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In other news... Bush’s security detail gallantly protects President from triple amputee. Meanwhile, a local father expresses his opinion of Bush’s foreign policy results in a more illuminating fashion.
comment posted at 6:17 PM on Aug-25-04
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comment posted at 10:27 PM on Aug-25-04

Are the Republicans starting to hedge their bets?

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 -In a break with months of Republican efforts to outlaw gay marriage, Vice President Dick Cheney offered a defense of the rights of gay Americans on Tuesday, declaring that "freedom means freedom for everyone" to enter "into any kind of relationship they want to."

comment posted at 8:39 PM on Aug-24-04

A recent non-scientific poll conducted by ABC News in the US found that 35 percent of voters feel that hot-saucing is an acceptable form of discipline. Blair Whelchel (yes, that Blair Whelchel) is a fan. Whatever happened to soap?
comment posted at 5:28 PM on Aug-24-04
comment posted at 10:03 PM on Aug-24-04

The Curious Case of George's Medals. Does this picture contain a medal that GW Bush did not earn? All day at the Democratic Underground they've been congratulation themselves for finding the smoking gun. Is it really that easy? Acutally looking at a picture? Must the president *now* release his records to prove that he wasn't wearing a medal that isn't documented in any of his records?
comment posted at 1:33 PM on Aug-24-04

The upcoming entertainment lineup for the GOP convention next week is mostly country music, but this article mentions that Stephen Baldwin will be there. Yep, you heard me, a Baldwin. Alec Baldwin was at the DNC last month, and now it's brother vs. brother, Baldwin vs. Baldwin. Remember when you're voting this fall that it's basically a best of the Baldwins contest. You either like Alec, or Stephen, but not both. Now choose your poison Baldwin. [via devoter]
comment posted at 9:40 PM on Aug-23-04
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The NYT's investigation into the birth and background of the anti Kerry ad about his Vietnam service record.
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comment posted at 12:35 PM on Aug-23-04

California bill to ease "move aways" by custodial parents pulled. Until a recent CA Supreme Court decision, it was easy for custodial parents to move themselves and their children far from their ex-spouse. The Court reversed the old rule and held that the move could be blocked if the non-custodial parent could show that it would interfere with his/her relationship with the kids. Legislation to reimpose the old permissive standard passed through the State Senate, but has now been pulled off the legislative calendar after an outcry by father's rights groups.
comment posted at 5:09 PM on Aug-18-04

Is the CIA tampering with Venezuelan elections? A Venezuelan news organization reports that an email was sent to the world press this afternoon, claiming to be early election results indicating a defeat for outspoken Bush critic Hugo Chavez. The email in question appears to be a fraud, sent from a location in Virginia. There are also reports coming in of phony election results being broadcast on Venezuelan television, and rigged exit polls organized by the very people who supported an unsuccessful coup against Chavez in 2002 -- an organization funded by our government through the National Endowment for Democracy. Your tax dollars at work. Former President Carter reports that the elections are going well, with a huge turnout, but if Chavez wins, will there be an organized effort -- funded by U.S. tax dollars -- to discredit the election anyway?
comment posted at 5:01 PM on Aug-16-04

When did Porn become mainstream? John Walsh asks the question in the Independant. The question might seem silly save for this. People in Buffulo asked to pose niked in public? Why not, American athletes do it, Spike Lee endorses it, and even Matt Damon wants to screw in front of you. Bosnian men don't seem to share Matt's fervor for the camera, but everyone is talking sex, even those icky old folks who frequent online football magazines. Why not have your tittilation in-your-face! Does the line between erotica and pornography even exist any more? many of the links via World Sex News.
comment posted at 11:02 PM on Aug-15-04
comment posted at 5:03 PM on Aug-16-04

U.S. to Cut Forces in Europe, Asia President Bush will announce Monday that he plans to pull 70,000 to 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the first major reconfiguration of overseas military deployments by the United States since the Cold War ended, White House officials said yesterday.
comment posted at 4:23 PM on Aug-15-04

P. J. O'Rourke interviews Colin Powell in The Atlantic.
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Aug-13-04

best retarded cat ever
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comment posted at 8:54 PM on Aug-12-04

You wanna be free? Accept pornography. Or so says Salman Rushdie. He argues that a free and civilised society should be judged by its willingness to accept pornography. So which comes first, the liberty, or the boobies?
comment posted at 4:29 PM on Aug-10-04
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What's an Indian, Anyway? Just one of the essays exploring real vs. fake in Native American culture posted At Wanderer's Well. Lots of opinionated reviews of the work of Louise Erdrich, N. Scott Momaday, Tony Hillerman, Ursula K. Le Guin and many others. The surprisingly rich personal site from a former academic (who now calls his departure from scholarly publishing "felicitous") offers hours of reading with detailed side-trips and fascinating links.
comment posted at 8:47 PM on Aug-9-04

