Planetarium - politics/music/culture/smarts

We will happily eat crow about our predictions. And Entertainment Weekly has a good theory about why the Republicans lost so bad:

"America wants change. Sir Kev the Federlionhearted? Out. Bobby Brown? Prerogative revoked. Ryan Phillippe? Deported to Iwo Jima. The Republican Party? Thumped.

It’s called "breakup vibes," a concept you’ll remember from freshman year of college. One couple on the hall splits, and pretty soon, everybody’s either single or realigned. Am I crediting Nick Lachey with the defeat of the Republican Party? Yes, I think I am."

Posted by alex at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not really in general, though. More just like "in America". Why? Because here's Planetarium's super-top-secret-awesome prediction for the 2006 mid-term elections: The Republicans are going to maintain control of both the House AND the Senate. How could that be, you ask? Glad you're curious. The reason is simple: They're going to steal the elction, just like they did in 2004.
It won't be a big blatant steal, either. They don't need to do that any more. If 2004 proved anything, it was that through a slow, semi-legal process of purging voter rolls, mishandling ballots, setting up voting machine "mishaps" in key swing districts, and so on and so forth, they can bring democracy to an effective halt and nobody will seem to give much of a fuck. Remember how crazy and angry people got after the '04 election, because of the kinds of disenfranchisement and stealing of votes that happened in Ohio? No? That's because there WASN'T ANY. As long as Dancing With the Stars is still on at its regular time, people don't really give a shit. This sounds cynical, we know. But it will seem less so when you wake up Wednesday morning and we were proven right.

Posted by alex at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some church in Tennessee just spent $250,000 to build this:

It's like our birthday came early this year.

Posted by alex at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently everyone's favorite weirdo is seriously considering filing a motion to give Congress the ability to SUE PRESIDENT BUSH over his signing of orders allowing himself to bypass laws. Kind of rad.

Read the story here.

Posted by alex at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From today's NYTimes....

House Republicans Postpone Ethics Debate

Posted by alex at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by alex at 12:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gotta hand it to this guy - standing up in a town hall meeting w/ President Bush (sneaking in there in the first place would be hard enough!) and saying this in a room that hostile would be tough:

HARRY TAYLOR: You never stop talking about freedom, and I appreciate that. But while I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water and eating safe food. If I were a woman, you'd like to restrict my opportunity to make a choice and decision about whether I can abort a pregnancy on my own behalf. You are—

source: Moveon.org

Posted by alex at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cheney's Aide Says President Approved Leak:

The testimony by the former official, I. Lewis Libby Jr., cited in a court filing by the government made late Wednesday, provides an indication that Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security, may have played a direct role in authorizing disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq.

Pretty please let this happen. I swear I won't ask for anything else for Christmas, and I'll feed it and walk it every day.

(you know it's exciting when the royal we disappears.)

Posted by alex at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is gold:

MIAMI - The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was charged with using a computer to seduce a child after authorities said he struck up sexual conversations with an undercover detective posing as a 14-year-old girl. Brian J. Doyle, 55, the fourth-ranking official in the department's public affairs office, was expected to appear in court Wednesday afternoon in Maryland and also to be placed on administrative leave.

God bless America.

Posted by alex at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tom Delay is off like a bad scab. It's a red-letter day.

In other news, the cancelled-too-soon series Wonderfalls is as funny and brilliant as we had hoped it would be. Really, very high accolades for this particular 12-episode series that chronicles a lovely young lady who seems like your best friend from the first time you see her. High marks. Netflix it today!

Posted by alex at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just finished reading Black Skin, White Masks for the second time the other day. Ummm, why is this book not listed as a precursor to half of the theoretical work that appeared in the latter part of the twentieth century? Seriously: no Franz Fanon, no Michel Foucault. No Fanon, there wouldn't be a Deleuze. This dude basically rewrote the book on psychoanalysis, and he gets NO props for it - instead, he gets cloistered off into the corner and labeled "postcolonial studies", as though that was all his work fit into, Why did they do that? There MUST be a very good reason, hmmm, let's see.......oh yeah, it's because of RACISM. Thanks, racists! You guys rock!

