Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Spinning suicide...

Terrell Owens' publicist told the Dallas Morning News:

"Here's a person whose body is so clean, it really had a negative reaction to the medication and supplements he was taking."
A person's system being clean caused a negative reaction?

I can't wait to hear the doctors on SportsCenter refute that one.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Liberal Platform II

"Always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy for the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare...never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
- Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American and founder of Pulitzer Prizes

NOW there's a brouhaha...

Mike Wallace asked in 2002, from the (subscription only) Hotline:

"What I don't understand is if [Bush] was briefed back in August before September, why didn't we know about it?

It seems to me that it was sufficiently interesting, Osama bin Laden is named.

Nobody expected that planes were suddenly going to be turned into missiles, but isn't that the job of the intelligence community to try to play out that sort of scenario?"

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Ignorance is not bliss.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
- Mark Twain

Friday, September 22, 2006

Rope for our own noose.

"...reckless oil consumption is a form of suicide."
- Hugo Chavez

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Figure it out and stuff.

Do something about it.


"...let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."

- 1 John 3:18

It's easy to be pro-life...

...except when the father is black, I guess.

"A Maine couple accused of tying up their 19-year-old daughter, throwing her in their car and driving her out of state to get an abortion were upset because the baby's father is black."

They were "taking their daughter to New York to try to force her to get an abortion there."
Those finicky state rules can be a pain when you really need an abortion, like right now. And it's the poor, black women who use abortion as birth control? We keep forgetting about the rich, white people who use it as birth control.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Ann Richards eulogy.

"This is your life. It is the only one you get. So no excuses, and no do-overs. If you make a mistake or fail at something you learn from it, you get over it and you move on. Your job is to be the very best person you can be and to never settle for anything less."
- Lily Adams eulogizing with a message from her grandmother, former Texas governor Ann Richards

Dooon't stop, belieeeeving...

"I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat."
- President George W. Bush, 9/11/06

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Condom analogies.

Along the lines of (paraphrased):

"Saying that condoms in schools promote sex is like saying that umbrellas promote rain."

- Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, 11/26/03
A reader of National Journals' Hotline (subscription only) asks:
"Isn't a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border a little like only wearing the bottom half of a condom?"

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Pretty sure this is treason nowadays...

"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
- The Declaration of Independence

Oh, wait. It WAS treason back in 1776.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Our Deepest Fear

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


By Marianne Williamson

I concur...

The man makes the point that it would be a mistake:

"...to think that if we pulled out [of Iraq], the terrorists would leave us alone."
To think that would be naïve. Seriously.

**UPDATE**

The below is an excerpt from a comment on The Moderate Voice regarding the effects of a complete withdrawal from Iraq.
"...[the Iraq War "planners"] underestimated the level of civil strife that would break out, though, which really is criminal given the known history of the Iraqi provinces and competing factions.

So, leaving now means Iraq decends into temporary chaos and anarchy, and almost assuradely ends up as another Iran controlled or influenced state..."

Monday, September 11, 2006

Know the difference.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune and a nationally syndicated columnist:

Anti-illegal immigration activists object to that, claiming that you can't preserve national security without border security and that the two policy areas are intrinsically linked.

[That] suggests that, five years after the September 11 attacks, we still have trouble with basic concepts, like distinguishing between terrorists and immigrants.

[...]One group takes innocent lives and wants to come here to do us harm. The other risks their lives to get here to do the cooking, laundry and gardening. The first step to being more secure is knowing the difference.


Friday, September 08, 2006

Q&A with 9/11 Widow

Kristin Breitweiser is interviewed by TIME:

TIME: In her own book Godless released in June, conservative commentator Ann Coulter calls you and your fellow Jersey Girls various names — "harpies," "witches" — saying some "9/11 victims turned themselves into the arbiters of what anyone could say about 9/11."

KB: I don't believe in name-calling and hysterics. This country is in a place right now where we need respectful educated debate versus screaming, ranting and raving. That's not fruitful. Tell me why the airline system shouldn't be secure. Tell me why port security shouldn't be better. Tell me why border security shouldn't be our first priority. Tell me why I shouldn't care that the FBI still has an inoperable computer system. If Ms. Coulter can give me an argument to dissuade me those things aren't of paramount importance, I'll listen.

TIME: Coulter went on to lambaste you for attracting media attention and "reveling in [your] status as celebrities."

KB: Regardless of who you are — whether you're a 9/11 family member, an Iraqi war veteran, whether you lost a child in a hot tub drain, whether your child was abducted — if you're an American citizen, you have every right to open your mouth and partake in democracy. I have every right to voice my opinion.

TIME: There are those whose opinion is we're already putting too many resources toward fighting terrorism.

KB: I'll respond the same way I do to the Department of Defense when they say we can't reform our intelligence system because we have to focus resources on the troops on the field in Iraq. The reality is that the terrorists are doing a hundred things at once. It's not too much to ask our elected officials to be intelligent about how we make our country safe. Whether that has to do with inner-city crime or that has to do with keeping terrorists from getting inside this country, the reality is that you need to multitask and be smart. It's not an unfair assumption to make that my elected officials should be able to do that. That's why they are there.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Fill in the blank:

_______ is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic.1
Let's all be Republican, vote for Republicans, hold Republican ideals and support Republican principles.

This includes, voting straight Republican tickets, support the Christian Coalition and the Council of Conservative Citizens. We should also donate money and support the Club for Growth.

Straying from this path is not permitted and could be construed disloyal at best and treasonous at worst.

What what is the name for this ideal vision for our country?

Sunday, September 03, 2006

An all-too-common story...

From a globalization story:

It's an all-to-common story, on Labor Day and every day: A big corporation closes a factory to save money. Americans lose their jobs to workers in cheap-labor countries, where workers are thought to be exploited. An American town, usually rural, often somewhere in the Midwest, falls into decay. Fathers and mothers struggle to provide, and children suffer.

Tennessee over Cal.

How about this statistic?

Only 35% of Yahoo! College Pick'em users chose Tennessee to win the game.

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