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. Go!

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

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. George Bush's first press conference of the new year? Wow. All we can say is, what a fucking asshole. The amount of arrogance and condescension emanating from him, both in body language AND what he actually said, was fucking unbelievable. But so far, in these early stages of analysis, we 're pretty sure our favorite part is when he insults the entire population of senior citizens in this country.

Although, tied for second place right now is his hilariously patronizing and schoolmarm-ish "those (reporters) who are quiet will get called on first" comment.

Posted by alex at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 01:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's the weekend, you all just want to relax and enjoy watching "Return of the King" for the ten thousandth time, so we'll just offer a few delightful crumbs of how fabulous the American media is:

- In a January 12 Washington Post op-ed, titled "The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?" Republican attorney Victoria Toensing defended nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak and the
anonymous government sources he used in a July 2003 column in which he exposed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. Multiple news outlets have noted that Toensing is apparently a personal friend of Novak -- a fact that neither she nor the Post saw fit to disclose.

- In the 'What the hell do his viewers THINK when they see this?' category, On the January 13 broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly informed Randy Albelda, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston, that "[m]ost people who don't make any money are not educated because they didn't wanna get educated."

- And finally, in the "creepy because many people don't actually realize they're watching Sinclair-owned TV news", the January 11 edition of Sinclair Broadcast Group's "The Point" held a one-sided promotion of a health care plan from the conservative Institute_for_Policy_Innovation (IPI), a think tank founded by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey. The IPI proposal Hyman touted closely mirrors President Bush's own health care proposal, but did not mention that many health care experts fear this proposal will actually make the current health care crisis worse. What an informative news program! Fair and balanced! The crazies now have 2 channels- don't lefties get at least one?

Posted by alex at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Except, of course, you should just say "yes" to this new Krugman, detailing nicely why the privatization of Social Security will be a disasterous failure. Go!

Posted by alex at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seriously. Totally 'round the bend. He's fucking nuts. Obviously, he's not actually retiring- he's clearly being forced out because he went certifiably loony. Planetarium would like to initiate a new trend in the blogosphere: calling someone out. Yes, that's right, Bill Safire, we're inviting you to come to Minnesota and get your ass kicked. Good ol' mano a mano, you nutty right-wing fuck. You probably won't even notice the ass-kicking, not with how insane YOU clearly are. What color is the sky in your world? Seriously, Planetarium wants to know- there's an office pool going on about the answer.

If you hadn't yet heard the news of Safire's entry into Loony-Tune land, by all means, please read it right now.

Posted by alex at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Once again, Paul Krugman kicks ass and takes names, while explaining just how completely full of crap the Social Security privatization advocates are:

Decades of conservative marketing have convinced Americans that government programs always create bloated bureaucracies, while the private sector is always lean and efficient. But when it comes to retirement security, the opposite is true. More than 99 percent of Social Security's revenues go toward benefits, and less than 1 percent for overhead. In Chile's system, management fees are around 20 times as high. And that's a typical number for privatized systems.

Go!

Posted by alex at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This sort of "man-behind-the-myth" pieces usually don't interest us much here at the Planetarium office, but this one is pretty darn fascinating. You see, Amy Sullivan at the Washington Monthly isn't the usual sort of fawning, obsequious reporter who professes to "peel back the mask" only to end their pieces by concluding that this flawed-but-honorable person really is pretty amazing, after all. It's that lack of bootlicking that makes us really give her newest piece a good read. So click here to see her profile of Bob Novak, proclaimed by Jon Stewart to be a "Douchebag of Liberty", whom she argues has created an "ethics-free zone" for himself.

Posted by alex at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Planetarium has a lovely AP press piece today, featuring one of the better Rumsfeld quotes we've seen in almost a month:

Disgrunted U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday about the lack of armor for their vehicles and long deployments, drawing a blunt retort from the Pentagon chief.

"You go to war with the Army you have," he said in a rare public airing of rank-and-file concerns among the troops.

We love this man. Go here for the whole delightful story.

Posted by alex at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, admission time....PLanetarium has the hots for Maureen Dowd. It's not something we're proud of, believe us. She's an east-coast, ivy league-bred elitist who has something annoying to say about almost everything. But she's just so damn CHARMING. Like Susan Sarandon, another older woman who still seduces us with her eyes, we can't help but feel the magnetic pull of the lovely Ms. Dowd. She positively glowed during her appearance on the Daily Show, and clearly had even John Stewart fumbling a little. Here's her latest snide, uppity column for the Times. And damned if it hasn't charmed the pants off of us yet again.

