Quotes of note
November 12, 2005

"Today, when most of the country thinks of who controls Massachusetts, I think the modern-day KKK comes to mind, the Kennedy-Kerry Klan."

GERALD WALPIN of the Federalist Society, introducing Governor Romney at a convention

"It is ill-advised and inappropriate to raise the KKK even in a joke."

ROMNEY, who laughed at the remark, then distanced himself when criticism arose

Quote of note:

Fifty-two percent of Americans believe Cheney “deliberately misused or manipulated pre-war intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in order to build support for war,” including 22 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents...When asked whether anyone in the administration “acted unethically” in the case involving the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name, a 54-percent majority of Americans said they did—and 30 percent of Republicans said they did. And 45 percent of Americans believe someone in the “Bush administration broke the law and acted criminally”—including 22 percent of Republicans

Autumn of Discontent
The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows serious political trouble for President Bush.
By Marcus Mabry
Newsweek
Updated: 11:44 a.m. ET Nov. 12, 2005

U.S. Orders College to Drop Fellowships For Minorities
Associated Press
Saturday, November 12, 2005; A14

CARBONDALE, Ill., Nov. 11 -- Federal prosecutors are threatening to sue Southern Illinois University over three scholarship programs aimed at women and minorities, calling them discriminatory.

SIU "has engaged in a pattern or practice of intentional discrimination against whites, non-preferred minorities and males," the Justice Department said in a letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The graduate scholarships, or fellowships, violate Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the department said. The letter said Justice's civil rights division will sue SIU if it does not discontinue the programs by next Friday.

Quote of note:

Conservative evangelical churches were able to deliver voters for Bush in much the same way, and for much the same reasons, that labor unions and political machines like New York's Tammany Hall were once able to deliver votes for the Democrats: They offer material benefits to people with nowhere else to turn, and that is easily parlayed into votes at election time.

'Faith talk' and Tammany Hall
Rosa Brooks
November 12, 2005

DEMOCRATS SHOULD be wary of jumping to conclusions in the wake of Democrat Timothy Kaine's Virginia gubernatorial victory. Kaine didn't shy away from discussing his religious beliefs during his campaign, and this seems to be leading party strategists to conclude that Democrats can win in culturally conservative states if they talk about deeply held religious beliefs.

DeLay Team Weighed Misdemeanor Plea to Save GOP Post
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005; A01

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events.

The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts. DeLay was forced to step down as leader on Sept. 28 after the first of two grand jury indictments.

Just make sure you let me know about it.

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“The inflammatory pathway probably developed as a protective response to micro-organisms; and as populations inhabited very different areas, the micro-flora they encountered was vastly different,” he says. “That may be the reason for the differences in frequency of the variant.”

Heart risk gene hits African Americans hardest
11:23 11 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Gaia Vince

A gene commonly found in Americans of European descent can be deadly when carried by African Americans, a new study has revealed. The gene variant more than triples the risk heart attack in African American populations, the researchers found.

I'm trying to find out what the damn history is.

Bush Forcefully Attacks Critics of His Strategy in Iraq
By MARIA NEWMAN

President Bush lashed out today at critics of his Iraq policy, accusing them of trying to rewrite history about the decision to go to war and saying their criticism is undercutting American forces in battle.

"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the president said in a Veterans Day speech in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Bush delivered his aggressive and unusually long speech as part of an effort to shore up his credibility as he faces growing public skepticism about Iraq and accusations by Democrats and others that he led the nation into war on false pretenses.

Don't you think the Conservative crowd looks at Paris and feels the same chill down its collective spine the Founding fathers felt when looking at Haiti?

And it's the damn French again!

(I actually have something simmering subsconsiously, working title "Progressive Textualism." It's sort of blocking any major output...hence the open thread.) 

Quote of note:

Robertson made headlines this summer when he called on his daily show for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Pat Robertson Warns Pa. Town of Disaster

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson warned residents of a rural Pennsylvania town Thursday that disaster may strike there because they "voted God out of your city" by ousting school board members who favored teaching intelligent design.

All eight Dover, Pa., school board members up for re-election were defeated Tuesday after trying to introduce "intelligent design" — the belief that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power — as an alternative to the theory of evolution.

Quote of note:

The smart thing to do, for those who could afford it, would be to buy supplemental insurance that would cover the doughnut hole. But guess what: the bill that established the drug benefit specifically prohibits you from buying insurance to cover the gap.

[TS] Op-Ed Columnist: The Deadly Doughnut
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Registration for Medicare's new prescription drug benefit starts next week. Soon millions of Americans will learn that doughnuts are bad for your health. And if we're lucky, Americans will also learn a bigger lesson: politicians who don't believe in a positive role for government shouldn't be allowed to design new government programs.

