Category: Edgewise

  • Words we’ll soon retire

    Farewell to… –Like a broken record –Carbon copy –Trick photography Kind of sad. So far, we have replacements for two: Clone. Special effects (though with Special morphing to oblivion). We’ll have to get to work on Broken record.

  • Lyons, Carnival, and FEMA oh my!

    We talked on the phone to our friends in New Orleans last night as they were out on their front porch directing traffic onto sidewalks and neighbor’s driveways for Mardi Gras parking. They sounded happy for the first time in a long while. Here’s some pics of their neighborhood at Inside The Bowl

  • Global Warming Walking Points

    http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/24/technology/fastforward_fortune/index.htm Gore’s speech enumerates well-documented scientific evidence that the global climate is changing significantly — and fast. Here are a few data points: Global CO2 levels are way outside what have been historical norms over several hundred thousand years. All ten of the hottest years on record, globally, have occurred in the last 15 years.…

  • The Devils’ Dictionary

    The Nation has compiled and published a Dictionary of Republicanisms. Of the definitions they’ve published in the magazine (or rather, in this case, on the website), here are two of my favorites: > laziness *n*. When the poor are not working. > > leisure time *n*. When the wealthy are not working. (Both definitions by…

  • Ex-America

    Fast-forwarding through the umpteenth ad for Big American Car in my quest for 2 minutes of olympic athleticism, I am coming to the conclusion that our economy is in desperate straights. If you don’t run out NOW and buy a Big American Car we’re going to hit the skids, pass on, be no more, cease…

  • National Security–China and Everywhere Else

    The Click That Broke a Government’s Grip, Washington Post The government has sought to control what people read and write on the Web, employing a bureaucracy of censors and one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated systems of filters. DKo: Only when the government has determined there is a danger to national security. If you…

  • Rocco lives

    Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn’t Die – Los Angeles Times and the White House lies won’t die…. (Thanks to D. Wayman for the heads up)

  • Slight majority believe it was an accident

    I was listening to one of those right-wing blowhards on KSFO (560) in my car driving home last night and whoever it was cited a Rassmussen poll claiming that a whopping 57% of respondents believed that Dick Cheney shot his friend acquaintance by accident. He was triumphant about this number and mocked the 38% who…

  • There’s an irony in that irony (Plus me showing off).

    In 2004, “radical Shiite Muslim cleric” Muqtada Sadr took control of the holy places in Kerbala and led a bloody, extended anti-US uprising there. In the end, the US military was compelled by Shiite leaders to allow Sadr’s Mahdi Army to leave the city under the protection of a cease fire. However, the US still…

  • At Last! A Voice for “The Aspirations of the Iranian People”

    Rice Asks for $75 Million to Increase Pressure on Iran, Washington Post “…including expanding radio and television broadcasts into Iran and promoting internal opposition to the rule of religious leaders….'[W]e are going to work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom in their own country,’ Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…”…

  • Cultural Conservatism–Eerily Apt from Lenin

    “In civilized Europe [i.e., the USA of his day], with its highly developed machine industry, its rich, multiform culture and its constitutions, a point of history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund, and medieval …” (V. I.…

  • This calls for at least 200 recommendations!

    Disaster Response Changes Promised Administration Admits Katrina Flaws, Moves to Retool Homeland Security [A] government-wide review due later this month…[will] make more than 100 recommendations…” Washington Post DKo: I think this calls for at least 200 recommendations.

  • Big American Car (Sports) Moments

    “When did Michelle Kwan get old,” said the man in the suit and tie in the leather chair under the banner “Chevrolet Olympic Moments”. Bob Costas, in an identical suit and leather chair, shook his head sadly. And then I blew up my TV.

  • If it was unlawful, they are whistleblowers

    Inquiry Into Wiretapping Article Widens NYT “…a rapidly expanding criminal investigation into…a New York Times article…that disclosed the existence of a highly classified domestic eavesdropping program…” ————————— DKo: I have no legal expertise, but this is my instinctive lay-person’s reaction: If the NSA eavesdropping was unlawful, or even if it’s lawfulness was so seriously questionable…

  • World-Class Complacency

    Bush acknowledges problems in drug plan’s rollout Reuters [Bush] said officials were trying to make sure more information is shared by Medicare, the health plans and the states, and that it is up-to-date. “We’re making good progress,” Bush said. DKo: Sharing information. Keeping it up-to-date. What a good idea! And now is the perfect time…

  • The White House Lied While New Orleans Died

    “FYI from FEMA” said the e-mail to Homeland Security on the night the 17th Street Canal levee broke. The White House knew of flooding, stranded people and fires in the Crescent City by midnight. Then they all went about their business as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile the City of New Orleans fought it’s greatest…

  • Bush’s Dream Headline

    Would any news organization fall for Bush’s ludicrous attempt to associate the LA plane-threat story with the totally unrelated surveillance he is currently defending in Washington? Well, there’s at least one born every minute. The AP came through for the Dunce award: Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack AP http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060210/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_35

  • Not Just Single-Blind

    Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds NYT 2/8/06 The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect. DKo: Remember to avoid health advice drawn from traditional Chinese medicine, Hindu Ayurvedic medicine, herbalism, etc. It…

  • Are You Lying?

    It occurs to me that under the humbling burden imposed on the Commander-in-Chief in wartime, especially in a harrowing war without borders that could last virtually forever, the President–strictly as required to protect equally extraordinary implicit wartime powers–might be compelled to authorize an Attorney General to give false testimony to a Senate committee. They should…

  • “Stuck in the middle with Jews…”

    Speaking as a Jew, can I say: how classic is it that Iran is responding to those Danish Mohammed-themed cartoons by sponsoring a cartoon contest about the Holocaust? I mean (speaking rhetorically now, but still as a Jew), how did we get caught in the middle here? Couldn’t they sponsor a cartoon contest about Hans…

  • How Very Modest the Rule of Law Turns Out to Be

    “Lawmakers cannot reverse wrongdoing that has already occurred. But they can express outrage (in a resolution or on the floor) that the president saw fit to usurp Congress’s power to set the ground rules for secret surveillance.” –From legal commentary by NYU law professor Noah Feldman in the NYT Magazine 2/5/06 DKo: Similarly, when a…