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

Here's some lovely news from the Washington Post. God bless the Christians, they sure know what they're doing:

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.

...

Among the misconceptions cited by Waxman's investigators:

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."

• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.

• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.

...

Some course materials cited in Waxman's report present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support." One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

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

We know, we already provided a link to the transcript. But the fact is, you need to see this for yourself. How else to put it: This is one of the greatest moments of TV in the past ten years. This is so much more important than what it looks like at first glance. What it ultimately reveals is just how fake the entire world of media, all of it, truly is. We all owe Jon Stewart a debt of gratitude. This is IMPORTANT. Please watch it, and leave a comment, because this is worth talking about.

Ladies and Gentlemen, click here to see what a true patriot does.

Posted by alex at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Folks, if you missed John Stewart's glorious appearance on Crossfire last week, well, we just feel sorry for you:

STEWART: It's not honest. What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. And I will tell you why I know it.

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you're accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You've got to be kidding me. He comes on and you...

STEWART: You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

(LAUGHTER)

STEWART: What is wrong with you?

read it here.

Posted by alex at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, who would've thought? The usually insufferable Times' Arts section has a fascinating and insightful piece on the demolition of a watchdog media in America by the Bush White House.

"The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before," wrote William Safire last month. When an alumnus of the Nixon White House says our free press is being attacked as "never before," you listen.

Click here for the whole story.

Posted by alex at 01:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, the DNC has left Missouri, as of today. Not surprising, considering the DNC is a bunch of pussies, and their candidate was going over like a fart in church with the rural folks of Missour-uh. For anyone who's never seen it, and interested in the Democratic National Committee (the folks who basically run the National Democratic political machine at this point), we at Planetarium would direct you to the City Pages, where with a quick search, you can still find Steve Perry's illuminating essay, "Spanking the Donkey". \

You may have noticed the slim amount of posts this week. More trouble with the darned service at Planetarium World Headquarters. Should be resolved in the next day or so.

Posted by alex at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First of all, there's a new Krugman piece out, so everyone should go read it. But second of all, let us take a proud moment to point out that it's main point is almost verbatim what Planetarium was saying almost two weeks ago:

from the new Krugman:
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have an unparalleled ability to insulate themselves from inconvenient facts...George W. Bush surrounds himself with people who insist that up is down, and ignorance is strength.

from Planetarium on 9.26:
What seemed like pathology in the beginning ("Clear Skies Initiative", "Healthy Forests") has developed into a clear sign that the administration has an unwavering belief in Machiavelli 101, that all politics should be cloaked in the guise of doing the opposite. Literally, whatever they call something, you know it's the exact opposite.

Thank you, thank you. Donate to Planetarium.

Posted by alex at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hey, if you haven't seen it before, we suggest checking out The Rude Pundit's blog, and seeing what he thinks John Edwards should say at the debate if asked about his trial lawyer history.

Posted by alex at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Or should we say unsurprising? Fox News got busted posting a bogus post-debate story about Kerry last night, stating that he said things post-debate like "Women should like me! I do manicures." here's the link to it at Talking Points memo.

(5 minutes later)

They just don't stop! This time from Atrios (click here for the story): Fox News took a Kerry-bashing Republican group called "Communists for Kerry" and interviewed a 'member' of the group as though it were an actual pro-Kerry group.
Sample quote: "Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush ... The North Koreans are my comrades to a point, and I'm sure they support Comrade Kerry, too."

Posted by alex at 05:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Planetarium is spending the day scouring reaction from the public to the debates, and will be attempting to find and post the best disses on the candidates here. So keep checking back, as this post will keep being updated.

On Bush: "Bush sounded whiny...like a kid begging his dad to let him use the car. I half expected him to say "But I was going to the Toshii station to pick up some power convertors!"

On Kerry: "All Kerry did was say "I am not Bush but I will act like him since people find him charming and I have a face that looks like an Easter Island statue and makes children flee in terror'."

On Bush: "Kerry could beat your ass into the ground any day of the week, much like playing chess with a retarded child."

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

Go!

Posted by alex at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Perhaps you've noticed them, perhaps not. But on tons of news and political sites, up to and including the venerable New york Times, there's this ad that keeps popping up. It pictures Bush on one end of it, and Kerry on the other, and then, next to Bush, the word "Retro" appears in red. Moments later, alongside Kerry's face, the word "Metro" appears. Then the ad sponsor, "The Great Divide (Which Side Are YOU On?)" pops up dead center. Retro Vs. Metro? That's just, well, kind of odd, isn't it? And accurate? What do you think, folks?

