Life in the Exurbs/Suburbs

For my friend S who introduced me to the term "McMansion":

McAmerica Uber Alles

In which Billmon quotes the following:

One thing that I'm predicting is that there will be a vigorous and futile defense of suburbia and all its entitlements, no matter what reality is telling us to do. And this will translate into a lot of political mischief. You can quote me: Americans will vote for cornpone Nazis before they will give up their entitlements to a McHouse and a McCar.

James H. Kunstler, Author of The Long Emergency
Interview with Salon
May 14, 2005

But it's not a McHouse: It's a McMansion. Complete with a giant McGarage to hold the giant McSuburbans.

Who Gave the Presstitute Special Treatment?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know.

Nights in White House satin: The comings and goings of Jeff Gannon

Okay, maybe there's no scandal here. Lots of people, mostly tourists, visit the White House. But it does seem odd that Gannon was there at least 32 times on days when there were no briefings, or returned later in the day to the presidential mansion after a briefing. Seems he'd spend about an hour or hour and a half in the White House on these occasions. Or he'd be there for an hour or hour and a half before or after the briefings. I suppose that it could be shown he was there to consult with someone about what sort of questions he might raise in the next briefing, that could produce a small scandal. But the media hasn't really taken on the president's manipulation of reporters to date and protested and exposed it effectively.

The records also show days when Gannon checked in but never properly checked out, beginning in July 2003 or five months after he started his White House journalistic activities. This doesn't necessarily cry out "Scandal!" since lots of people have slept over at the Bush White House. But usually they're big fundraisers or family members. For someone like Gannon to be there, apparently sleeping over, on twelve different nights seems curious. Surely he had his own lodgings nearby. But after all, in his "reporter" capacity he was a friend of the administration and like Jacko says, friends often let friends sleep over. Dowbenko indicates that the president was in his house on all these occasions, but I imagine Laura and the Secret Service people were there too. Of course it is a big house, room for everybody and a degree of privacy even in these terror-haunted, well-monitored times.

White House, Secret Service Stories on Gannon/Guckert Passes Don’t Match

Friday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told ePluribus Media that his office had never requested a 30-day security clearance for James D. Guckert, aka "Jeff Gannon," directly contradicting a statement made earlier that day by the U.S. Secret Service.

The Secret Service’s "30-day access list program," used by the White House press office, would have allowed Guckert to visit the briefing room for a 30-day period without undergoing daily criminal-history checks.

But not the Corporate Media, they're so over it:

Gannon's story left critics tarnished, too

The phrase in BOLD is the real truth about the corporate media's (non)coverage of the story:

Despite the sex pictures, the linchpin of the scandal was always the allegation that Bush and/or his press secretary, Scott McClellan, catered to Gannon so that his softball questions would make the president look good. Having Gannon in the press room allowed McClellan to change the subject whenever a mainstream reporter began to bore in with a tough line of questioning, according to the bloggers who promoted the story.

But the allegation was never proven. McClellan argued that he called on questioners in a routine manner, getting to Gannon only after fielding inquiries from larger news outlets in a fairly predictable order. Veteran White House correspondents backed him up. Meanwhile, McClellan maintained that his office did not give Gannon favorable treatment in getting a press pass. Former White House press secretaries from the Clinton administration generally sided with McClellan.

At that point, despite the lurid aspects of Gannon's past, most newspapers gave up on the matter as a news story.

Yes, this is the low to which the corporate media has fallen. If the source denies the story, IT'S OVER! Time to look for the next runaway bride.

To Win a Fight, You Have to Fight

Late Friday night I caught part of the replay of British Member of Parliament George's Galloway's appearance before the Senate subcommittee investigating the UN "Oil for Food" scandal. The subcommittee is headed by the loathesome Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. It's hard to believe that a seat that was once held by such greats as Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale is now occupied by this preening, sleazy, empty-headed idiot. (gratuitous before and after pictures of his teeth from his dentist's website here. Yup, he illegally got the teeth for free while Mayor of St. Paul, then quickly paid for them when the dentist's website was discovered by blogtopia.) Oh yeah, Minnesota is the same state that elected Jesse Ventura, professional wrestler, as its governor. I wonder what kind of crap is in their water?

