Can't top the Babe
May 29, 2006

BARRY BONDS has eclipsed Babe Ruth's 714 home run total. But no one changed the game the way Ruth did, and many of the Babe's notable activities will never be topped. Here, as taken from Leigh Montville's splendid biography, ``The Big Bam," are a few:

[P6: list of truly ghetto shit redacted]

Bonds, with his flaws, is a great player, but no one else in the history of baseball has combined athletic talent with the Falstaffian appetites and unfathomed mysteries of Babe Ruth.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

In the aftermath of 9-11, McKinney had additionally antagonized right-wing Republicans when she raised questions about President Bush's prior knowledge of 9-11 and, presciently, the profits that would be made by his cronies. She is still talking about it. "What did he know and when did he know it?" was her challenge. And back in Congress, she is once again the most active, if not the only member of Congress pursuing the truth about who was behind the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Quote of note:

A security video shows McKinney entering the building and moving around the metal detector and X-ray machine.

It does not show her encounter with the police officer, according to officials familiar with it.

Prosecutor gets McKinney case
Backers rally to her side over police scuffle
By BOB KEMPER in Washington, S.A. REID in Atlanta
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/04/06

Capitol Hill Police on Monday sent the results of their investigation of Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia to a federal prosecutor, who will decide, possibly this week, whether to press assault charges against her for striking a police officer.

Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security
By RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI

YESTERDAY the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote. This action - which leaves the act, key elements of which are due to expire on Dec. 31, in limbo - represents a grave potential threat to the nation's security. I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

The New School responds to the article in NYC Indymedia accusing it of racism and censorship. They say there have been no charges filed, the INS contact was to clear up paperwork problems that would interfere with Ms. Tapaoan's student visa, and she's graduating with a Master's degree in January.

Like the my original post on the issue, I have to lead with an "if," but it sure sounds more likely than the blatant racism necessary for the Indymedia report to be true.

Either someone is bullshitting or there's a deeeeep misunderstanding. That the original date of the response is a day earlier than the Indymedia post and it was fed to one of my more reliable sources weeks later disturbs me. Anyway, the New School's response follows.

Quote of note:

They informed her that the letter wrritten by these students, which had been printed in the School Newspaper, had stirred up a lot of controversy, and that she would have to pay for it.

They told her that because of the controversial nature of the program and because of the letter, they were going to bring her up on charges with the Office of Student Services for technical reasons relating to the application for the event's venue. They also said that they would be filing a report with Homeland Security/INS.

Now, her residency (she is here in the land of the free on a student visa) and her academic career are at stake because she organized a meeting with Black speakers on a topic that an Academic bureaucrat considers "too controversial."

Stop Racism & Censorship at New School

New School Administrators are threatening the status and residency of a student because of a meeting

By E Simpson

New School Administrators are targeting a graduate student because she organized an all-black panel to speak on topics they consider "controversial."

Quote of note:

http://www.prometheus6.org/node/9838

Frist Cautions Senators Against Stalling Alito Vote
Democrats Don't Plan Filibuster
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005; A05

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) threatened yesterday to strip Democrats of the power to filibuster if they block the vote on Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.

"It would be against the intent of the Founding Fathers and our Constitution to deny Sam Alito an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

There are those who have suggested France's Muslim problem is the result of being "very liberal," i.e. providing government support of a non-French culture.

Bullshit.

And by way of proof I present two sources from opposite sides of the political spectrum:

You know what?

That is one reason journalists and some government officials are so wary of what might happen next in the C.I.A. leak case, which could conclude with indictments within a week. What began as a narrow case on a specific leak, many fear, has morphed into a broader threat to the way business is done here, a system that often benefits both sides.

I really don't care. I been ragging the Conservative commentators, talking about how their big concern is for those lunches and exclusives.

Tough titty. Declaring everything secret and releasing just enough to hint that your policies might be right, and fucking lying is no way to run a Republic. When you need stealth candidates and spin, it's obvious you're working against the desires of the majority. If you can't convince people to support your war with the truth maybe you shouldn't go to war. Just on the practical, need-your-people-behind-you tip.

The Washington Secret Often Isn't
By DAVID E. SANGER

Totally appropriate quote:

Unfortunately, she has also become the poster child in the push for a national reporter's shield law, and this week she went before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify for the Free Flow of Information Act. There, she didn't even blush when she told the lawmakers: "Confidential sources are the life's blood of journalism. Without them ... people like me would be out of business."

Probably so, but there's still a case to be made for this legislation. 