Posted by alex at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

At first it was funny, then it was disturbing, then it was scary, and finally it all became clear. There's something so delightfully obvious in the administration's need to falsify everything they do in the public eye. What seemed like pathology in the beginning ("Clear Skies Initiative", "Healthy Forests") has developed into a clear sign that the administration has an unwavering belief in Machiavelli 101, that all politics should be cloaked in the guise of doing the opposite. Literally, whatever they call something, you know it's the exact opposite. No exceptions. What's interesting is the fact that people who seem to understand this develop a blind spot when it comes to the so-called "War On Terror". Peoplle who are otherwise clear-headed go fuzzy and start saying "well, at least he's going after people who need going after." Except that if you look at the obvious, the was on terror is making all of us a LOT less safe. By definition. It's at the point where you can hear the name of something, or hear the intentions they state, and know that what they're really doing is the exact opposite. So come on, war people, get a clue.
Jeanene Garafalo perhaps put is best: "At this point, voting for Bush can only be considered a major character flaw."

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

This delightful piece of news about Alan Keyes' game plan to win the Illinois Senate seat by beating new hotshot Barack Obama comes courtesy of our informant Wickedfingers (go support Claire for Governor in Missouri).

Declaring that his campaign strategy is "dependent on controversy," Senate candidate Alan Keyes (R) "told the state's top GOP donors at a recent closed-door meeting" that he plans to make "inflammatory" comments "every day, every week" until the election, according to several sources at the session. "The sources said Keyes explained that his campaign has been unfolding according to plan and likened it to a war in which lighting the 'match' of controversy was needed to ignite grass-roots voters." Keyes: "This is a war we're in. The way you win wars is that you start fires that will consume the enemy" (Pearson, Chicago Tribune, Sept. 14).

Posted by alex at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

...we'll say it again. Steve Perry is one of the most astute political analysts we have in this country. You absolutely have to go check out his new column, where he captures the current zeitgeist with a zeal and insight that you don't see much these days, especially not from the apologists-for-Kerry crowd, and certainly not from any major media outlet. It becomes that much more insightful if you know ahead of time that he's committed himself to voting for Kerry. God bless you, Steve.

Although we have to point out one theory he misses: Isn't it quite possible all this unreliable polling data is also being released to confuse us, so that when Bush and Co. steal the election again, it won't be quite as easy to see where and how?

Posted by alex at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pat Buchanan: The reason I'm still voting for Bush, and the American people seem to support this, is that he exudes confidence, certitude, strength...

Stewart (interrupting): Yeah, so does Mr. T! I mean, that argument is like saying 'well, he drove us off a cliff, but he didn't blink!' It's crazy.

(later)

Buchanan: Look, Kerry came out and said that knowing what he knew now, no weapons of mass destruction, no tie to 9/11, no threat, nothing, he STILL would've voted to authorize war. He blew it right there. He could've sewn up the election if he had just come out and said 'The President blew it. Give a new gang the chance, we'll go in there, see what we can salvage, and get out.

Stewart: Um......yes. I agree. Huh.

That's the thing. Buchanan may be a nutty xenbophobe, but he's a populist with a brain, and he's got more sense than he gets credit for.

Posted by alex at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From over at Eschaton. Somewhere the coiner of the phrase "irony" is rolling over in his grave.
(And for those of you who need a quick refresher, Bob Novak is the reporter who leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent for purely right-wing partisan political ends, and then refused to say who from the administration gave him the name.)

On the CNN panel show, "Capital Gang," Bob Novak expressed grave doubts about the CBS documents, then said: "I'd like CBS, at this point, to say where they got these documents from. They didn't get them from a CIA agent. I don't believe there was any laws involved. I don't think we'll have a special prosecutor, if they tell. I think they should say where they got these documents because I thought it was a very poor job of reporting by CBS...."

Fellow panelist, Al Hunt, from the Wall Street Journal, then replied: "Robert Novak, you're saying CBS should reveal its source?"

The transcript continues:

NOVAK: Yes.

HUNT: You do? You think reporters ought to reveal sources?

NOVAK: No, no. Wait a minute.

HUNT: I'm just asking.

NOVAK: I'm just saying in that case.

HUNT: Oh.

NOVAK: I think -- I think it's very important. If this is a phony document, the American -- the people should know about it.

HUNT: So in some cases, reporters ought to reveal sources.

NOVAK: Yes.

HUNT: But not in all cases.

NOVAK: That's right.

