The Clintons and the Race Card

flckr: SI Neg. 75-2984. Date: 3/28/1975...Bible Quilt Harriet Powers, an African American farm woman from Clark County, GA, created this lively, balanced expression of her religious fervor. She exhibited her quilt at the Athens Cotton Fair of 1886... From The Smithsonian Treasury: American Quilts by Doris M. Bowman, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, 1991. ..Credit: Alfred Harrell (Smithsonian Institution)

Can't we all just get along?
Two interesting articles today, by Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globe and Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post, both with "Race Card" in the title. Actually, Eugene Robinson's article is titled "The Clinton Play the Race Card" on the front page of the website, while when you click on the article itself the title changes to "A Hand the Clintons Aren't Showing". Both articles address "The Clintons" as both Hillary and Bill Clinton have been campaigning on racial issues.

Jackson's thesis is simple. The Clintons didn't do much to help racial progress while manning the bully pulpit from 1992 to 2000, and are dividing voters today with patronizing racial attacks.

It is time to take a break to remember the fairy tales spun by the House of Clinton.

It increasingly appears that Hillary is unable or unwilling to break from the racial patronization of Bill. In 1993, in the same Memphis church that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from 25 years earlier, I noted that Clinton spoke as "if African-Americans had full run of the promised land in the last 25 years."

Clinton told the church, "We gave people the freedom to succeed." Clinton said King would have said, "You did a good job . . . letting people . . . live wherever they want to live, go wherever they want to go . . . without regard to race, if you work hard and play by the rules."

I wrote back then that in the broad context of the nation, no one "let" us do anything or "gave" us anything. Yes, African-Americans made progress and many white Americans aided in that progress, but it still came in the face of continued, documented redlining, workplace discrimination, and the decline of funding of public schools.

Bill Clinton hugely betrayed that progress by doing nothing as Draconian, and ultimately racist federal sentencing laws took full effect, punishing crack possession far more harshly than powdered-cocaine possession. Even though Americans use illegal drugs close to their racial percentage of the population, young black men made up the vast majority of those sentenced under crack laws. According to the Justice Policy Institute, the rate of black male imprisonment under Clinton grew from 2,800 per 100,000 to 3,620 per 100,000. As a result, 14 percent of black men lost the right to vote.

What was it that Bill Clinton said about "we gave people the freedom to succeed?"

Now, it appears that the House of Clinton, seeing that the race for the Democratic nomination is not an adoring coronation, is trickling with tricks that raise questions about how much she will toy with the race card and overplay the gender card.

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Obama has not been without fault in the patronization game. He made a dumb move in the New Hampshire debates by telling Clinton, "you're likable enough" when Clinton was answering a question about her likability quotient. But this pales next to the steady drip, drip, drip of stereotyping from the Clinton camp of a lazy, drug-using, Muslim black man who believes in fairy tales. It also pales to the gender-card whining of Bill on Hillary's behalf, saying in the 11th hour in New Hampshire, "I can't make her younger, taller, male." You have not yet heard Obama surrogates moaning they can't make Obama older or female.

Hillary Clinton herself fanned the fumes of patronization when she reached clumsily for an analogy that appeared to link Obama and King to simplistic hopers and dreamers, while it took a white man, President Johnson, to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Robinson says the Clintons use of race is deliberate, that they realize that Obama will take the black vote and are therefore using race to drive white voters to their side -- cynically.

A new Post-ABC News poll shows that black Democrats nationwide support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination by nearly 2 to 1. This striking reversal -- a month ago, Clinton held a big lead among African Americans -- is perhaps why race has suddenly become such a hot issue in a campaign that previously had dodged the subject.

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Still, it's surprising that the Clinton campaign has been so aggressive in keeping the race issue alive. On "Meet the Press," Clinton didn't just seek to explain her remarks about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in landmark civil rights legislation (she said it took a president to bring about real action) or Bill's "fairy tale" crack about Obama's record on the Iraq war (which some African Americans took as a dismissal of Obama's candidacy as mere fantasy). Instead, she went on the attack, accusing the Obama campaign of "deliberately distorting" her words in a way that was "unfair and unwarranted."

That seemed a curious tactic to employ just two weeks before the South Carolina Democratic primary, in which African Americans are expected to cast about half the total votes. It seemed especially curious after the most powerful black politician in the state, U.S. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, indicated he was so "bothered" by the Clintons' remarks that he might rethink his decision not to endorse any candidate before the primary.

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The Clintons are reading the polls, too; they might well be resigned to the possibility that most black Democrats will vote for Obama. This would mean that South Carolina is probably already lost and that the campaign's focus now has to be on Florida and the many states whose delegates are up for grabs on "Tsunami Tuesday."

Is it possible that accusing Obama and his campaign of playing the race card might create doubt in the minds of the moderate, independent white voters who now seem so enamored of the young, black senator? Might that be the idea?

Yes, that's a cynical view. But history is history.

The candidates have announced a moratorium of sorts on these divisive tactics, but it's way too late for that. The Clintons are no fools. They brought up these issues deliberately. They didn't bring up the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote, and say that despite the protests, arrests and jailing of scores of women, it passed after Woodrow Wilson announced his support. (Which would have fit right in with their "only the President can get it done" theme.) They brought up the civil rights laws deliberately. They must believe that race is an issue that works for Hillary. Cynical indeed.

WaPo Columnist Smears Obama

ANATOMY OF A SMEAR, by Richard Cohen: Write a column claiming the only African-American presidential candidate must support Louis Farrakhan, because the candidate's church gave him an award. Spend the entire column outlining Farrakhan's misdeeds. Sneak in this sentence at the end: "I don't for a moment think that Obama shares Wright's views on Farrakhan." Pretend that you have not delivered a vicious, factfree smear. Go have cocktails with Fred Hiatt.

Call article Obama's Farrakhan Test

This sickens me.

WaPo Cartoonist Oliphant Hates Clinton

Remember that cartoon I posted yesterday, from the Washington Post with PMS and other neanderthal jokes about Hillary? Blogger Mithras looked further: When you look at all the cartoons Oliphant's done about Hillary in the past few months, it's pretty clear that he hates women, not just Hillary Clinton. Prick.

Hat tip to Fables of the Reconstruction

Anson Dorrance/North Carolina Sexual Harassment Case Settled

The case settled for $385,000, apologies and improved sexual harassment policies. While that looks like a lot of money, I doubt plaintiff Melissa Jennings will see very much. The case was originally filed in 1998, and with summary judgments and appeals to the Supreme Court, the settlement funds probably will go to pay her attorneys for their 10 years of work. (After further reading, I find that the AP story reports that the settlement is mostly attorney fees.)