I digress. This post is about George Galloway. The committee had already assembled a dossier (sinister Soviet music should be playing in your head) of its evidence indicting Galloway as a collaborator with Saddam Hussein. They brought Galloway in to put his head on a pike. But he turned the tables. He made mincemeat of them. If you get a chance to view it, you should. But at least read his testimony. Listen for his Scottish accent as you read.

This is how we must fight the lies of the right. You can't be moderate in your opposition to liars. You have to fight to win. When you are right, when you are speaking the truth, you will persuade. You will win.

Since the subcommittee has removed Mr. Galloway's testimony from its website, his opening statement is reproduced below in its entirety.

Published on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 by the Times Online (UK)
Galloway vs. The US Senate: Transcript of Statement
George Galloway, Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption

* * * * *

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely @#%#*-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

A Modest Proposal

An odd topic for a return post, but here goes:

Why don't the folks in charge of our roads invest in a little paint? I drove home late last night in the rain, and most of the roads on which I traveled had lane lines and markers that were completely worn away. Which made it very hazardous to be driving an unfamiliar route!

I bet if the lanes were just clearly marked with bright clear flourescent paint, there would be many fewer accidents, both night and day, but especially night.

Another brief break

My computer is going to the shop for a few days, so posting will be light or nonexistent until it returns to the fold.

David Brooks is Writing , He Must Be Lying

From today's New York Times:

Calling Democrats' Bluff

Democrats have been hectoring President Bush in the manner of an overripe Fourth of July orator. The president should be summoning us to make shared sacrifices for the common good. The president should care for the poor, and stop favoring the rich. He should make the hard choices and impose a little fiscal discipline on government.

**********

Over the past few weeks, the president has called their bluff. By embracing the progressive indexing of Social Security benefits, the president has asked us to make a shared sacrifice for the common good. He's asking middle- and upper-class folks to accept benefit cuts so there will be money for the people who are really facing poverty.

He has asked us to redistribute money down the income scale. Why should programs for children and families be strangled so Donald Trump can get bigger benefit checks?

He has made the hard choices. By facing up to the fact that there are going to be benefit cuts, he's offended Newt Gingrich, Jack Kemp, the supply siders and other important Republican constituencies.

This column is so full of lies and false assumptions it's hard to know where to begin. Like, since when are Newt Gingrich & Jack Kemp important Republican constituencies? Is it 1994 or am I am in a time warp? David Brooks is such a tool. He's a fine inheritor of the legacy of William Safire, the former biggest liar on the New York Times editorial page.

Other lies: Bush has made the hard choices. No he hasn't! He has no plan. He's wildly floating ideas now that he sees his initial idea for destroying Social Security has tanked. But that's still his goal. Progressive indexing is just a more upfront way of destroying Social Security. Let's lower benefits for most of the people who pay into the system! Nothing will be more effective in lowering popular support for the system than making it all a big welfare program. (Oh, and Republicans love welfare programs, right? NOT.) Most people hate paying taxes. Are they going to feel better about paying social security tax knowing they will have to be abjectly poor to collect? Of course not.

Now, remember that less than a month ago, the Republicans abolished the inheritance tax. Didn't affect one single middle-class person, as the ONLY estates taxed were those over one million dollars in value. (Legal note: Since most married people hold their houses in joint tenancy, the house is NOT part of the estate. It passes directly to the joint tenant when the other joint tenant dies. So, we are talking about one millions dollars in other assets! Not exactly a middle class issue.)

This progressive indexing idea will cut benefits to almost every middle class working person who pays into the system. So who does David Brooks use as an example of who will be affected? Donald Trump. What does Donald Trump care about a measly $1000 a month when he gets to pass his millions on to his heirs while avoiding millions in inheritance tax?