Before we turn to the larger issue, let's look at how the Medicare drug benefit will work over the course of next year.

Quote of note:

Five Democrats joined 44 Republicans in backing the amendment, but the vote on Thursday may only be a temporary triumph for Mr. Graham. Senate Democrats led by Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico said they would seek another vote, as early as Monday, to gut the part of Mr. Graham's measure that bans Guantánamo prisoners from challenging their incarceration by petitioning in civilian court for a writ of habeas corpus.

So it is possible that some lawmakers could have it both ways, backing other provisions in Mr. Graham's measure that try to make the Guantánamo tribunal process more accountable to the Senate, but opposing the more exceptional element of the legislation that limits prerogatives of the judiciary. Nine senators were absent for Thursday's vote.

Senate Approves Limiting Rights of U.S. Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT

Quote of note:

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit -- filed in the first district state Court of Appeal in San Francisco -- also include California Association of Firearm Retailers, two other organizations and seven individual gun owners. They argue that the new handgun ban is virtually identical to a 1982 ordinance that was struck down by the appellate court on the ground that it conflicted with state law.

ELECTION 2005: San Francisco
Lawsuit challenges handgun ban in city
Plaintiffs say Prop. H steps beyond local government authority, treads on state turf
- Bob Egelko, Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, November 10, 2005

Talk host's towering rant: S.F. not worth saving
- Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, November 11, 2005

Conservative talk-show host Bill O'Reilly is ready to scratch San Francisco off the map of the United States. Gone. Coit Tower? Terrorists can blow it up, and the rest of the country shouldn't care.

The Fox News talk-show host and one-man conservative media juggernaut has concluded that the United States and San Francisco just don't go together anymore. Voting to oppose military recruitment in public schools and to ban handgun ownership, as San Franciscans did Tuesday, means the city should be cut off from federal dollars. And then some.

I had said TimesSelect wasn't all that attractive to me. I've been missing Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman but they're on the same side as I am, and I kind of feel like they're a strong backstop that I personally don't need.

Then this popped up:

Gangsta, in French
By DAVID BROOKS

After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn't know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur.

Yet those seem to be the lifestyle alternatives that are really on offer for poor young Muslim men in places like France, Britain and maybe even the world beyond. A few highly alienated and fanatical young men commit themselves to the radical Islam of bin Laden. But most find their self-respect by embracing the poses and worldview of American hip-hop and gangsta rap.

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Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va.), ranking Democrats on Pombo's committee, criticized the measure in an interview yesterday. He said that it "would result in a blazing fire sale of federal land to domestic and corporate interests."

Rahall said the government would collect hundreds of millions of dollars more if it charged an 8 percent royalty on the extracted minerals. "We're setting up Uncle Sam to be Uncle Sucker," he said.

Assininity of note:

House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.) said the measure would cut the deficit and promote private ownership. "In some states primarily owned by the federal government, it's important that more of that land become private property," Pombo said. "These environmental groups want the federal government to own everything."

Come on. This is the United States of America. "Promoting private ownership" is like promoting bipedal locomotion in humans. The real idea here is to fund further irrational tax cuts by selling our property at bargain basement prices. Two sell-outs for the price of one.

Bill Would Sell Land Promised to D.C.
By Juliet Eilperin and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 10, 2005; A02

Tucked inside a huge budget bill headed for an upcoming House vote is a provision that could spur the federal government to sell off millions of acres of public land to mining interests, marking a major shift in the nation's mining policy.

...the opportunities being so rare and all.

Only one voter in six said he or she had had difficulty finding time to vote because of other commitments. But three out of 10 said they would be more likely to vote if Election Day were moved to the weekend.

That last measure was much higher for some groups that generally lag in voter turnout. Among African Americans, 52 percent said they would be more likely to vote on the weekend; among Hispanics, 48 percent said so, as did an identical 48 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds. Notably high percentages of singles, working women, and residents of Texas and California also said that weekend voting would bring them to the polls.

All of which suggests that Young is right in seeing this as an extension of the civil rights and voting rights efforts.

Why Vote on Tuesdays?
By David S. Broder
Thursday, November 10, 2005; A29

If Andrew Young has his way, never again will we have a Tuesday election. The former mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations wants to switch the nation's voting to the weekend.

A gamer who spent £13,700 on an island that only exists in a computer game has recouped his investment, according to the game developers.

The 23-year-old gamer known as Deathifier made the money back in under a year.

The virtual Treasure Island he bought existed within the online role-playing game Project Entropia.

He made money by selling land to build virtual homes as well as taxing other gamers to hunt or mine on the island.