Charlotte Observer: Player, UNC settle suit; coach apologizes

A sexual harassment lawsuit against University of North Carolina women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance has been settled, with the university agreeing to pay former player Melissa Jennings $385,000 and Dorrance issuing an apology to all of his players for inappropriate discussions about sex.

The deal also requires the university to conduct a comprehensive review of its sexual harassment policies and procedures, according to a copy of the settlement obtained by The News & Observer. The settlement was approved by members of the UNC Board of Governors last week.

It was the second and final monetary settlement in the protracted lawsuit, which has been an embarrassing and expensive chapter for the university and its star soccer coach. In 2004, the other plaintiff, Debbie Keller -- a two-time national player of the year -- settled out of court for $70,000 and a requirement that Dorrance attend sensitivity training for eight years.

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Dorrance's apology letter, contained in the settlement, said between August 1996 and June 1998, he participated with his players in group discussions of team members' sexual activities and relationships with men.

"I understand that my participation in those discussions was inappropriate and unacceptable," his letter said. "I apologize to Ms. Jennings and her family, as well as all other members of the soccer team."

Dorrance and the university had long argued that the sexual discussions were merely locker room banter. But last year Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in the 4th Circuit Court majority opinion that Dorrance's conduct "went far behind simple teasing and qualified as sexual harassment."

The settlement provides for a full review and revision of UNC's sexual harassment policies by Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a former Olympic swimmer who is now a Florida Coastal School of Law assistant professor specializing in women's equity in sports.

USAToady: Dorrance, former player settle sexual harassment suit

The Daily Tar Heel: UNC settles sexual harassment suit

Winston-Salem Journal: UNC soccer coach, former player settle sexual harassment suit

Chilling News

Global warming is real. Are the politicians listening? At least the story is on page one of the Washington Post.

WaPo: Escalating Ice Loss Found in Antarctica
Sheets Melting in an Area Once Thought to Be Unaffected by Global Warming

Climatic changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.

While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the new finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth's ice, and until now, large-scale ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula that juts out toward the tip of South America. In addition, researchers found that the rate of ice loss in the affected areas has accelerated over the past 10 years -- as it has on most glaciers and ice sheets around the world.

"Without doubt, Antarctica as a whole is now losing ice yearly, and each year it's losing more," said Eric Rignot, lead author of a paper published online in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking despite land temperatures for the continent remaining essentially unchanged, except for the fast-warming peninsula.

The cause, Rignot said, may be changes in the flow of the warmer water of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that circles much of the continent. Because of changed wind patterns and less-well-understood dynamics of the submerged current, its water is coming closer to land in some sectors and melting the edges of glaciers deep underwater.

"Something must be changing the ocean to trigger such changes," said Rignot, a senior scientist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We believe it is related to global climate forcing."

Rignot said the tonnage of yearly ice loss in Antarctica is approaching that of Greenland, where ice sheets are known to be melting rapidly in some parts and where ancient glaciers have been in retreat. He said the change in Antarctica could become considerably more dramatic because the continent's western shelf, an expanse of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas, is largely below sea level and has broad and flat expanses of ice that could move quickly. Much of Greenland's ice flows through relatively narrow valleys in mountainous terrain, which slows its motion.

The new finding comes days after the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the group's next report should look at the "frightening" possibility that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could melt rapidly at the same time.

"Both Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet are huge bodies of ice and snow, which are sitting on land," said Rajendra Pachauri, chief of the IPCC, the United Nations' scientific advisory group. "If, through a process of melting, they collapse and are submerged in the sea, then we really are talking about sea-level rises of several meters." (A meter is about a yard.) Last year, the IPCC tentatively estimated that sea levels would rise by eight inches to two feet by the end of the century, assuming no melting in West Antarctica.

Your New Captain: Christie Rampone

Christie Rampone was named captain of the USWNT by new coach Pia Sundhage. She is the most capped player on the squad, but I am a little surprised by this appointment. Last fall Tony DiCicco said during the World Cup that she was virtually silent during his first two years as coach. She'll lead by example, that's for sure. She was the US's best defender and arguably their best player during the 2007 World Cup.

USSoccer: Defender Christie Rampone Named Captain of the U.S. Women's National Team
Veteran Will Skipper Her First Game on Jan. 16 vs. Canada

Why Big Oil Loves John McCain: Billions and Billions

Two peas in the oil pod
Big Oil loves John McCain 'cause he's sandbagged the Abramoff investigation that would have led to Big Oil having to pay the American Indians for the oil & gas leases they've been stealing for decades:

[Here's] the summary Lambert did over at the Mighty Corrente Building:

Wampum [Want the background? Read all at Abramoff & the Injuns at Wampum - truth] owns this story, and Mary Beth summarizes the detail. But I can’t understand a story that is longer than what you can write on a postcard, so I’m going to try to summarize the story this way:

1. The Department of the Interior leases Indian lands to the oil companies.

2. The oil companies are supposed to pay royalties on the oil they drill to the Indians who own the land.

3. The royalties add up to $100 billion (one hundred billion) dollars.

4. The Department of the Interior and the oil companies screwed up the accounting, and didn’t pay the Indians what they owed them.

5. The courts have agreed with the Indians, so the oil companies are on the hook for $100 billion.

6. Enter Saint John Sidney McCain (R-Torture Enablement), who is chair of the Senate Interior Commmittee.

7. McCain is pushing a settlement that will give the Indians 10 cents on the dollar.

8. McCain will thereby gain the undying gratitude of the oil companies, who will waltz off with $100 billion gross — the net to be determined by how much in campaign contributions goes to John Sidney McCain.

hat tip to Suburban Guerrilla

Close Guantanamo

The Guantanamo Blog
Sez the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been "pretty damaging" to the image of the United States.

"I'd like to see it shut down," Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

No Comment

Washington Post

Remember the old "No Comment" section of Ms. Magazine? This "cartoon" qualifies. I count at least 10 sexist jokes embedded in one neanderthal of a cartoon. Ha ha.

You know, she's not my candidate, but this type of shit makes me want to vote for Hillary just to shut the fuck up this sexist pig and all the other sexist pigs. STFU! STFU!

Hat tip to Reclusive Leftist, via Pandagon.