I can't believe the New York Times pays Brooks to write this horseshit.

Dailykos has a similar take: Stop The Presses, Brooks Lies Again

Next Democratic Star?

Life of the Party
Brian Schweitzer, the blue governor of the red state of Montana, may just have the answer to the Democrats' woes.

(this article is on salon.com, so to view it you have to watch an ad to get a "site pass")

April 19, 2005 | HELENA, Mont. -- The future is wearing a turquoise bolo tie wrapped around the open collar of a blue-and-white-striped button-down dress shirt. And if that doesn't sound quite right, then you haven't considered the mismatched gray suit coat or the blue jeans and boots down below. Meet Brian Schweitzer, the soil sciences major who grew up to be the governor of Montana -- and may be the next best hope of the Democratic Party.

On Nov. 2, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Montana by 20 percentage points. On the same day, Montana voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- and elected as their governor a populist, pro-choice Democrat. Are Montana voters as schizophrenic as the governor's fashion sense, or is Brian Schweitzer just that good?

A lot of folks say it's the latter. Everyone from the Washington Monthly to the American Spectator has taken note of the rancher from Whitefish, Mont., and what the Wall Street Journal called his "well-spoken, gun-owning, dog-loving, native-ritual-doing, shot-of-whiskey-drinking true-west style." Democrats hungry for hope in the dark days after 2004 find themselves wondering whether another little-known governor from a small red state can somehow help them find their way back to the White House.

Ask Schweitzer about 2008, and he ticks off the names of Democratic governors who've proved they can appeal to red-state voters. What about him? "You know, all these people are saying, 'To be governor of Montana, he must have it figured out,'" Schweitzer says. "I'm telling you, I've broken more colts than there are days that I've been in office. I'm just a regular guy, getting things done in Montana. I don't know if that works nationally, but I don't care."

The Democrats need a candidate who can speak English. There's a reason Senators don't get elected President: They speak Senate-ese. An elite, effete, arrogant, wordy, indirect, imprecise, courtly, passive & ultimately unpersuasive language. They're like lawyers but worse. At least trial lawyers have to learn to persuade 12 regular folks so we HAVE to master the colloquial. It's not "Who among us does not love NASCAR?" It's either "NASCAR rocks!" or "NASCAR sucks!", depending on your point of view. (OK, I gotta admit, I just don't get the NASCAR thing. How can driving a car be a sport? How can people sit in a giant stadium for hours watching a bunch of cars go around in a circle? Give me an English Premiere League soccer game any day.)

So Schweitzer's my guy. He speaks English. He's direct. He tells stories to persuade, rather than telling people his conclusions in florid language.

No more Senators! Let's learn one thing from President Horse Fondler: It is better to speak simply & directly. People will believe you & vote for you EVEN IF YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!

Jumping off my soap box, heading to the kitchen to make dinner....NOT "In regards to the previous statement, I will withdraw and allow others to judge my proposal. Now is the time to prepare our repast."

Say it, and say it plainly. No more Senators.

Joey Has Two Moms

Mom's the Word

Years ago, then-Giants second baseman Jeff Kent was changing out of his uniform when he glanced at the nearby reporters and cracked, "There are no queers here, are there?" The comment barely raised an eyebrow.

Valentine is aware of the stigma. That is why his family asked that this story not be published until Valentine secured a spot on the major league roster.

"We've almost never been treated badly," said Deb Valentine, Joe's birth mother. "But we live in the real world, and you don't 100 percent know how people will react."

Here's the startling thing: Thus far in Joe Valentine's life, few have reacted.

Born in Las Vegas on Christmas Eve 1979, Joe is the biological son of Deb Valentine and a man she prefers not to discuss, a man Joe does not know. Deb declined to discuss the circumstances of the pregnancy, but when she delivered Joe at Sunrise Hospital, the person by her side was Doreen Price, her life partner since they first met in a bowling alley in 1975.