Thus endeth the Planetarium rant of the day.

Posted by alex at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed."

-- Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, asking Americans to prepare for a possible flu pandemic

Posted by alex at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Everyone should take a quick peek over at A World Of Cliche Fans, because the most recent post is very much worth a second of your time. It's a nice little one-paragraph roundup of South Dakota's new law. You'll thank us later.

Posted by alex at 08:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bar Patron #1: "There's no way that Crash deserved to beat Brokeback Mountain. Quick, pop quiz: What's more entertaining, watching Matt Dillon be racist or watching Jake Gyllenhaal penetrate Heath Ledger? Time's up! Answer? Watching Jake do his thang."

Bar Patron #2: "I think my vodka has too much alcohol in it."

Posted by alex at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The internal logs of at least 40 touch-screen voting machines from Florida reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the 2004 election, sometimes in the middle of the night. Yeah, we know: while not surprising, still fairly appalling. Read about it here

Posted by alex at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by alex at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Atrios has a nice little piece he wrote up yesterday about the shame-faced folks who always do a two-step on the abortion issue (paging Hillary Clinton):

Most people think abortion should be legal. There are people who firmly believe that to be true and but who also think that abortion is icky. So, if you give them any kind of out by asking questions such as "should abortion be legal in this circumstance? in this circumstance?" they'll tend to answer no on at least some of them.

I've had exchanges with quite a few people in the "abortion is icky" crowd. I sympathize with them, and they're certainly welcome to their moral beliefs on the subject, but I've also never understood just what they want other than bringing people like me around to their view. They're welcome to try to do that, but it's not clear just how "abortion is icky" translates into public policy.

You can read the rest of it here.

Continue reading "The "Abortion Is Icky" Crowd" »

Posted by alex at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It seems that Counterpouch has learned that the two supposedly "missing" black box recorders from the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centers are actually in possession by the FBI.

Posted by alex at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things mya be bad in America, but at least they're not this bad. So nice to know that things are never so advanced that we can't still revert back to the exact same state of social progress we were at 2,500 years ago. Nobody tell Darwin, okay?

Posted by alex at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things may be bad in America, but at least they're not this bad. So nice to know that things are never so advanced that we can't still revert back to the exact same state of social progress we were at 2,500 years ago. Nobody tell Darwin, okay?

Posted by alex at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Really, when was the last time you heard about it? We had completely forgotten it was even a country, let alone that we were fighting some sort of WAR there! Ha-ha! Whoops! Anyways, for a nice change of pace, Outlaw Vern has a pretty great little essay, very salt-of-the-Earth type stuff, about how fucked the situation is. And it's wonderfully funny and plainly eloquent to boot. A little sample:

One republican from Texas - I didn't catch his name but he was kind of like a lovable old blowhard uncle telling war stories - he talked about how if we leave Iraq, our enemies will take advantage of our weaknesses. Well, no offense old boy, but have you been getting the newspaper these last couple years? Our weakness is that we are too stupid and stubborn and careless to take our troops out of harm's way. We leave them out there hoping they will attract Progress like flowers attract bees. But mostly they're attracting car bombs.

Posted by alex at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, what we've been saying from day one is now made manifest: Alito hopes to overturn Roe V. Wade. And it's only a red herring until you're pregnant and can't get an abortion, folks. This guy should be de facto persona non grata. Why is anyone still arguing about this on the left? Oh, right, because there's a difference between the left and the national Democratic Party.

Posted by alex at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman (and for free!). Go!

Posted by alex at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Senate, a Chorus of Three Defies the Line (from NYT)

You know, every once in a while, watching political wrangling can be pretty interesting.

Posted by alex at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In response to a couple of queries, we are forced to point out that the reason there are no more links to the new Paul Krugman columns each week is directly attributable to the fact that the New York Times now charges a monthly fee if you want to look at the columns, among other things. Booooo. We're kind of curious to see if they maintain it or not. Sure, it will bring in some cash, but we're betting the cost of an online ad in the Times is about to drop precipitously.