Trust

TZVEE
Hillary Clinton is on Press the Meat today, and says she trusted the Bush Administration's promises about what they would do with the authority she gave them with her vote on Iraq.

She trusted Bush. That is why I DON'T TRUST HER. I knew enough not to trust Bush. Hadn't he spent his entire campaign in 2000 lying about his record? And about Al Gore, Bill Clinton, and even Hillary herself? And the 2000 election fight over the voters further cemented his lying liar status. How could she trust Bush? Or Cheney? Lying liars, both.

I can't stop shouting at the TV, because Tim Russert is not aware of this simple comeback. He doesn't ask her that question.

Toyota Prius Sales Top Ford Explorer Sales

Financial Times: Toyota Prius sales pass Ford Explorer
The icon of America's SUV passion falls victim to stubbornly high gas prices and an increasingly stringent regulatory climate

Americans bought more Toyota Prius hybrid gas-electric hatchbacks last year than Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles, the top-selling SUV for more than a decade.

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While Prius sales soared 69% last year, demand for the Explorer was less than a third of its 2000 peak.

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The Explorer led the SUV charge in the 1990s to replace the minivan as the family car. Baby boomers craving space, a protective cocoon high above the ground and the power of a V-8 engine have driven about 6 million Explorers out of showrooms over the past 18 years. But filling an Explorer fuel tank now costs $70 or more, up from $30 five years ago. The traditional SUV "is a dead market," Magliano says.

It costs about $30 to fill the tank of the Prius at $3 a gallon, if the tank is completely empty.

Coach Mom drives an Explorer and can't wait to get rid of it. The car, only two years old, is already on the Consumer Reports list of cars not to buy used.

The Prius is not without its problems -- the terrible handling on snow and ice, poor sight lines -- but the gas efficiency can't be beat. And for a small car it's quite comfortable.

Good Journalism

Boston Globe: Courts strip elders of their independence
Within minutes, judges send seniors to supervised care

I was going to blog about this article as a great example of what good journalism is: finding a problem in society and exposing it to the light of day. Apparently Massachusetts courts have been shuffling old folks into guardianships without complying with legal requirements, and without caring very much about the people who are hurt by this.

Then I read the attribution at the end of the story. It's a project from a graduate seminar in journalism at Northeastern University (home of my co-op law school).

This article was reported and written for a graduate seminar in Investigative Reporting at Northeastern University by eight students: Nicholas Coates, Meghan Gargan, Jeff Kelly, Maggie Kowalski, Candice Novak, Yerina Ranjit, Amanda Smith, and Richard Thompson. Their work was overseen and this article was edited by Northeastern journalism professor Walter V. Robinson, former editor of the Globe Spotlight Team. Robinson's e-mail address is wrobinson@globe.com. Confidential messages can be left at 617-929-3334.

Seeing a piece like this gives me two reactions. One, continuing frustration with our corporate media, which concentrates so much on pointless fact-free opinionating, and so little on actual reporting. Two, happiness to see that good journalism is still being taught at schools like Northeastern. I look forward to seeing the bylines of these reporters in the future.

I'm Less of a Threat

UnrealID.com
So why do I keep having to take off my shoes in airports?

Yesterday Michael (Skeletor) Chertoff announced the next federal step towards a national ID (called "Real ID", like my passport isn't a real ID. Please.). States have until May 31 to agree to go along with the federal rules for IDs that would be necessary a) to get into federal buildings, and b) to fly. But there are different compliance dates, based on the age of the person to whom the license is being issued. Why is this?

The schedule released Friday calls for compliant licenses for everyone under 50 by May 11, 2014, and for those 50 and over, by Dec. 1, 2017.

The Homeland Security Department decided this would lower costs, according to Mr. Chertoff. He called it “risk management,” saying older people were less likely to be terrorists.

So, again I ask, if I'm less likely to be a terrorist, why am I taking my shoes off in airports?

This is just spinning their wheels. Nothing gets done before Bush leaves office, and the national ID is deeply unpopular. Hopefully a Democratic president will scuttle this waste of money. It reminds me of Nazi Germany: Papers, please? Or Casablanca and the letters of transit. No one will be able to travel without a Real ID, and the black market for counterfeit IDs will become even more lucrative.

Democratic Ads

John Edwards, ad running in South Carolina:



Hillary, ad running in South Carolina and Nevada:


Obama, ad running in Nevada:


hat tip to Hotline on Call

Rudy In Freefall

Smell the desperation: Mr. "Immigrants Should Speak English" releases Spanish ad in Florida

Yesterday it was announced that Rudy Giuliani's senior campaign staff ("voluntarily", right) wouldn't be paid for the month of January. Not a good sign. He has also pulled all his paid staff out of Michigan and South Carolina. But it's not helping. In the most recent CNN poll, Rudy is third in Florida with 18%, far behind McCain at 34% and trailing even no money, no organization Mike Huckabee at 21%.

I think it's over for Giuliani, and the writing's been on the wall for some time. However, he still has a few days left to make his signature gaffes. Like this one (from Newsday, via firedoglake):

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - Rudy Giuliani loves baseball, but does he know the game?

According to a clip played by sports reporter Jared Max on WCBS-AM Thursday morning, Giuliani spoke about the impact of the steroids scandal on the pursuit of the record for all-time most home runs by Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez.

"Is Bobby Bonds' record a legitimate record that A-Rod should be shooting for," Giuliani asked, "or should A-Rod be judged by the Babe Ruth standard, assuming A-Rod did not take steroids?"

A good question, except Bobby Bonds, long retired from baseball, is the late father of the current homerun record holder, Barry Bonds. It's Barry who is accused of using steroids, though he denies it.

And if Barry Bonds is stripped of his record, it reverts not to Babe Ruth, who had 714 home runs, but Hank Aaron, the former Atlanta player who hit 755 before retiring years ago.

He should have stuck to his usual "Noun, verb, 9/11" script.

Here are some of the headlines in the media about Rudy's flailing campaign:

LATimes: Giuliani is feeling the squeeze
Some staffers forgo their pay as the GOP presidential hopeful bets heavily on a victory in Florida.

Miami Herald: Salary cuts dull Giuliani message

The Weekly Standard: The Giuliani Implosion
From frontrunner to also-ran in eight short weeks.

Melbourne (AUS) Sun:
Rudy Giuliani's nomination snub gamble backfires
ONE-time Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani's high-stakes gamble of bypassing the early presidential nominating contests has stamped a "big L" for loser on his forehead.