I think the Red Sox should trade for this kid. We need the pitching (David Wells, Curt Schilling & Keith Foulke are not exactly having career years) and then his two moms could get legally married in Massachusetts.

It's been a year since gay marriage came to Massachusetts (thank you Supreme Judicial Court) and look what's happened: NOTHING! We still have the lowest divorce rate in the nation, and there's been no plague of locusts or anything of the sort. Well , there was that moron Ron Crews who moved here from Georgia & ran for Congress against my Congressman, the estimable Jim McGovern, but Crews lost 2-1 & hopefully has taken the hint and gone down south of the Mason Dixon line again.

Haters need not apply here in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Since I Been Gone

We gotta a Pope who can be called "Joey Ratz", a former member of the Hitler Youth.

The Bible thumpers are after judges, most of whom are quite conservative.

John Bolton, a man who chases people who don't agree with him up & down the hallways of hotels in foreign countries, has been nominated to be our head diplomat at the UN.

The Secret Service has released records that show that the Presstitute didn't sign out of the White House, more than a dozen times. Which leads us to question, who was the Presstitute schtupping??? My money's on Scottie.

It was a good three weeks to be semi-conscious.

Time Out

Apologies to my readers for disappearing without notice. A friend's medical emergency took me off the blogging beat. Now my computer is bugging out. And Friday I have my own long-scheduled minor medical issue.

Whew. Not blogging is hard work.

I'll be back after tax day.

I Was Wrong - Jeb Has Lost His Mind

I suppose if I saw my national political career going down the tubes I might panic, too. Especially if I was the anointed one, the older, one, the smart one, the one who was supposed to be President first. It has to be galling to watch brother dumbBush preening from the throne Jebbie was supposed to occupy.

Speaking of "occupy", apparently Jeb sent law enforcement officers from two different Florida state agencies to seize poor Terri Schiavo, take her from her hospice & reinsert her feeding tube.

Police 'showdown' averted

Apparently one of those law enforcement officers realized they were being sent into a hornet's nest without a bee hood, because they called ahead to warn local police they were coming. Local police said Hell, No, no court order, no deal.

Insane. Were they going to hold a gun to a physician's head to force the reinsertion of the feeding tube? No doctor who wanted to have a medical license tomorrow would undertake a surgical procedure on the most famous hospice patient in the world.

God save me from becoming a political football. Fifteen years in a persistent vegetative state.

Did you know that until 2000, the parents of this poor woman admitted that she was in a PSV? According to the Miami Herald, in January of 2000 their own lawyer even admitted this in open court:

''We do not doubt that she's in a persistent vegetative state,'' Pam Campbell, then the Schindlers' lawyer, told the court. Later, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, George Felos, asked Mary Schindler, ''Is Terri in a vegetative condition now?'' to which she replied, ``Yes. That is what they call it.''

And there's no way the parents can "take care" of this woman. They couldn't do it 15 years ago; they certainly can't to it today. From the same article:

Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers brought Terri home briefly in the fall of 1990, but were overwhelmed.

There is a time to let go. It's long past. Stop the insanity & let this woman go.

Crackpot TV

I swear, I have never seen so many completely off-their-rocker people on TV before. Fox & CNN are competing to see who can put more right-wing nutjobs on the screen in an hour. Fox is of course winning but CNN is making a valiant effort. Just now, on CNN, the brainless newsreader breathlessly asked an "on-the-scene" reporter in Florida, (I'm paraphrasing here) "We just had [right-wing crackpot] on, and they are asking Governor Bush to throw out the Florida Constitution in order to save this woman's life. Is the governor considering this?" And she was SERIOUS, she gave this kind of wild, insane speculation credence.

Does CNN think Jebbie's cerebral cortex has liquified, too?