How Miller was used by source
Tim Rutten
Regarding Media
October 22, 2005

One strike against the Millions More Movement was the last-minute denial of National Black Justice Coalition turn on the stage. Beyond the foolishness of continuing an unnecessary divide in the Black communities, it makes the ministers involved look petty and mean-spirited.

Give your word, keep your word.

Here's the speech Mr. Boykin was to give. 

Remarks Prepared for Delivery
The Millions More March
Saturday, October 15, 2005
By Keith Boykin

Good Afternoon. Today I am honored to stand here at the Millions More Movement March as a representative of the National Black Justice Coalition, the country’s only national civil rights organization for Black lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. The National Black Justice Coalition strongly supports the goals of the Millions More Movement for unity and inclusion of our entire community.

Quote of note:

One of the E-mails was dated Oct. 3 with a 6:05 p.m. time stamp, about 90 minutes before Bloomberg was fully briefed on the threat, a police source said.

Terror tip for rich
E-mails warned bigs of city attack
By ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

The city's rich and well-connected were tipped off to last week's subway terror threat days before average New Yorkers, the Daily News has learned.

At least two E-mails revealing the purported plot were sent to a select crowd of business and arts executives early last week by New Yorkers who claimed to have close connections to Homeland Security and other federal officials, authorities said.

Any way to cut payments...

Bill Would Force Pet Evacuation Plans
Legislation Would Deny FEMA Funding to States Without Emergency Plans for Pets

Oct. 9, 2005 — - Like thousands of other Gulf Coast residents, Janice Hebbler was forced to leave her pets behind when she fled Hurricane Katrina.

"It was the saddest day of my life," Hebbler said.

She thought she'd never again see her dog, Heather Roux. But after six weeks, they finally were reunited.

Now, there is a movement in Congress to make sure no one has to go through that agony again.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who encourages his staff to bring their dogs to work, has introduced legislation requiring state and local governments to devise emergency evacuation plans for pets, or else lose out on disaster grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

...this statement:

"We won't go back to the days of coat hangers and knitting needles," said Dr. Jerry Edwards, an abortion provider in Little Rock, Ark. "Rich women will fly to California; poor women will use Cytotec."

makes me ashamed to have ever presented such an idea. If Cytotec is so wonderful, why won't rich women use it as well? And this: 

Even if the court restricts or eliminates the right to an abortion, the often-raised specter of a return to back-alley abortions is not likely to be realized, said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Services, a nonprofit group that supports access to abortion. "The conditions that existed before 1973 were much different than what they are in 2005," she said. "We have better antibiotics now and better surgical treatments."

...is just ignorant. What, it's all good because the back-alleys are clean? Your superior antibiotics and surgical treatments are beside the point when it's illegal to use them for the purpose.

The article refers to "the practices that proliferated before Roe." You need to remember what those practices were. We don't need a safe version of them, we need to make them unnecessary.

Anyway... 

Abortion Might Outgrow Its Need for Roe v. Wade
By JOHN LELAND

Bullshit of note:

Regardless of how the criminal case unfolds, it is clear that Mr. Delay's persona has produced a cottage industry of forces that trace his every step and draw negative public attention to it.

The War Against Tom DeLay
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON

TO hear Tom DeLay tell it, his indictment last week by a Texas grand jury resulted from a vast left-wing conspiracy - the culmination of years of relentless pursuit by Democrats who, in Mr. DeLay's words, "drug my name through the mud."

Democrats, of course, brushed the accusation aside, saying Mr. Delay, a Texas Republican, had only himself to blame for the conspiracy charge that forced him to step aside as the House majority leader.

The interesting thing about the different judicial philosophies is that none can claim logical superiority or better applicability than any other. One doesn't choose a judicial philosophy, one recognizes the arguments that support one's own convictions.

Hopefully the philosophy has a marketable name.

When one judges judicial philosophies, one cannot depend on individual cases. Most are so unambiguous that judicial philosophy has no impact. The statistical outliers are exactly the type of extreme cases that make bad law. You can't even go only by the explanations of people who claim to subscribe to the philosophy, as (and I'm speaking as a Black American now) people in this country are wont to lie about their motivations and hide their true reasoning behind flowery phrases.

Okay, I wasn't there but I call bullshit.

Police Beating of Minister Disputed

Witnesses say an attack on Nation of Islam's Tony Muhammad was unprovoked. But LAPD says he joined a mob that assaulted officers.
By Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein, Times Staff Writers

Appearing battered with a swollen face, the western regional director of the Nation of Islam stood Friday with community activists who accused Los Angeles police of beating the leader without provocation during a street vigil for a Hyde Park slaying victim Thursday night.