Later that day; edited to spell "desperation" correctly, I hope.

Perfectly Normal

It's thundering outside my windows, in January...

and it snowed in Baghdad today, for the first time in almost 100 years.

But there's no global warming.

Wear Orange on Friday

ACLU: Close Guantanamo

JANUARY 11, 2008, is the six-year anniversary of the first arrival of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.

On January 11, we are calling on everyone opposed to torture and indefinite detention to WEAR ORANGE to symbolize their sadness and disgust with the national shame that is Guantánamo Bay.

Sign the Pledge

Talking Points

We Love Lists

2Spare.com: 10 Creepiest Old Ads

hat tip to BlogsNow

Kerry Endorses Obama

Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

Senator John Kerry endorsed the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama on Thursday at a rally in Charleston, S.C.
John Kerry announced in South Carolina today that he is endorsing Barack Obama. More importantly, he is giving him the enormous email list (3,000,000 strong) he developed during his 2004 Presidential campaign.

More emails for me! I'm on both lists already.

This is not really a surprise. Kerry and Edwards have had a strained relationship (Elizabeth Edwards' book says John Edwards wanted to contest the results in Ohio in 2004, but was overruled by Kerry who took his $16 million and went home), and Hillary Clinton called Kerry's botched jokes about education or Iraq "inappropriate".

Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters

I continue to describe Ron Paul as "Right on the war, wrong on everything else."

The New Republic: Angry White Man
The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul

The New Republic: Selections From Ron Paul's Newsletters (At this link, you can click on pdf files that show the actual newsletters.)

The Newsletters: Since at least 1978, Ron Paul has attached his name to a series of newsletters--Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter--that frequently made outrageous statements:

Race

"A Special Issue on Racial Terrorism" analyzes the Los Angeles riots of 1992: "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. ... What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided."

The November 1990 issue of the Political Report had kind words for David Duke.

This newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

The January 1991 edition of the Political Report refers to King as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours" and a "flagrant plagiarist with a phony doctorate."

A February 1991 newsletter attacks "The X-Rated Martin Luther King."

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" would be better alternatives--and says, "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house

."
Group News Blog: The End of Ron Paul

Majikthise: Reporter unearths racist comments in pre-1999 Ron Paul newsletters

Iranian Gunships Incident Probably Faked

United States Navy, via Getty Images

The United States Navy released this photograph of a speedboat suspected of being from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy maneuvering near three Navy warships on Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has said five armed Iranian speedboats confronted the warships. (NYTimes)
dailykos: Strait of Hormuz Incident: almost certainly a fake

The Pentagon released footage of a supposed Iranian encroachment on a US warship that occurred on Sunday. You can watch it here, below, yourself. The tipoff is the audio; while the Iranians were supposedly in gunships with outboard motors (on a lake here in Massachusetts we'd call these powerboats), there is no motor noise in the background (listen from about 2:20 forward); and then there is the Borat-ish accent of the supposed Iranian.

How convenient for Commander Codpiece that this purported incident occurs just before he heads to the Middle East.

Everybody To Get From Street

Slaty-backed gull: The Superior Waters Project
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!

Boston Globe: Flock's foray from Siberia inspires local delight

A group of Russians landed unnoticed on the Massachusetts coast recently, saying little as they scouted the area for a possible occupation. But with their bright pink legs and distinctive wing markings, the slaty-backed gulls could not maintain their cover.

The local bird-watching community is atwitter over the first known Massachusetts sightings of the species, which usually nests on Russia's frigid eastern coast and winters in northeast Asia.

David Sibley of Concord was the first to spot the gull, at Jodrey State Fish Pier in Gloucester on Dec. 23.

"It's always a thrill to find a bird that rare," said Sibley, an artist who has written several authoritative bird books. "There's something really special about that feeling of discovery."

Wayne Petersen of the Massachusetts Audubon Society sighted a second gull on Coast Guard Beach in Eastham an hour later. Later, others sighted a third slaty-backed gull in Gloucester.

Sibley said the gull stands out from local species because of its leg color, an extra bit of white on its wing tips, its slate-gray back, and brown streaking on its head. Petersen said the bird has been sighted in the last two decades across the United States, as far southeast as Florida. The gulls may be looking for property; gull populations, in general, have been on the rise.

Sibley said more slaty-backed gulls could visit in the future. "This could be the beginning of the invasion," he said.

Extreme Weather: South Asia

BBCNews: Deadly blizzards bring Asia chaos

Heavy snow and bitterly cold weather have caused scores of deaths and major disruption in parts of Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Pakistan.

Some areas have seen snow for the first time in years, with people struggling to keep warm in sub-zero temperatures amid power shortages.

In Iran, heavy snow over recent days has seen eight people frozen to death after being trapped in their cars.

Tens of thousands of other motorists were rescued from their vehicles.

Some desert areas in Iran reported snowfalls for the first time in living memory.

BBCNews: Dozens killed in Iran blizzards

Dr. Robert Jarvik Not a Medical Doctor

Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart.

I hear his voice on TV almost every night shilling for Lipitor, the cholesterol medication. "Dr. Robert Jarvik". They always say his name this way. I always assumed he was a medical doctor. Otherwise, why would they introduce him this way in a commercial for a medication? A doctor says it's good. That's what I heard.

But he's not a medical doctor, he's an engineer with a medical degree who has never practiced medicine a day in his life.

Congress is now investigating this as potential fraud.

International Herald Tribune (AP): Congress questions Jarvik's Lipitor lip service, credentials as part of celebrity-pitch probe

Why Hillary Won

That's the big question today, as all the polling leading up to yesterday's vote indicated that Barack Obama would win New Hampshire.

Here are my theories:

1. New Hampshire is essentially a conservative state. Hillary is the more conservative of the two candidates.

2. Independents listened to the pre-vote polls and went for McCain, reasoning that Obama already had it locked up.

3. Women were PISSED at how Hillary got treated, both by the media and by the other candidates.

- The Heathers on the bus incident. Hillary took coffee & bagels to the reporters covering her in Iowa and was greeted with stony silence (and contempt, really) by that adolescent-acting group.

- Chris (Heather) Matthews berating her at a campaign event, then pinching her cheek. Ewww. Rachel Maddow told him to his face on MSNBC last night that in the eyes of some that turned the voters to Hillary.