In other news, religious nutters who think the world's about to end are still good for a laugh.

Posted by alex at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Does anyone else miss the rhetoric and criticism from the early days of the Iraq war? When Bush would invoke enough Christian mythology to drown a burning bush, and even Time magazine thought maybe it wasn't a very good idea? The criticism back then was at least on point: this is a modern-day Crusade. Let's be frank: We're going in there to bring Enlightenment and "freedom" to an uncivilized and barbarous people, and if a couple hundred thousand die in the process, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. We really find the justifications and projections of how long we have to stay there to make it "enough" shockingly cloying and ambiguous- as if any amount of time will be "enough"- will suddenly make an entire country living in an occcupation go "oh, we like you now!" The irony is truly of Swiftian proportions. Where's H.L. Mencken when you need him?

Posted by alex at 05:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Alito Downplays '85 Abortion Statement

We especially like the part how it keeps stressing that he just said he would overturn abortion "to get a job", and then you scroll down and it casually mentions that he has not said he would uphold Roe V. Wade. Oh well. On the plus side, maybe this will finally make Americans notice the fact that the right to an abortion has been gone for years already in this country, for many women. Just that, y'know, now it'll be official.

Posted by alex at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This has Yemen written all over it.

Oh, and this was originally going to be a post about the Democrats, but Planetarium decided to take B.Alec's advice in the last posting and cut them some slack.

Posted by alex at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First of all, mad ups to Superficial Blog for getting his candidate for city council elected. (in Chief Wiggum voice:) That's some nice electing, boy. Same goes to part-time Planetarium staffer Brunansky, kicking some mayoral ass in St. Paul. All in all, the Twin Cities had a pretty good election. It seems like, by and large, good folks made some good wins.

That being said, it seems pretty funny that the left-wing blogosphere, and especially the mainstream Democrat mass emails, are crapping themselves today with joy, shrieking with glee about the brutal rebuke to George Bush and Republican values in this country. Um, we hate to be the ones to point it out, but A) nobody's been happy with Bush for awhile, and B) the fact that two, count 'em, TWO national seats were switched from red to blue does not a backlash against Republicans make. It's like the equivalent of George Bush declaring his "clear mandate" because a (fraudulent) election gave him a 51-49 win. So before everyone breaks their arms patting themselves on the backs, let's maybe start thinking about the little things, like, say, oh, a clear platform for the Dems? Maybe something that doesn't make them seem like a nutsack-less version of Republicans? Just a thought.

Not trying to poop on the parade, by the way- but then again, Planetarium watched four more years of Bloomberg get locked up because NYC Dems are too stupid to put forth a candidate anyone actually wants to see in office, us included.

Posted by alex at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Asteroid on Collision Course with Earth.

They're saying this one's not a cry wolf, either. Planetarium should really take up smoking again if this is the case.

Posted by alex at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From CBSnews.com:

"A question posed to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan at this morning’s “gaggle” by CBS White House correspondent John Roberts has attracted quite a bit of chatter on the Internet. Of course, the topic of the day is the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito, and the question from Roberts, was, 'Scott, you said that – or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?'"

Posted by alex at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush Reassures Conservatives Once Again on Court Nominee
From the NYT:
The president said that Harriet Miers's religion was pertinent to the overall discussion about her.

WTF?!?! Why the fuck isn't anyone screaming bloody murder about this? Her fucking RELIGION is going to be OVERTLY pertinent to the debate? Um, hello, veto? It's gotten to the point where he can try to appease the crazy right-wingers pointing out that she has no credenitals whatsoever to make her deserving of a nomination by saying she's a FUCKING CRAZY FUNDAMENTALIST NUT?!?!?! Oh, thank God for the middle-of-the-road nominee, huh, liberals?!!? I swear to God, this fucking country never fails to underwhelm me. Wait, that's not true. Only it's leadership.