Apparently the religious wingnuts have decided that Jebbie is responsible, that if Terri Shiavo dies it's on his head & they will bring him down. Check out If Terri Dies It's Jeb's Fault on World O'Crap for the threats being made on Jebbie's political career. (Click on March 23rd when you go on World O'Crap.)

Years ago I had a client who had lung cancer. He loved Jack Kevorkian. My client had undergone incredibly painful & aggressive treatment for his cancer, and he was determined that when he couldn't take it anymore the decision to let go would be his. He thought Dr. Kevorkian was a hero & should be given a medal. My client died long before Kevorkian was put in jail for assisting two people with Alzheimer's to end their lives. He would have been horrified about Kevorkian being in jail. And he would be railing about Tom Delay, Bill Frist and the other meddling hypocrites in Congress for stepping into this very personal, painful & private decision.

In Sync With Katha Pollitt

I swear, I didn't read this:

Invisible Women by Katha Pollitt

Or maybe, like so many op-ed editors, they just don't see women, even when the women are right in front of them.

Before I wrote this:

Why I Can't Get a Column at the LA Times

Men just hire people who look like them (other men) and then look about wonderingly when women cry foul.

Read Katha, she's right on.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Benjamin Disraeli was right. There ARE lies, damned lies, and statistics. Barry Bond's statistics are the ultimate damned lie.

If I hear one more sportscaster (hello Hazel Mae!) say, in reference to Barry Bonds, "When it comes to Barry Bonds, the numbers don't lie", I will scream.

Hello, THAT'S THE POINT. The numbers of an admitted juicer are all lies. He cheated to get the stats. Therefore, the statistics are lies.

Could we stop saying that, please?

Christy Todd Spineless

Christy Todd Whitman was dumbBush's first EPA chief. She did nothing for the environment, let Cheney dictate policy, and resigned to write an "Aren't I a good Republican" book.

Bill McKibben lets her have it: Christy Todd Whitman: When Courage Was Called For, She Punted

Bush promised to lower carbon dioxide emissions during the 2000 campaign, actually had her to go the G-8 summit and promise the same, and then when she got back to DC he called her in & changed the policy. Now, says dumbBush, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant & the US will not agree to caps.

Did she fight this? Go all Elliott Richardson on Shrub & resign in high dudgeon over this? Oh, no. As McKibben describes it:

I can't think of an instance in modern U.S. history when a Cabinet member had been so neatly, quickly and publicly kneecapped. But instead of doing the right thing, Whitman did nothing.

In a spectacular display of political cowardice, she settled down at the EPA, devoting herself to minor pieces of legislation such as the one that extended limits on diesel emissions to vehicles for "non-road uses," like tractors and backhoes. Not a bad law, but in the end no big deal. Whitman had a chance to make a real difference on what one panel of Nobelists after another has called the worst dilemma human civilization yet has faced, and she'd passed it up.

Imagine what would have happened if she had simply quit, accusing the president of reneging on a promise, undermining relations with our allies and, more to the point, neglecting the most crucial environmental challenge that's ever appeared.

It would have lifted the issue out of its relative obscurity and set it at the center of American political debate. Whitman could have done more to move the United States off the dime about global warming than any politician before or since.

Whever any Democrat or liberal tells me we need to support moderate Republicans, I think of Christy. Not exactly a profile in courage. I'll stick with the Dems.

Bonds Turns Juice Into Whine

Woe is Barry Bonds. Barry Bonds is tired. Tired. Tired. The media has made him jump off a bridge (the Golden Gate?) Everyone is against him. It's making his children cry. Boo-hoo, woe is me, nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms.

I gotta agree with Gary Peterson, in his article on MSNBC today: No one's buying Barry's pity party: Star has nerve to blame media for image he created

His concluding grafs:

For him to attempt to invoke pity is as impressive a feat as his low-orbit home run off Troy Percival in the 2002 World Series. Because, when you get right down to it:

Nobody told him to associate with trainer (and childhood friend) Greg Anderson, and nutritionist Victor Conte, two of the four targets in the BALCO case.