- In the Saturday night debate, Charlie (Heather) Gibson asked her why voters found her less likeable than Obama. She replied "That hurts my feelings, but I'll try to go on" and Obama without looking up from his notes said "You're likeable enough, Hillary." Ouch.

- She choked up while talking the day before the vote, and when the media went to John Edwards for a response he said this:

John Edwards was asked in Lakeport about reports that Hillary had teared up.

“I really don’t have anything to say about that,” he said. “I think what we need in a commander in chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are a tough business, but being president of the United States is also a very tough business. And the president of the United States is faced with very very difficult challenges every single day, difficult judgments every single day. What I know is that I’m prepared for that, and I’m in this fight for the middle class, for the future of this country, for the long haul.”

- I received this Katha Pollit post on the Nation blog and this Gloria Steinem article from the New York Times in email on the day of the primary, both being circulated to groups of professional women. Hillary won women by double digits; they (we) were pissed. She's not my candidate, and I hated the way she got treated.

4. Hillary turned women voters in her favor over these incidents. Even if Obama had similarly "turned" the minority vote, it would have had negligible impact on the vote, as New Hampshire is 96.1% white (pdf file). He had no voting bloc to turn.

5. Obama lost his voice -- literally, he was having trouble speaking -- during the last three days of the campaign. His speeches, croaked, were no longer as inspiring.

6. Nothing changed. The results were the same as they would have been before Iowa; it's just that the media lost their collective mind in the ensuing five days and predicted a big jump in Obama support that just wasn't there.

7. The Bradley (also known as Wilder) effect; voters telling pollsters they would vote for a black candidate, then not doing it.

Those are my theories. Any to add?

Deep Thought

Maybe for the next primary, the media should wait until after the votes are in to tell us it's over? Just a thought.

She's not my candidate, but I'm glad Hillary won just to stick it to the media who hate her so. Hillary 1, Heathers 0.

We Need Universal Healthcare

We need national healthcare. We all should have the same access to healthcare as Dick Cheney (CheneyCare, as the California Nurses Association calls it). We need to get the for-profit insurance companies out of the picture, because they are killing us. Over 100,000 Americans die each year who would be alive if they lived in France, Japan or Australia.

Reuters: France best, U.S. worst in preventable death ranking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

dailykos: Each year, 101,000 Americans die needlessly because they're not French

dailykos: Medical Crisis: The Shape Of Things To Come

Congratulations to Kristine Lilly

She's pregnant! She says she's not retiring, but I have to wonder about that. She will be 37 in July. And I wonder who will be the new captain of the National Team? Abby Wambach?

ussoccer: U.S. Women's National Team Legend Kristine Lilly Will Not Play in 2008
- World's All-Time Cap Leader is Expecting Her First Child

CHICAGO (January 7, 2008) – Kristine Lilly, the captain of the U.S. Women’s National Team for the last three years, will not play international soccer in 2008 as she is expecting her first child with husband David Heavey, a firefighter in Brookline, Mass.

The news means that Lilly, who has played in every Women’s World Cup and Olympics ever contested by the United States (eight total tournaments) will not play in the 2008 Olympics should the USA qualify in April. Lilly is due in July.

“I’m not closing any doors as far as soccer,” said Lilly, who has played 340 games for the USA. “I hope to play in the new league and if one day I get the chance to play for (new U.S. head coach) Pia (Sundhage), that would be fantastic. But for now, I’m focusing on becoming a mom for the first time and everything that goes with that experience.”

SoccerAmerica: U.S. captain Kristine Lilly to skip Olympics

Bush Administration To Sacrifice Polar Bears To Big Oil

The Bush Administration announced yesterday that it will miss tomorrow's deadline on listing polar bears as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. No surprise, this is political. Bushco wants to grant an oil & gas lease for a 29-million-acre area of the Chukti Sea in Alaska.

If the polar bear is an endangered species, the Interior Department would have to consider the impact on the polar bear's habitat, and the sale probably doesn't go through. So they will grant the oil & gas lease, then list the polar bear as endangered: too late for the Chukti Sea region, though. Hello to more pollution and global warming, goodbye more polar bears.

While the comment period about the endangered species determination is closed, you can always blast the Interior Dept. for delaying the decision. Use this address to contact Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne:

Get involved

The official comment period for whether the polar bear should be considered a threatened species is closed. However, you can share your opinion about the newly announced delay by contacting the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Who: Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior

Address: 1849 C St. NW, Washington, DC 20240

Phone: (202) 208-3100 or (800) 344-9453

Log comments at: www.doi.gov/contact.html

San Francisco Chronicle: Groups cite oil leases in U.S. delay on rating polar bear's status

Environmental groups fear that political meddling and a rush to sell oil leases in Arctic waters are behind the Bush administration's announcement Monday that it will miss a legal deadline to determine whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

[]

Environmental groups fear that the polar bear decision has been purposefully delayed to allow a first-time oil lease sale to go forward Feb. 6 in Alaska's pristine Chukchi Sea, which provides one-tenth of the habitat for the world's polar bears.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, criticized the administration's decision to proceed with the 29 million-acre lease sale in the Chukchi.

"On the one hand, the Interior Department is dragging its feet on protecting the polar bear, while opening up new oil and gas drilling in sensitive polar bear habitats on the other," Markey said in a statement.

Andrew Wexler, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago, said, "The one-month delay comes at a time that is very fortuitous for oil and gas companies that want to drill in the Chukchi."

If the bear were listed before the lease-sale decision, Interior Department's Minerals Management Service might have to delay or stop the sale, Wexler said.

Melanie Duchin, a Greenpeace campaigner in Alaska, agreed that the delay is highly suspect.

"You can't both protect the bear's habitat and drill in it at the same time," Duchin said.

"The sale would set up a one-two punch for the polar bear. On one hand, it would expose the bears to oil spills and all manner of industrial disturbance that comes along with exploration, drilling and transportation. Once those fossil fuels are burned, they exacerbate global warming and melt the polar bear's sea-ice habitat," she said.

More Extreme Weather - Tornadoes in January

wikipedia
The warm weather is headed east, though hopefully the tornadoes will not follow. It was already in the 50s when I took my garbage to the curb this morning. Note that the authors of this AP article, about out-of-season tornadoes reported in six midwest states, and daily temperature records being smashed by 5 and 10 degrees, never mention global warming or climate change. "Unseasonable" is as far as the Weather Service meterologist goes in describing these dramatic events; the AP writers call it "making history". I call it the extremes of global warming.