Posted by alex at 07:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Valerie Plame story officially became interesting again today. As Steve Perry notes at The Blotter, there's an idea surfacing that may nail Rove, Libby, AND even Ms. "I'm Innocent!" Judith Miller's collective asses to the wall. We can only hope.

Posted by alex at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, they wanted somebody who's totally an insane right-winder, and surprise, surprise, we get a nominee whose positions om, well, everything are completely unknown. Vote to start worrying.

Posted by alex at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DeLay Is Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader

Representative Tom DeLay was accused by a Texas grand jury of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Posted by alex at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As always, Howard Zinn is still a fucking genius. This interview with him is the first time today we've smiled.

"...I suspect mostly it will be because the rest of the world won't accept further American forays into places where we don't belong. In the future, I believe 9/11 may be seen as representing the beginning of the dissolution of the American empire; that is, the very event that immediately crystallized popular support for war, in the long run -- and I don't know how long that will be -- may be seen as the beginning of the weakening and crumbling of the American empire."

Posted by alex at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things just keep getting better:

World has slim chance to stop flu pandemic - Reuters
Sep 20 1:48 AM US/Eastern

By Michael Perry

NOUMEA, New Caledonia (Reuters) - The initial outbreak of what could explode into a bird flu pandemic may affect only a few people, but the world will have just weeks to contain the deadly virus before it spreads and kills millions.

Chances of containment are limited because the potentially catastrophic infection may not be detected until it has already spread to several countries, like the SARS virus in 2003. Avian flu vaccines developed in advance will have little impact on the pandemic virus.

It will take scientists four to six months to develop a vaccine that protects against the pandemic virus, by which time thousands could have died. There is little likelihood a vaccine will even reach the country where the pandemic starts.

Posted by alex at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Brain Williams said this. On the air. It's so weird hearing reporters reclaim their balls:

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

Posted by alex at 02:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There are two interesting things at work in the representation of the destruction of New Orleans, both in the media and in people's day-to-day discussions of the event. Let's go ahead and point out the obvious point first: the fact that every single person we've discussed the disaster with, especially in the midst of it, would say "Man, this is upsetting, crazy, and kind of cool!" Not the loss of life, of course, but the acheivement of the fantastic: the obliteration of a major American city, and a direct reveal of America as a functioning Third World country, for all intents and purposes. That being said, there's something so unsettling about the game of who-can-find-the-most-disturbing-picture that's being played by progressive news sites all over the country. Leaving aside the same clear point that Baudrillard made after 9/11- namely, that the reason it wielded such tremedous cultural sway is the fact that, deep down, people secretly wanted it to happen- in all honesty, the way that the leftist newsies are fetishizing images of misery and horror is no less creepy than religious nutbags waving around images of aborted fetuses. The hunger for this sort of suffering connects deeply with big traditional American beliefs, especially Christian ones- you have go through trials of suffering every now and then, and somehow the fact that you weren't in New Orleans is proof of some affiliation to a club of self-improvement, so on and so forth. There are many more, which you should feel free to point out here.

Posted by alex at 08:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, after letting thousands of poor Americans die intentionally, the Bush Administration has wasted no time in stepping up to fuck over the people who are going to help out:

"Some Houstonians who plan on moving to Louisiana and points east to get work in the Katrina rebuilding effort may discover their wages won't be as high as they might have expected. That's because President Bush signed an executive order last week rescinding the rule [under the Davis-Bacon Act] that contractors on projects receiving federal money pay the prevailing wage in areas damaged by the hurricane." (see more in the Houston Chronicle)

But wait! It gets even better!

"And he wants to suspend prevailing wage rules for service workers, too: But the Bush folks face a problem in suspending the Service Contract Act. Davis-Bacon has a specific provision allowing the President to suspend it during a national emergency. The Service Contract Act does not, and its suspension may be unprecedented, labor experts say." (from Talking Points Memo)

You know, come to think of it, we're really tired of all those fats cats living high on the hog off of their "required by law" minimum wages, too. Let's get rid of that shit while we're at it..

