Category: dKo journal

Anti-war protesters pick up steam and take cause to D.C. . “Organizers expect more than 100,000 people for a march around the White House on Saturday. Sheehan is scheduled to speak. Rallies by war supporters are expected along the route.” USA Today 9/24/05 –The war supporters are expected to include some who support the current…

As far back as Blade Runner it was already well established that the fastest way to cross a room was by a sequence of rapidly repeated back flips. Bit it was only in the Matrix films we learned that bullets cannot harm you as long as you are engaged in tumbling exercises of any kind.

“…the Americans, who have already expressed their frustration with the Sunnis, have recently become irritated with what they regard as the stubbornness of the Shiites as well.” NYT, 8/26/05 I can’t understand this criticism. Each of the three Iraqi factions is doing its utmost to emulate the American model. They are Staying the Course and…

I know this isn’t really a usual topic for me, but one thing I find a little bit embarrassing for the professional NBA basketball players is that you can see them out there–just minutes before the game starts–and they’re practicing! I mean, isn’t it a little late for that? They should have thought of it…

Deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday. I sang it a hundred times. But, how sure was I really? How hard did I believe? And have we overcome? A lot of us on the left would answer, almost reflexively, “No!” Because there is no cause to be satisfied or complacent about…

Before the invention of the zero, the DEA announced a policy of “Hardly Any Tolerance for Drugs.”

Before the invention of the zero, even when something was free, you still had to pay a penny for it.

Disturbing report I heard on NPR radio. This expert said that the prevalence of violins in the media could easily lead to more violins in the street, and even to domestic violins.

And they don’t always win… I have freely excerpted and rearranged from this LA Times piece. “Watergate Weighs on Today’s White House,” By Peter Wallsten., LA Times Staff Writer, June 7, 2005 [L]ingering weaknesses remain in the executive branch’s authority, officials around Bush have said. ********** Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a Nixon aide who…

I find this report of a US poll encouraging, and better than I’d have expected/feared: Asked if Muslims can go to heaven only 12% said they cannot, 50% said they can and 24% said they do not believe in heaven. Newsweek, May 2004.

Mark Felt is going to publish a final “tell-all” book soon, and Bob Woodward is also going to publish his final wrap-up on Watergate. What could conceivably come out of these? Well, there remain at least two major loose-ends to the story, one Major and the other Huge. Major: Thomas Eagleton. He was the vice-presidential…

Just a bit of a “backgrounder” on a looming Republican political crisis: Even if the Democrats continue to fail to come up with a vision of their own, the key Bush tax cuts have always had built into them a “time-bomb,” which is bound to do heavy damage to the Republicans in congress. It is…

And what if, among a huge proportion of the at-risk population, this new pill made people 23 percent less likely to die from any cause…30 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 49 percent less likely to die from cancer? What if it were devoid of side-effects? And immediately available? One of the…

Dear Mr. Etiquette, Should carrots and celery be eaten with the fingers? –No, the fingers should be eaten separately.

“People who are overweight but not obese have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, federal researchers are reporting today.” NYT, 4/20/2005 –I think anything below 100% would be a breakthrough.

NYT, 4/11/05 (My italics.) “…the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue. ‘We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed,’ the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. ‘I had one of his legs…

Based on results of the latest brain-imaging technologies, it turns out the right side of the brain does not control the left side of the body and vice versa. It only seems that way because, inside the brain-case within the scull, the brain is actually facing backwards! (No fool, that brain.)