YahooNews (AP): Rare winter tornadoes rake Midwest

WHEATLAND, Wis. - A freak cluster of tornadoes raked across an unseasonably warm Midwest, demolishing houses, knocking railroad cars off their tracks and even temporarily halting justice in one courthouse.

Record temperatures were reported across much of the country Monday, and storms continued to pummel the nation's midsection as darkness fell. More warmth and storms were in store for Tuesday.

Tornadoes were reported or suspected Monday in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.

Eleven houses in Wisconsin's Kenosha County were destroyed, five others had heavy damage and four had moderate damage, authorities said. About 13 people were injured, none seriously.

"I have never seen damage like this in the summertime when we have potential for tornadoes," Sheriff David Beth said. "To see something like this in January is mind-boggling to me. This is just unimaginable to me."

[]

Meteorologists said the unusual weather was the result of warm, moist air moving from the south. It brought temperatures hovering near 70 degrees on Sunday and Monday.

"It's very unseasonable for this time of year," said National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Sipprell. "The atmosphere is just right."

[]

Elsewhere, the heat was making history. By about noon Monday, Chicago's temperature already had hit 64 degrees, breaking a previous record-high of 59 degrees set on Jan. 7, 1907, according to the weather service.

The high in Buffalo, N.Y., of 59 degrees beat the old record for the date by 5 degrees. The high was 66 in Toledo, Ohio, a record that led some University of Toledo students to stroll to class in T-shirts, flip-flops and shorts. In New Jersey, the Atlantic City International Airport recorded a high of 68 degrees, breaking a 10-year-old record by 10 degrees.

Decision Day In New Hampshire

Decision, decisions:

This:

Daniella Zalcman, flckr


Or this:

Daniella Zalcman, flckr

I'm still not sure how I would vote.

Looks Up To See Curb

Two days after Christmas, former Congressman John Sweeney refused to pay a cab fare after a late night ride home from a strip club. Later, someone with a brain in his family went down to the cab company and paid the fare (with a little something extra for the cabbie) and the cab co. dropped the complaint.

The cab cost $80. Maybe he spent all his money at the club?

WNYT.com: Source: cops called after Sweeney cab ride

hat tip to Talking Points Memo

The Mittwit 'Marched' 'With' Martin Luther King

I'm sure you read this latest Multiple Choice Mitt claim last week. First he said his dad George Romney marched with Martin Luther King. Then it turned out that the Mittwit had claimed to march with Martin Luther King himself!

"My father and I marched with Martin Luther King Jr. through the streets of Detroit."

Boston Herald, 1978 interview (as reported by the Boston Globe)

The Mittwit was forced to admit this was not true. (He didn't admit the lie himself; he had his campaign put out a statement: 'Yesterday, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged that was not true. "Mitt Romney did not march with Martin Luther King," he said in an e-mail statement to the Globe.') So Multiple Choice Mitt has been a liar for decades.

On hearing the news about him claiming George marched with MLK (we hadn't heard of the Herald interview yet) my brother & I began texting each other. My brother is a better texter than me and actually spells things write (Freudian slip!) & uses capitals and punctuation.

me: & mittwit's dad marched w/ m l king - not. pathological liar

BRO: That dude will say ANYTHING to get elected

me: he's big papi's father

BRO: Paul Revere changed his name from Romney

me: planted landmines while in france

BRO: Personally tore down the Berlin wall

me: built great wall of china

BRO: Spent a decade ministering to untouchables in Calcutta

me: son of god

BRO: Freed the slaves

me: will turn hillary to pillar of salt

BRO: Once escaped from chains and straitjacket and locked trunk submerged beneath frozen river.

BRO: Invented light bulb one morning, hypothesized theory of relativity that afternoon, cured polio that night.

me: ascended to heaven afterward

BRO: Planning to come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; also making longer-term plans for "kingdom that has no end"

BRO: Wrote the Magna Charta, built the pyramids, mapped the human genome, invented astroturf

me: mittwit invents fake grass - perfect

Chimp's Economy Lifts All Boats

In England, that is.

BBCNews: Britons 'richer than Americans'

The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest.

Analyst Oxford Economics said the UK's GDP per head of population will reach £23,500 - £250 higher than in the US. The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest.

[]

Mr Cooper [of Oxford Economics] said: "The UK has been catching up steadily with living standards in the US since 2001, so it is a well-established trend rather than simply the result of currency fluctuations."

Heckuva job, George.

hat tip to Attaturk at Eschaton.

Birders Document Global Warming Changes

Thomas McDonald for The New York Times
A saw-whet owl in an evergreen tree.
A story from last week's New York Times on the Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count and how global warming has effected where birds are wintering:

NYTimes: The Binocular Brigade

John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, has called birds “the canary in the coal mine — a sign that something is going on” in terms of environmental change.

National Audubon recently issued its WatchList 2007, a periodic synthesis of data for the United States that takes into account current species’ population size, population trends, range size of a species and threats to a spread of populations. According to Dr. Greg Butcher, National Audubon’s director of bird conservation, there are 10 regional species on the WatchList’s urgent list and some 37 regional species on the cautionary list.

“The worst of it is definitely in the future,” Dr. Butcher said. Among other things, “we’re worried about the coastal species in 50 to 100 years.”

Geoffrey S. LeBaron, national director of the bird count, elaborated. Should ocean levels rise in coming decades, he said, the already endangered piping plover that nests on Jones Beach and elsewhere, for one, would be particularly vulnerable.

Mr. LeBaron calls forest species the future’s “wild card.” Common, adaptable species with habitats near the human population will probably be relatively unaffected, he said.

For now, there is unease, if not panic, among the New York region’s birders.

Julian Sproule, president of the Saugatuck Valley Audubon Society, in Wilton, Conn., also serves on birding boards at the state level and has a broader perspective on how climate change affects the region. He points to a study led by Alan Hitch, a wildlife expert at Auburn University, that clearly documents a northward trend among certain species. The familiar northern cardinal, Mr. Sproule said, and the Carolina wren are wintering here.

Scott Heth, president of the Sharon Audubon Society in Connecticut, said, “We’re pretty sure that has to do with climate change.” Green herons are atypically wintering in Orient. Mockingbirds, Baltimore orioles, egrets and some hummingbirds are wintering around New York.

Moreover, some birdwatchers lament the loss of habitat throughout the area. It is considered “at least as important as climate change” to species depletion, said Lawrence Trachtenberg, who watches from Westchester.