Posted by alex at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A special treat today for our Twin Cities readers, courtesy of Planetarium contributing editor brunansky:

NEWS BAZAAR: POLS COMPETE FOR WHO'S THE BIGGEST SPRINGSTEEN FAN

St. Paul, MN, city councilor Kathy Lantry introduced a
resolution declaring 9/30 as "Bruce Springsteen Day in St.
Paul." Springsteen will be performing there that night. But
councilor Chris Coleman "wanted to amend the resolution to note
that he had attended" an '84 concert "in St. Paul at which the
Boss' 'Dancing in the Dark' video was filmed." Lantry "piped up
that she had been there, too." Coleman "continued": "Whereas,
Chris Coleman has been to 15 Bruce Springsteen concerts ..."
Said Lantry: "I actually kept my own name out of it. ..."
Coleman: " ... Whereas Kathy Lantry has desired to run away with
Bruce ..." Lantry: "That's right -- well, I want my husband
there, too." Council pres. Dan Bostrom: "I think we better vote
on this right now." The resolution then "passed unanimously"
(Duchschere, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 9/26).

Posted by alex at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our favorite sarcastic line about the racism of the media regarding New Orleans, from a message board:

"I think it's sad that black people are using the total destruction of their homes and all their possessions as an excuse to steal things to eat.."

Posted by alex at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You should click here right now to watch Kanye West's stumbling, angry and upset (and WILDLY off teleprompter) remarks on live TV during the Hurricane Katrina fundraiser. It's uncomfortable, but man, if you get to the end, it's worth it. We won't spoil the surprise- just watch it now.

Posted by alex at 02:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This was going to be an entry about the amazing film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which as you may or may not know, has one of the greatest opening credits sequences in the history of film. Also, if you haven't seen it, you should know it's an epic, not a Western. In the grand tradition of Star Wars IV: A New Hope or Apocalypse Now, this film needs to be seen to be believed, as there are too many of us who don't like westerns, and thus confine this movie to the "probably won't see it" region of our brain.

BUT- instead- motherfucking William Rehniquist just died. Like shit wasn't crazy enough in this country (god DAMN this is an interesting time to be alive, as in the ancient Japanese curse "May you live in interesting times"), the chief justice had to take the long walk on the green mile, meaning that when things couldn't get any bleaker, they just got a lot bleaker. Yeah, you thought Justice Roberts was gonna be bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Is it time yet for the Democrats on the Hill to start a revolution? I'm just wondering how long it will take, how many of their deepest beliefs they will compromise before they say "enough's enough". maybe all of them, in which case we're fucked. But maybe not, who knows. Despite our current pessimism and "smoke 'em if you got 'em, 'cuz we're going down" attitude, there's always that small ray of hope that manages to stay lit, God knows why. But seriously, as B.Alec pointed out on this site a while back, the nomination for Rehnquist's sucessor is going to be a fucking crazy-ass, frothing at the mouth, let's-kill-welfare-moms psychopath, straight up. It'll be like an R. Kelly song without the fun or the pedophilia. Wait, wait, I forgot, it's a religious nutbag, too- there'll DEFINITELY be pedophilia.

Posted by alex at 01:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seems Paul Krugman's been reading our "Medium is the Message" posting from earlier- his new piece pretty much completely agees with it. Go!

Posted by alex at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The president is a man of his word. He promised to nominate someone along the lines of a Scalia or a Thomas, and that is exactly what he has done."

-- Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council,
positively giddy over the nomination of John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court

Posted by alex at 08:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

From the official White House transcript of a press briefing on July 12
(with White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan):

QUESTION: Scott, can I ask you this: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?

MCCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to a ongoing
investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation.
And I don't think you should read anything into it other than: We're
going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.

QUESTION: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you
were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby,
and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told
me they are not involved in this"?

QUESTION: Do you stand by that statement?

MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the
investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get
into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time
as well.

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to
stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and
tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from
that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I
will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate
time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.

