Jan 17 2011
Here is an article by a white northern lawyer about the impact of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Read it.
I will always wonder if race relations in the USA might have been better in the last decades had he not been murdered. I would like to believe so.
Jan 12 2011
Boehner opposes new gun-control bill – fortunately
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) announced plans Tuesday to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.
King, who has previously called for the removal of illegal guns from the streets, made the announcement alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation’s loudest voices for stricter gun laws.
King said the legislation is not intended only for the safety of government officials but also to protect the public. He said elected officials are not necessarily more important than constituents, but by protecting them in this way, they would feel safer in meeting federal officials at public events.
“The fact is they do represent the people who elect them, and it’s essential, if we’re going to continue to have contact, that the public who are at these meetings are ensured of their own safety,” King said.
I’m stunned. Is King simply blind, did he not read any of the reports about the killer, or is he so in the grip of the anti-self-defense lobby that he’ll take any excuse to pander to them?
Does ANYONE actually think that ANY gun law would have stopped this deranged killer from doing his deadly deed?
This isn’t closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. This is more like opening the barn door in the hope that the horse you’ve already beat to death will come home.
Jan 12 2011
OK, with Innermore’s excellent suggestion, I’ve run down what the problem was, and the appearance of the blog is back to “normal”, mostly.
Jan 12 2011
Media Malpractice, the movie linked to the right, is now available on Netflix. It has some new content and is more relevant than ever, given the continuing bias displayed in media coverage of Obama, Palin, et. al.
In the audio linked here, you’ll hear the suggestion that Media Malpractice is worth including in political science classes (and communications classes, too).
I hope you’ll go to Netflix and add it to your queue. If you haven’t tried Netflix yet, it’s a great deal for anyone who watches either TV or movies.
Jan 11 2011
Well, I’m not deliriously happy with this new look, but it’s a start, and at least I’ve got the columns back, and you can see recent comments without scrolling to the bottom of the page.
More to come as I rebuild.
Jan 10 2011
You will have noticed that I haven’t been blogging a lot lately. I’ve just been too busy. But I’ll be gradually doing a little more over the next weeks, if all goes well. I have temporarily disabled the subscribe feature, due to getting overwhelmed with spam. Soon, I hope to be installing a new blog setup, one that has features that will make it easier for me to avoid getting hacked and spammed into oblivion. You may have noticed that I can’t seem to get rid of the post that lives permanently in the upper right corner of my sidebar. That’s a symptom of the problems I’ve been having.
So stay tuned, if you’re interested, and things may be changing appearance (but not attitude) around here, and a little more may start happening again.
In the meantime, if you want to see a list of recent comments and recent posts, you’ll have to scroll WAY down the page to get to it.
I’ll fix it.
Really.
Jan 07 2011
First the unaccompanied version, unless you count the harmonica.
Then we get the accompanied version.
Send this dog to college.
Jan 05 2011
We all remember when Barbara Boxer dressed down a general for referring to her as “ma’am” (the same thing as “sir” to a military person), insisting he call her “Senator”.
How nice that Harry is on a first name basis with Congresswoman Bachman. Apparently he isn’t so close to his other guests. I expect that he would have called Barbara Boxer “Senator”….. or possibly “your highness.”
Dec 22 2010
Don’t get me wrong. I usually like Tom Selleck’s acting, and he even seems to be somewhat conservative in his politics.
But this new series, Blue Bloods, about a cop family in New York, with Selleck as Police Commissioner, really, really jumped the shark in episode 5. They couldn’t even get through the first handful of episodes without trotting out that favorite of Hollywood, the white American female terrorist of non-Middle Eastern descent.
This time it’s a typical looking neighborhood mom who is looking to blow up Central Park with her son and estranged husband as unwilling victims, all in the name of Allah.
So they got it half right. Yes, virtually all homicidal terrorist types are Islamic. But no, they are virtually never females of European descent who are recent converts to Islam.
But Hollywood is all about fiction. Sometimes even fantasy.
Dec 21 2010
In final Senate speech, Specter slams political ‘cannibalism’
Arlen Specter isn’t leaving Washington quietly.
In his final speech on the Senate floor, the outgoing Republican-turned-Democrat sounded off on the tea party, the rise of partisanship in Congress and the “judicial activism” of the Supreme Court.
“Defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism,” the Pennsylvania senator said of the tea party activists who worked to defeat GOP centrists.
Specter bemoaned the loss of a Senate where both parties seemed to be interested in finding compromise, and he was especially critical of lawmakers who campaigned against their fellow members.
“That conduct was beyond contemplation in the Senate I joined 30 years ago,” Specter said. “Collegiality can obviously not be maintained when negotiating with someone simultaneously out to defeat you, especially within your own party.”
He called the increasing lack of civility in politics discouraging. “Civility is a state of mind,” Specter said. “It reflects respect for your opponents and for the institutions you serve together.” Political polarization, he said, will make civility in the upcoming Congress “more difficult [but] more necessary than ever.”
The former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman then went after the Supreme Court, accusing Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito (both conservatives whom he supported) of “eroding the constitutional mandate of separation of powers.”
“The Supreme Court has been eating Congress’ lunch by invalidating legislation with judicial activism after nominees commit under oath in confirmation proceedings to respect congressional fact-finding and precedents,” Specter said, per CNN’s Alexander Mooney.
Whiner. Loser. Coward.
This from the man who switched parties because he’d lost the confidence of the voters who elected him.
Good riddance.