Dr. Butcher said that habitat loss, caused by “the tremendous growth of the megalopolis” around New York, has already caused the demise of the northern bobwhite, and “has had a pretty dramatic effect” on kestrel populations as well as other species here.

Mike Huckabee, Among Other Faults, Is A Dope

I linked to this video before, but it's still a classic. Canadian comedian Ric Mercer interviews Americans asking false questions about Canada. Watch the first two minutes to see Mike Huckabee opine on Canada's National Igloo. Really.

A Pox on Bipartisanship

hat tip to Digby: Partisan Bickering (via Sideshow & C&L)

George McGovern: Chimpeach

George McGovern, WaPo: Why I Believe Bush Must Go
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.

As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.

After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.

Today I have made a different choice.

Of course, there seems to be little bipartisan support for impeachment. The political scene is marked by narrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians. So the chances of a bipartisan impeachment and conviction are not promising.

But what are the facts?

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

[]

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

Falafel!

I read earlier today that Faux News blowhard Bill O'Reilly pushed an Obama campaign staffer and had to be restrained by the Secret Service.

Just now I read a Slate magazine piece on the same incident, which reports that people in the crowd were chanting "falafel!" to BillO.

A number of people shouted falafel, the word O'Reilly used in a racy set of telephone conversations with a young woman he was trying to seduce as he described a shower they might take together. He meant loofa, which is not a Middle Eastern delicacy but a bath item.

Falafel!

We Love Lists

BBC News Magazine Monitor: 100 things we didn't know last year

hat tip to BlogsNow

Test Your Traveler IQ

Flag of Jamaica
From playing this game, I learned how little I know about the world! (I also played the "flags of the world" game, where I put Jamaica in Africa among other gaffes.) For me, this would have been a great way to learn geography. Make it a quiz!

The Traveler IQ Challenge

hat tip to Lawyers, Guns & Money

No Catskills Casino

The Bush Administration finally got one right. The two tribes planning the casinos in Sullivan County are from far away -- the Mohawks are from the northern reaches of New York State, and the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe based in Wisconsin. Of course, whites forced the original tribe from the area, the Lenni-Lenape, from their native land. The Lenni-Lenape are now scattered and have never been given tribal status by the United States. While recognizing the terrible treatment of native peoples by our government, there is no need to allow an environmental disaster like a casino adjacent to the Catskill Forest Preserve.

Middletown Record: Sullivan casino plans denied
Feds reject tribes' proposals for Raceway and Bridgeville

MONTICELLO — The decades-old quest for casinos in Sullivan County could be over.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne yesterday denied land-into-trust applications from the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which proposed a casino at Monticello Raceway, and from the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, which sought to build one in Bridgeville.

In denial letters to 22 tribes across the United States, all sent yesterday, Kempthorne expressed concern for how casinos might negatively affect tribal communities, causing American Indians to move hundreds of miles away from their reservations for work at gambling facilities, he said.

"The Tribe's application fails to carefully address and comprehensively analyze the potential negative impacts on reservation life and does not clearly demonstrate why these negative impacts should be outweighed by the financial benefits of tribal ownership of a remote gaming facility," a letter from Interior Department said.

NYTimes: Interior Secretary Rejects Catskill Casino Plans

Newsday: US officials reject Catskill casino plans

Albany Times-Union: A setback for Catskills casino plans
Decision curtails off-reservation gambling halls

Why Obama and Huckabee Won

Sunny optimism. People like nice people, happy people, cheerful people. We are afraid of anger. As a trial attorney I learned not to show anger towards a witness until the jury was already angry. Otherwise I'd turn them right off. I could express their anger, but not mine until they had it, too.

Most voters don't have time to get past the surface of a candidate. That's why George W. Fuckup is president. We pointy-headed intellectuals knew he was a malevolent pile of shit, but he exuded sunny optimism. He was a compassionate conservative! You and I knew this was crap, but it worked. People liked his chuckle. They liked his upbeat pronouncements about the future of Amurrika.

And to me that's the secret of Obama and Huckabee. They're both very charming in their own way. I know that Huckabee is a whackjob, but most people only see the charm. I know that Obama has been waffling right to court the media, but most people just hear his theme: hope. And who wouldn't rather hope than worry?

Norway Ski Club

For decades I've driven by the Norway Ski Club in Shandaken, New York, on Route 28 as I head towards Delaware County and Catskill Forest Preserve (what I think of as the real Catskills). It always fascinated me, a beautiful white house with green shutters that close and lock, right next to the road, only open on weekends as far as I could tell. What was this Norway Ski Club? Turns out it's a NYC institution (of course) started in the 1930s, still going but struggling to attract new members.

NYTimes: Oh, My Poor Arthritic Ski Club

Yet, there are still vestiges of skiing’s past as a sport accessible to the working man. Starting in the 1930s, city-based ski clubs such as the Norway, Swiss and Miramar flourished. Many were formed by immigrants from ski-loving countries, or groups of neighbors who wanted the sport to be both sociable and affordable. They pooled their money and bought modest houses in ski towns like Ludlow, Vt., and Shandaken, N.Y., in the Catskills.

Membership is dwindling at the clubs that have survived. Many modern skiers find the idea of doing a few chores and sharing a bathroom with strangers, which many clubs require, as unacceptable as a T-shirt without a designer label.

Democrats Sweep

Barack Obama Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

Obama won 37.6% of the Democratic caucus vote, Edwards second with 29.8, Hillary third with 29.5, but all three trounced Two Buck Huck, the Republican 'winner'.

These are the really important numbers (thanks Group News Blog):

Total Voter Turnout (approximate)

356,000

Percentage of total vote

24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)

If I Lived In Iowa

Who would I caucus for tonight? For months I've been an Obama supporter. But now I'm wavering. Because Obama has been spouting the right-wing lines left and right (no pun intended). The Social Security "crisis", let's compromise with Republicans, and this week a dig at John Edwards for being a trial lawyer. Hello, Mr. Harvard Law, almost $8,000,000 of your fundraising has come from lawyers, and that's not all $20 donations from civil rights attorneys.

And what Democrat in their right mind goes after trial lawyers? We are after all the last bulwark against corporate power. Do you think that once you make it impossible for ordinary citizens to bring lawsuits, that the corporations will give up their gold-plated attorneys? Hello? There's a reason Shakespeare wrote, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Not to make the world better for our corporate oligarchs, but to clear the path for tyranny.