Nobody told him, when questioned by the BALCO grand jury in November, 2003, to give the literally unbelievable testimony (later leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle) that he used cream and clear substances thinking they were flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.

Nobody told him to keep a mistress for 10 years, an arrangement that is currently biting him in the hinder as she rats him out as a potential felon.

Nobody told him to sneer and scowl his way through the summer of 2001, when he set the single season home run record.

Nobody told him to loaf on ground ball outs to the point that local radio broadcasters were criticizing him on the air.

These are choices Bonds made, as is his right. The shocking thing is, he can't see how those choices have led to his stature as the least-loved player in the game.

But there he was on Tuesday, strapping on his pity party hat above sad, boo-hoo eyes. That's just another reason why, should this be the beginning of the end for Bonds, should he fail to hit the 53 home runs he needs to become baseball's all-time leader, a lot of people will be partying for another reason.

And they won't all be at Hank Aaron's house.

While MSNBCNBCFOXNEWSCSPAN et al are convulsed over the Schiavo case, very little of substance has hit the airwaves.

Here's the best commentary on the case, from the blogs(of course it's from the blogs, you were expecting actual news from the media?):

The Facts:

The Terri Schiavo Information Page, by Michael Conigliaro, from the Abstract Appeal blog

The Ethics:

Terri Schiavo, by hilzoy on the Obsidian Wings blog

Terri Schiavo, Part I: The Medical Post
Terri Schiavo, Part II: The Ethical Post by Rivka, on the Respectful of Otters blog

The politics are rather obvious.

I'd like to make it clear that it is my wish that I NOT be kept alive through medical treatment if I were in this situation. Give me a big dose of morphine & let me go.

Profile in Courage?

The judge who's been assigned the Schiavo case is named James Whittemore. Here's his bio:

Whittemore, James D.
Born 1952 in Walterboro, SC

Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. District Court, Middle District of Florida
Nominated by William J. Clinton on October 20, 1999, to a new seat created by 113 Stat. 1501; Confirmed by the Senate on May 24, 2000, and received commission on May 25, 2000.

Education:
University of Florida, B.S.B.A, 1974

Stetson University College of Law, J.D., 1977

Professional Career:
Private practice, FL, 1977
Assistant federal public defender, Office of Federal Public Defender, 1978-1981
Private practice, FL, 1981-1990
Judge, Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court, Florida, 1990-2000


Race or Ethnicity: White

Gender: Male

Terri Schiavo Case

While Corporate Media reports every 15 minutes on "The Fight To Save Terri Schiavo", the phrase with which every story on MSNBCNNCNBCFOXNN is prefaced, here's what is missing from the coverage; from Digby:

By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.

Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.

Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.

Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.

This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.

This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.

As an attorney, I am waiting to see if the federal judge who gets this case has the guts to declare the law unconstitutional and dismiss.

Why I Can't Get a Column at the LA Times

Shorter Michael Kinsley ("He wrote, she wrote") in today's Washington Post:

I can't hire women columnists because I have to give equal time to conservatives, and they're all white men.

Here's what he says:

Newspaper opinion sections also want diversity of political views. In recent years, that, frankly, has led to reverse discrimination in favor of conservatives. And an unpleasant reality is that each type of diversity is at war with the others. If pressure for more women succeeds -- as it will -- there will be fewer black voices, fewer Latinos and so on.

Why should this be so? Aren't there black women and conservative Latinos? Of course there are. There may even be a wonderfully articulate disabled Latino gay conservative who is undiscovered because she is outside the comfortable old-boy network. But there probably aren't two.

Hey moron, I got news for you: Every other group but gender has half men and half women! Really! You can look it up! Age, race, disability, nationality, ethnic origin, even sexual orientation, pretty much every group is half men & half women!

Men just hire people who look like them (other men) and then look about wonderingly when women cry foul.