Police, however, said Minister Tony Muhammad had joined in a mob assault on two police officers and was injured in the "scuffle" when police tried to take him into custody.

Lie of note:

"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping," Roberson said, according to Reuters news agency. "There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted."

On Monday's program, he had said: "I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it…. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

Robertson Apologizes, Says He Was Misinterpreted
By James Gerstenzang and Larry B. Stammer, Times Staff Writers

It's a civil war in the Black community.

The first shots all come from one side...and they're rhetorical. Frankly, some of these guys show decent rhetorical skills. Like Mr. O'Kelly.

In any event, this debate is emblematic of a black civil war that’s been raging for the better part of a decade by my ‘measurements.’ There are those Republicans who will stress that African-American prosperity is at an all-time high, citing statistics of black millionaires and successful professionals.

I’m not a Republican, but that assertion is true.

At the same time, there is a contrary viewpoint that there is a growing underclass, representative of the multitude of African-Americans. We suffer in poverty at a higher percentage relative to a people than ever before.

I’m not pleased with Democratic efforts to address these problems, but that assertion is also true.

The ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. Both are true and deserve equal mention. Not only do we have more African-American success stories, we also have a higher percentage living in abject poverty. In a sentence, there are more ‘haves’ AND more ‘have-nots.’

That doesn't seem like a shot, does it? Not really...it's not so much a shot as a Freudian slip.

News Analysis: Being Liberal Now Means Being African American
By Phil Reiff and Jason Alderman

If American liberals had four legs and fur, they would have been put on the Endangered Species List following last year’s presidential election. Defining who is liberal has become a national sport among politicians, as Democrats frantically run from the moniker, while Republicans hurl the invective blindly at everyone on the other side of the aisle.

New research done by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research (BACVR) reveals who the real liberals in American are and the answer is not the tree-hugging, ponytail wearing ex-hippies you might expect. Instead, the new face of American liberalism is of a decidedly different hue. The nation’s remaining liberals are overwhelming African Americans.

Watch that link, it's to a Microsoft Word .doc file.

Leaving my reason for investigating this as an execise for the reader, let's try a thought experiment.

A Court Too Supreme For Our Good
By Robert F. Bauer
Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page B03

As Congress prepares to probe Supreme Court nominee John Roberts's leanings on this or that constitutional question, it should not overlook a larger concern about the Supreme Court as an institution. The court is in desperate need of reform; it has become increasingly isolated, imperious and opaque.

This is no accident. It follows largely from the assumption, nurtured by the media and embraced by the justices, that they hold "lifetime" appointments. But it is time to rethink this assumption. And there is some reason for optimism that Roberts himself might agree and make a unique personal contribution to bringing about overdue change.

Rethink all the assumptions you want to...federal justices hold their positions "on good behavior" because that is what the Constitution says. The very discussion of the issue is a side-track, a diversion...bullshit in and of itself.

Jonathan Chait is on point with How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect.

Facts don't matter to him. What matters is how he feels about the person in question.

He opens with the perfect example: Bush's reaction to hearing his friend Rafael Palmeiro got a positive test result for steroids as strong as his declaration that he'd never used them. Palmeiro is so busted...and Bush says

"Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him. He's the kind of person that's going to stand up in front of the Klieg lights and say he didn't use steroids, and I believe him."

This is a perfect example because it's simple and public. One could always believe Bush has some information about Putin or Iran or the United Nations that we, the public, do not. In fact, I do assume that, which is why I'm so careful about the particular accusations I make. But in this case we know as much as Bush about ol' Rafe. But Bush stares biochemistry in the eye and demands it yield to faith...and there are no other considerations he could make. On the one hand a medical report that says the boy been juicin'. On the other, Bush's opinion, which was formed in ignorance of the physical fact of the case. A purer case of denial has never been seen before by man or woman.

Newsweek asks the musical question, could "Over There" affect the already-fragile poll numbers on Iraq?

They bloody well hope it does.