And John Edwards is running a very progressive campaign. I'm a true-blue liberal, and I want to vote for a progressive Democrat (like many in the blogosphere). I completely agree with Edwards' contention that corporate power must be opposed head-on. You can't win a fight unless you are willing to fight. I love Atrios' description of the three major Democratic candidates:

Obama: The system sucks, but I'm so awesome that it'll melt away before me.

Edwards: The system sucks, and we're gonna have to fight like hell to destroy it.

Clinton: The system sucks, and I know how to work within it more than anyone.

Here's another reason I'd probably caucus for Edwards tonight: reportedly, Republicans will be crossing party lines (you can do that in the Iowa caucuses, another reason that lily-white state shouldn't be choosing the Democratic nominee) and they're all expected to go for Obama as part of a beat-ubermonsterfeminazi-Hillary, beat-progressive-Edwards strategy.

But the bottom line is, every Democratic candidate is better than every Republican candidate, hands down. I'll work for and donate to the Democratic candidate, whether it's Edwards, Obama, or Clinton, or Dodd, Richardson or Biden. We must take back our country this year. It's now or never.

'Roger the Red-Nosed 'Roider'

A new holiday video for the steroid era:



hat tip to Over the Monster (actually, to the Mom of blogger Roger Booth who forwarded it to him.)

I'm a Criminal

Sez the RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, because: I put my CDs on my IPod. Ooh, bad girl. The Washington Post reported this week that the RIAA is making this absurd claim in a lawsuit against a consumer in Arizona.

However, I don't think I am a criminal, because at the time I put my CDs on my IPod, the RIAA had an entirely different view of the matter, and I was relying on it. That's called estoppel, baby. Put that in your corporate pipe and smoke it.

"If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail."

The quote is from the RIAA website. It has since been removed, according to BoingBoing which decries this revisionism. Also, arguing before the United States Supreme Court in 2005, the RIAA attorney said this:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your IPod."

Hat tip to BoingBoing which is invaluable on issues of overreaching copyright and privacy.

Music to My Ears

"Sundhage is the anti-Greg Ryan -- fitness is secondary to her, and communication is at a premium."

ESPNSoccerNet: Bringing back the passion

Bye Bye Frederick of Hollywood

flckr

We hardly knew ye.

Greg Ryan, Talking About Practice

Dope.
Deposed USWNT coach Greg Ryan gave an interview to the Arizona Republic before Christmas, defending "the worst decision in the history of organized sports".

His pathetic excuses for taking out his hot goalkeeper Hope Solo for legendary but old and rusty Brianna Scurry:

1. Solo missed a team meal on the day of the England game. (The USA won that game 3-0 and Solo was credited with 4 saves on her clean sheet). I bet she was eating with her brother, who was in China to watch her play in tribute to their father who had died in June.

2. Even though he brings up the rule violation in the interview, he claims that's not why he didn't start her against Brazil. (Then why bring it up, other than to slime her. Jerk.)

3. Briana Scurry looked better than Solo -- in a practice. In this regard, I must quote the eternal words of Allen Iverson:

[W]e're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man. (laughter from the media crowd) We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice....we're talking about practice man, we're not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we're talking about practice.

This is what Ryan said about practice leading to his decision:

What did you see during practice that made you decide that Solo wasn't ready for Brazil?

"We played small sided games to big goals, where we were going to get a lot of chances like Brazil would get, dribbling in or around the penalty box. On that day, of the 30 or 40 shots, Hope was giving up three times the number of goals Briana was giving up.

Briana was saving them in the top corners. Hope was letting them go right through her hands, and this was two days before the Brazil game. It was so bad that I brought my assistants down to watch and said, 'Look at this.' Now looking back, correlating the late nights and whatever, maybe it makes a little bit more sense."

I talked to my sister about the bad practice excuse and she said, "People have bad practices before big games all the time. She was just getting it out of her system! What a jerk."

4. And that's his final excuse, that Solo had been keeping late nights. I call bullshit on this one. There is no way that this athlete who has dedicated the tournament to her recently deceased father decides to sabotage herself like that. Maybe she stayed out late the nights after she found out that her bonehead of a coach was taking her out of the most important game of her life (and as it turned out, his career.)

Solo also gave an interview recently to the San Diego Union-Tribune in which, as she has been after her ill-considered (but entirely truthful) post-Brazil-game interview, she is conciliatory and apologetic.

Sexism Never Rests

Christmas with the Gillibrands
An actual letter to the Glens Falls Post-Star regarding the happy news of Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand's pregnancy:

Women should leave some jobs to the men

Editor:

Regarding a story that appeared in The Post-Star on Dec. 6: "Rep. Gillibrand announces she is pregnant."

First of all, I must admit that I am a male chauvinist and that there are, thankfully, differences between men and women. There are many occupations suitable for women and their physical attributes. Carrying a weapon while serving in the Armed Forces and firefighting are not suitable lines of work for women to prove that they are physically equal to men. How many male police officers feel comfortable with a 100 pound female backup?

And now, I have to add serving in the U.S. House and Senate as an occupation that may not be suitable for women.

Ms. Gillibrand's current pregnancy makes a strong case for my opinion. Ms. Gillibrand was elected to serve her constituency, and while she is away from her elected office she cannot perform those duties. The taxpayers who were duped into voting for her will have to pay for her medical benefits. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, Ms. Gillibrand receives excellent health benefits, courtesy of her constituents. We will be without representation in Congress for a time leading up to and following the child's birth. There will be times when she and the new baby will visit doctors. You can add those days to the total that she will not be serving her constituents.

The current base salary (2006) for members of the House and Senate is $165,200 per year. I wonder if Ms. Gillibrand will do the right thing and reimburse the U.S. Treasury in the amount of $452.60, her daily salary, for each day that she is unable to perform her elected duties. For some reason, I doubt it.

RON BLACHUT
Queensbury

The Group News Blog delivered a tart response, ending with these immortal lines:

Here at the Group News Blog Editorial Desk we are thankful to you for having chosen the sacred Christmas season as your special moment to go off on a woman with child (and her husband) in a small village in the Hudson Valley. You bring credit to all of New York's 20th Congressional District.

And when we set up the nativity scene, we know where to go to find an ass.

Here's a bio of the ass, from a Newsday piece on veterans. Moral of the story is, being a veteran doesn't bring enlightment. I wonder what his adult daughter thinks of Dad's letter?