You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And
now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you
owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he
not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did
indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the
time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: Well, you're in a bad spot here, Scott, because after the
investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you
said -- October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove,
Abrams and Libby, as I pointed out, those individuals assured me they
were not involved in this." From that podium. That's after the criminal
investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught
red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect
for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

Posted by alex at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Pretty sweet how abortions are going to be illegal soon. All the coverage of the nomination of Roberts last night (Planetarium was glued to it) kept reiterating how "only the 'outside' advocacy groups", with all their evil liberal money, were going to have a problem with Roberts, and all the good men in Congress, apparently unburdened with concerns such as money, were going to be in agreement that Judge Roberts would make a damn fine Supreme Court Justice. The ONLY person to raise a stink was the head of NARAL on CNN, who basically went on the air and said "Are you fucking kidding me?", and was promptly relegated to the "evil special-interest group" seats in the bleachers. So allow us to reiterate for her: Are you fucking kidding? The dude who argued for OVERTURNING Roe Vs. Wade before the Supreme Court is going to get a free pass? Where's Kennedy? Where's Feinstein? Why aren't they screaming bloody murder right now and vowing to hunt down the first-born children of any democrat who supports this nomination? Gonna be kind of strange to live in a country where only outlaws will have abortions. Oh, wait, we meant to say outlaws and the children of rich people. God bless America.

The Times has a blandly logical rebuttal to the nomination here.

Posted by alex at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As we type, Jon Stewart is once again proving why he's the greatest man on television. The man is currently in the process of eviscerating Bernard "Damn the Liberal Media" Goldberg, completely proving the uselessness of Goldberg's new book, and doing so in the most downright polite, friendly, and unstoppably logical way imaginable. God bless the man. Go watch the rerun. Or find the clip on the Internet.

Posted by alex at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, we know: it's not exactly a big deal to come across an article on the Internet calling for America to impeach George Dubya. But it's a slightly more compelling read when the call to impeach is made by Ronald Regan's Asst. Treasury Secretary, Paul Craig Roberts.

Posted by alex at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Frank Rich kicks ass. This is almost as good as that Star Wars thing, only serious.

Posted by alex at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dunno about you, but we're pretty fascinated by the whole filibuster showdown. It's such a weird, complex issue that could ricochet in any direction, political blowback-wise. Both sides need to take such careful steps, and treat it so specifically in their frantic efforts to frame the issue, because really, this could blow up SO hardcore in either side's faces. We don't think it's an understatement to say that this could be the pivotal issue for the Senate elections next year. If you don't know what we're talking about, shame on you, and pick up a newspaper, or, you know, the INTERNET. We've heard it's a new invention that's got some "news sites" on it.

Posted by alex at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

(btw, signing in only takes three seconds and requires no personal info, not even email. So go ahead.)

Posted by alex at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Krugman's latest series is really kicking ass and taking names on the healthcare issue. Go!

Posted by alex at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Planetarium has linked a few times in the past to particularly good essays by the New York Times' media critic Frank Rich, who has really been shining in the past year or so since they granted him full-court-press status. This week's is no different: a short but sweet article entitled "A High-Tech Lynching", which details (with some interesting facts we didn't know yet) the current right-wing paranoiac attack against the Supreme Court and the judicial process in general. Rather than dismissing it as yet another in an endless string of bizarre rightist misplaced-rage whinings, Rich coheres an argument as to the actual real danger these nutsos pose.

Posted by alex at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the NYT:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 9 - Tens of thousands of Iraqis marked the second anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein on Saturday by marching here in the capital to demand the withdrawal of American forces.

Whooo! Awesome! That war totally kicked ass! Let us guess: Now there will be more resigned sighs about how much we'd love to leave, but we have to stay and "finish the job", right? About how they're "not ready" to rule themselves, right? And where, exactly, have we heard these arguments before? Yeah, you guessed it.

Posted by alex at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oops:

"Sen. Frist wrote a book in 1989 called Transplant where he advocated changing the definition of "brain dead" to include anencephalic babies. Anencephalic babies are in the same state as Terri Schiavo except that she suffered a physical trauma that put her into a vegetative state while the anencephalic babies are born that way."