Real and France's Virgin claim that they deserve to be able to sell their music on Apple's iPod. To prove they're serious, Virgin Mega has filed a complaint against Apple to do so. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but last I checked it wasn't anybody's responsibility to open up their product or service to purposely allow the competition in. That is, of course, unless the government steps in. Are Real and Virgin Mega just being whiny little brats, angered that they're not invited to the party? What are legitimate reasons for the legal system to get involved and to rule in favor of such plaintiffs? While the obvious Microsoft may come to mind, are there other examples you can think of? As for me, I'd like to hand out copies of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" to both Real and Virgin Mega...
comment posted at 4:18 PM on Aug-6-04

An OpEd piece by Bruce Springsteen, announcing the tour of Vote for Change, the umbrella of a new group including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne. (NYT)
comment posted at 7:39 PM on Aug-5-04

Best For Israel. A concerted effort to support the only democratic state in the Middle East, done webwise. My opinion: their premise's are incorrect, but I admire the effort. Agree? Disagree? We might as well indoctrinate them well into the vagaries of the Internet.
comment posted at 9:39 PM on Aug-4-04

Making the case for a smoking gun: All the dots connected, and where'd all these dots come from anyway? inthesetimes.com does a great job of pulling from many diverse resources to debunk the "everyone thought he had WMD" arguement, and washingtontimes.com gives an excellent refresher on pre 9/11 Iraq strategy. "The Doctrine of pre-emption becomes inoperable without unimpeachable intelligence accepted by all as the coin of the realm."
comment posted at 4:12 PM on Aug-4-04

Iraq's Child Prisoners It’s not certain exactly how many children are being held by coalition forces in Iraq, but a Sunday Herald investigation suggests there are up to 107. Their names are not known, nor is where they are being kept, how long they will be held or what has happened to them during their detention. Proof of the widespread arrest and detention of children in Iraq by US and UK forces is contained in an internal Unicef report written in June. The report has – surprisingly – not been made public. A key section on child protection, headed Children in Conflict with the Law or with Coalition Forces, reads: ''In July and August 2003, several meetings were conducted with CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) … and Ministry of Justice to address issues related to juvenile justice and the situation of children detained by the coalition forces … Unicef is working through a variety of channels to try and learn more about conditions for children who are imprisoned or detained, and to ensure that their rights are respected.'' Another section reads: ''Information on the number, age, gender and conditions of incarceration is limited. In Basra and Karbala children arrested for alleged activities targeting the occupying forces are reported to be routinely transferred to an internee facility in Um Qasr. The categorisation of these children as 'internees' is worrying since it implies indefinite holding without contact with family, expectation of trial or due process.''
comment posted at 5:20 PM on Aug-2-04

Subservient President. MoveOn's homage to BK's Chicken. (via waxy)
comment posted at 5:33 PM on Aug-2-04

The Pope to Women: "get back in your place" - The Vatican, fearing it may still share some semblance of the same reality as the rest of us seeks to rectify this problem by telling women that they should stop hoping for the same things as men have.

"The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels," the document said, asserting it has inspired ideologies that "call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father."

It also warned of challenges to fundamentals of church teaching, saying the blurring of differences "would consider as lacking in importance and relevance the fact that the Son of God assumed human nature in its male form."
comment posted at 5:32 PM on Jul-31-04
comment posted at 10:33 PM on Jul-31-04

You may not have heard of Jansenism. But on May 1, 1727 one of its more prominent members, Francois de Paris, died. He was a popular fellow for his charitable works and lots of people visited his tomb. That's when things got weird. At first it was just a bunch of people claiming to have been cured of things like "cancerous tumors, paralysis, deafness, arthritis, rheumatism, ulcerous sores, persistent fevers, prolonged hemorrhaging, and blindness." Then things started to get really weird.

...The mourners also started to experience strange involuntary spasms or convulsions...the 'convulsionaires,' as they came to be called, displayed...the ability to endure without harm an almost unimaginable variety of physical tortures....

These events lasted years and were witnessed by thousands as well as commented on by the likes of David Hume and Voltaire. Louis-Basile Carre de Montgeron investigated it for the Paris Parliment and published La Vérité des Miracles in three volumes detailing the events. The tortures were asked for by the convulsionaires. Montgeron details one time when while having an iron drill hammered into a convulsionaire's stomach he, "maintained an 'expression of perfect rapture,' crying, 'Oh, that does me good! Courage, brother; strike twice as hard, if you can!'"
comment posted at 8:05 PM on Jul-23-04

Oh, You Mean Those Records The Pentagon released "newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard." The earlier statement that the records were inadvertently destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight." [Previously discussed here and here.]
comment posted at 8:20 PM on Jul-23-04