christmas will be here before you know it.

I’ll bet Bloomberg doesn’t walk to work tomorrow, regardless of the overall commute status.

Technorati Tags: Transit Strike, New York, TWU, MTA

Bow before His Noodly Appendage!

Makes about as much sense as ID

Christ, this is funny. “Intelligent design” gets pwn3d by pasta.

Oliver Willis reports that a book detailing the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is coming out in paperback. I fully expect the text to be required reading in those public school districts pushing “intelligent design.” Author and chief prophet Bobby Henderson has been paid an $80,000 advance by publisher Random House. He deserves every penny.

I note that when Henderson sent word of the new theory of everything to members of the Kansas Board of Education, he received this terse reply from Mrs. Kathy Martin, District 6:

It is a serious offense to mock God.

What’s that you say, Mrs. Martin? God? I thought ID was supposed to be a scientific theory.

Technorati Tags: Intelligent Design, Religion, Education, Creationism

Katrina was Category 3, not 4; death toll lowered by 300 just because

Brent Bozell, wanker with a heart of stone

Since Hurricane Katrina was “weaker at landfall than initially thought,” I guess it really wasn’t as deadly a storm as those bleeding-heart “crusader” anchors claimed it was.

Technorati Tags: Hurricane Katrina

“The market value sword cuts both ways”

Should public employees have the right to strike? There are private sector jobs that are arguably as important to the commonweal as police officers, firefighters, or - for example - transit workers, but workers in those don’t have the sword of the Taylor Law (or like legislation) hanging overhead.

You could wish that the Transport Workers Union had performed a more limited strike action (though it actually had, to little effect); you could wish that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hadn’t demanded a giveback from its workers, considering that it’s running a billion-dollar surplus. How’s that old saw go again? “If wishes and buts were candy and nuts…”

You can certainly make a case for outrage on either side of the transit strike issue - or rather, on all three sides: the TWU, the MTA, and the hapless public caught between them. But I keep coming back to a deceptively simple argument that I read in comments at BuffaloPundit, a talking point with an authoritative ring to it, a statement that says when you decide to settle this, here is where you begin:

In any discussion on living wage, I often see the argument raised that the market determines how much a job is worth. In this case, if so many people depend on a relatively small group of workers, I’d say their market value is pretty high.

As demonstrated today.

Technorati Tags: Transit Strike, New York, TWU, MTA

“Intelligent design” exposed, rejected in Pennsylvania

A common sense judicial ruling has exposed the fraud that is “intelligent design”. The 2004 attempt by members of the Dover school board to force warmed-over creationism into the public school curriculum was slapped down by a federal judge who saw through the ruse of the ID proponents:

“The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy,” Jones wrote. “It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.”

“Ironic” in this instance is just a polite euphemism for “hypocritical” or “deceptive.”

We’re still waiting for bizarro Christian cleric Pat Robertson to retaliate by wishing Biblical ill on the federal judiciary, much as he wished on the entire city of Dover when “intelligent design” proponents on the area school board were turned out by a thoroughly unamused public.

In the meantime, the evidence is clear that Pennsylvania is - by design - considerably more intelligent than Kansas.

Technorati Tags: Intelligent Design, Religion, Education, Creationism

The Secret Squirrel presidency

The cheery mascot of the Bush administration

Secret wiretaps. Secret laws. Secret prisons. All artifacts of the steady erosion of individual liberties and the aggregation of power by the state at war with Eastasia. Or is it Eurasia? Or the other one, maybe? It hardly seems to matter.

The eagle on the presidential seal has been replaced by Secret Squirrel.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, Security, NSA

The fantasy president’s formula for victory

Clap. Louder.

Louder.

Louder!

Thank you, and good night.

Technorati Tags: Iraq

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