Posted by alex at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The headline over at the Times' website right now:

House Members Hold Sunday Night Session on Schiavo Bill

Are they fucking kidding? I'm so glad Congress could could schedule an emergency session on the weekend, not to do anything vaguely productive, but so that they can pander to the idiots who won't let this woman's poor husband pull the feeding tube that's been the only thing keeping her alive for FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS. Don't get me wrong, I understand the sentiment, but this is ridiculously stupid. Like Elian Gonzalez-level stupid. Roaringly stupid. To quote the West Wing's White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, "You know, I'm so sick of Congress I could vomit."

Posted by alex at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Planetarium staffer Brunansky, we have a lovely story from yesterday's New York Times about the fact that, if you are one of the hundreds of millions who watches local TV news from time to time, you've probably seen a news piece, that was, in fact, a piece of government propoganda filmed by a Department in the Bush admin and gussied up to look like a "real story", then mailed out to thousands of local affiliates, who will then run the story as part of their "normal" broadcast, with no indication of where it came from. Um, uh......oops?

Posted by alex at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another little gem unearthed by Planetarium staffer Brunansky, with his hawk-like eyes. This one isn't excatly surprising so much as it is pathetic. Like, this compulsion to lie, cheat, and at all costs avoid the truth seeps even into the most pointless and unnecessary fields. See for yourself:

Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction United Press International A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated. Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina Wednesday as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army. "I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said. "We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said. He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting." "Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.

Posted by alex at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Krugs? Thugs? Too tenuous? ah well.

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Cursor.org comes a pretty straightforward,- but damning- little piece at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the censoring of news from Iraq at all levels of the mainstream media:

I've personally witnessed photographers in Baghdad who have had their cameras either confiscated or smashed by soldiers, who were, of course, acting on orders from their superiors. And no, the journalists weren't trying to photograph something that would jeopardize the security of the soldiers. Even Christiane Amanpour, CNN's top war correspondent, announced on national television that her own network was censuring her journalism.

Posted by alex at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Again, we can't believe that stories this big just get swept under the rug. A Republican operative getting licensed as a White House Reporter to act as a lifeline for Scott McClellan during press briefings? This should be huge. Of course, it won't be.

Read the letter from Rep. Slaughter asking for an explanation.

Read tons of details and stories about the Gannon scandal over at Americablog.

This is ridiculous.

Posted by alex at 04:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Courtesy of Planetarium staffer Brunansky, who directed us to the latest Drudge Report, we offer you the best Presidential quote you're gonna hear this week:

BUSH: HOLDING THREE JOBS 'UNIQUELY AMERICAN'
Tues Feb 8 2005 9:27:01 ET

Last Friday when promoting social security reform with 'regular' citizens in Omaha, Nebraska, President Bush walked into an awkward unscripted moment in which he stated that carrying three jobs at a time is 'uniquely American.'

While talking with audience participants, the president met Mary Mornin, a woman in her late fifties who told the president she was a divorced mother of three, including a 'mentally challenged' son.

The President comforted Mornin on the security of social security stating that 'the promises made will be kept by the government.'

But without prompting Mornin began to elaborate on her life circumstances.

Begin transcript:

MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

Posted by alex at 05:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

By the way, if you wanted to compile a pretty much unassailable argument against the Bush plan to partially privatize Social Security, all you would really need to do would be to take the last five Krugman pieces we've linked to here and paste them together. We're just saying.

Posted by alex at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, it's a given now: Howard Dean is is taking over as head of the DNC. Beltway blogs have been jabbering about what this means for the past day or so, but we can pretty much end the questions now and tell you: it's going to involve Howard Dean selling his big, white, "yyyeeeeaaaahhhh"-ing ass straight up the river. Look, Dean knew what he was getting into going after this position, and the Democratic big-money mucky-mucks CERTAINLY made it clear to Howie what was going to be expected of him, should he take the post. The fact that there's now near-universal support for him in the party pretty much means that all the horrible fucks who run the party have been reassured that there will be no rocking of their sad little boat. Great news for the rest of us, huh.

Posted by alex at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

New Krugman.