We live in a country where many people's historical knowledge consists entirely of memories from made-for-TV, based on a true experience docudramas. Our view of the first war the country has actually lost has changed significantly, in large part because we don't see the war anymore...we see idealizations of the war. From Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second:

Encapsulating the ten chapters of this book into types of films by era reveals the cathartic nature of the oeuvre. The "Early Years" typified our ignorance and naïveté in Southeast Asia. The years concomitant to the war itself had very few direct treatments of it. Films that did exist often recontextualized Vietnam via allegory or metaphor. Most often we just ignored the war. The pragmatic for-profit studios recoiled from the unpopular and lethal conflict, assuming that it was box office poison. However, by the late 1970s a huge delayed Hollywood reaction was unleashed with many important portrayals of the war. This intensity dissipated by the early 1980s to be replaced by a cinematic reworking of the conflict in order to afford us the opportunity to "win" via Ramboesque fantasy. The late 1980s films revealed a desire to embrace the individual veterans and move away from the divisive political arguments. The Gulf War and 1990s movies reinforced the realization that the veterans of Vietnam had been shortchanged. [P6: emphasis added]

Title:  Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second: A Critical and Thematic Analysis of over 400 Films About the Vietnam War (Texas Film and Media Studies Series)
Author:  Jeremy M. Devine
Amazon price: $19.95 USD

Interesting book.

Once Over Lightly

Watching CNN's "American Morning" today, CJR Daily learned that President Bush had spoken out in favor of teaching intelligent design in schools. Here's how CNN's Carol Costello broke it down:

President Bush reportedly said intelligent design should be taught in public schools. The president told reporters from several Texas newspapers that he believes intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. The president, however, declined to share his own personal views. Christian conservatives have called on schools to teach intelligent design, [which is] the theory that life is too complex to be explained by evolution alone, implying that a higher power had a role in creation.

Over here a little detail on The Wisdom of Dubya:

You might as well just go ahead and hate me for this post right now.

I couldn't help thinking of all the people who suggested the tsunami Asia and Africa experienced recently was a punishment from God as I read about the quadrennial Boy Scout Jamboree.

A North Carolina man involved with the jamboree died of a heart attack walking on the grounds as the jamboree was beginning. On Monday, four Scout leaders from Alaska were killed when a pole they were holding to erect a dining canopy apparently hit a power line and they were electrocuted.

On Wednesday, as many of the scouts were waiting in nearly 100-degree heat at the base amphitheater for Bush to arrive, 306 people -- parents, Scouts and others -- suffered heat exhaustion, many of them collapsing on the ground.

Bush, having been kept away from the last Jamboree by lightning strikes...

From the book, "On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt, a book I recommend any prospective political read BEFORE opening that account on Blogger.

Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point in a set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. This requires a degree of craftsmanship, in which the teller of the lie submits to objective constraints imposed by what he takes to be the truth. The liar is inescapably concerned with truth-values. In order to invent a lie at all, he must think he knows what is true. And in order to invent an effective lie, he must design his falsehood under the guidance of that truth.

On the other hand, a person who undertakes to bullshit his way through has much more freedom. His focus is panoramic rather than particular. He does not limit himself to inserting a certain falsehood at a particular point, and thus he is not constrained by the truths surrounding that point or intersecting it. He is prepared, so far as is required, to fake the context as well. This freedom from the constraints to which the liar must submit does not necessarily mean, of course, that his task is easier than the task of the liar. But the mode of creativity upon which it relies is less analytical and less deliberative than that which is mobilized in lying. It is more expansive and independent, with more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the "bullshit artist."

In fact, I recommend it to anyone who attends to the news at all.

Not directly, anyway...

New Name for 'War on Terror' Reflects Wider U.S. Campaign

Read it if you like...it makes no difference (your reading it or the gesture itself). But if you do read it, you should follow the First we have to define... thread first.

How many of you remember learning how to read? Do you remember how you were taught to read your first words? You were shown a word and a picture of something you were familiar with...dog, cat, toy.

Do you remember finding, after mastering "sounding out" words, all these words whose meanings were totally unknown to you? When I was a kid, teachers encouraged you to draw the meaning of new words from the context in which you found them.

It's been a long time...does it still work that way?

I don't know...I keep having conversations with people about commonly discussed issues and having someone say, "First we have to define..."

I mean, seven-year-olds would gather the meaning of a new word from a sentence worth of context, a paragraph at most. Why are so many people unable to gather the meaning of a word from a lifetime of usage?

Back in January I wrote a post on Blogcritics titled Aren't you glad most of your income comes from investments?

Yes, for those who live on unearned income, these are flush times. Thank you, George Bush and the Republican Party.

Cash Flow in '04 Found Its Way Into Dividends
By FLOYD NORRIS

Published: January 4, 2005

American companies stepped up their dividend increases in 2004, buoyed by strong cash flows and by a changed tax law that made dividends more attractive to shareholders.