HUNT: OK. Mark Shields, what's the relevance of all this?

SHIELDS: A point well taken, Al.

Posted by alex at 02:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Planetarium, it should be noted, deserves kudos for managing somehow to come up with a way to make a play on "Krug" nearly twice a week.

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Globe finally comes out and starts (hopefully) the ball rolling on what we all already knew anyways. Seriously, this has been ridiculous. Where are the "Air National Guard Veterans for Truth" whose ads the DNC can plaster all over the swing states?

Posted by alex at 08:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Krugman. Go!

Posted by alex at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's the excerpt from Chris Matthews interviewing Zell Miller on Hardball on Sept. 1:

MILLER:  If you‘re going to ask a question...

MATTHEWS:  Well, it‘s a tough question.  It takes a few words. 

MILLER:  Get out of my face. 

MILLER:  If you are going to ask me a question, step back and let me answer. 

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS:  Senator, please.

MILLER:  You know, I wish we... I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel.  Now, that would be pretty good. 

Posted by alex at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Planetarium's here, watching the Bush speech so that you don't have to. The thing is, you can only play the "what's that really mean?" game for so long. (Admittedly, for a few minutes, it's fun: Bush says "I will see to it that every doctor can practice without fear of reprisal from bureaucrats or lawsuits." Translation: Eliminate government-sponsored healthcare, and take away the right to sue a doctor who accidentally takes out your kidney during an appendectomy.) After that, it just gets scary. It would look an awful lot like a meeting of the Third Reich if the network cameramen weren't tripping over themselves trying to find the few dark faces in a sea of whitey. As he gets closer to the end, he's invoking "God" a lot more, and sounding remarkably like someone determined to fight a holy war. Unfortunately, fighting a holy war is easily spun as being "resolute" and "brave". Now he's making jokes about how people say he can't speak well, and how he swaggers and acts like a cowboy. It's really creepy, especially when he is just blatantly lying, talking about how much he's tried to do to help the 9/11 victims, or how what he says is always what he does. Invoking a lot of exploitative victim-imagery, which is bold when you're spitting on veterans' benefits. Or, rather, it WOULD be bold if he didn't know that nobody in the press is going to call him on it. Oh, God. He just said that, years from now, a plaque in New York City will say "Here, buildings fell. Here, a nation rose."

The Democrats have already released their response sheet. No mention of North Korea, or any foreign policy, essentially. No real discussion of health care. Apparently, just trying to remind people that some jobs have been lost.

Here's the thing. We at Planetarium have a lot of respect for people on the left who continue, year after year, to believe in the innate intelligence and goodness of people. People who think that no matter what, Americans will, in the end, stand up for what is good and decent and right. That Americans know what's up. This election, we fear, will be quite the test of this. It's so important for so many reasons that George W. Bush lose this election. And yet, the Republican Convention has come out with all the subtlety of the movie Armageddon. And people, by and large, seem to be buying it. The media, for their part, have been quite open in their reporting about the fact that this convention is bull. That the Republicans are putting on their "moderate" face, just like they did four years ago. And people, again, seem to be buying it. So we ask you: How much faith do you have? If the answer is a lot, then Planetarium salutes you. Frankly, we're a little worried.

Posted by alex at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A bit of fun passed along to us from a Planetarium associate working heavy on a campaign:

Kerrey-ing no illusions

New School president Bob Kerrey - a former Democratic senator from Nebraska and a Medal of Honor recipient in Vietnam - had choice words for the Swifties accusing Sen. John Kerry of volunteering for Vietnam combat duty to pad his political résumé.

"Oh, f-- them," he told the Daily News' James Gordon Meek. "Quote me on that. The idea that you'd volunteer for [Swift boat duty] because you're thinking about a political career. ... That's what you think about doing if you want a posthumous political career."

Meanwhile, Creative Coalition co-president and "Dr. Vegas" star Joe Pantoliano wonders if FDR would fare better than Kerry if he were alive today.

"You'd have wheelchair veterans for truth coming out of the woodwork screaming, 'He's not really a cripple!'" the former "Sopranos" star told us at the coalition's party for former First Son Ron Reagan's collection of essays, "If You Had Five Minutes with the President."

Fans of such tidbits can make a donation to the Claire McCaskill for Governor campaign. Come on, Missouri, prove your love.

Posted by alex at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go!

Posted by alex at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

sorry for the pause in updates- Bad news in Planetarium's personal affairs. Anyways, something to kick you into the weekend. New Krugman-

Go!

Posted by alex at 04:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Normally, we just tell you there's a new Krugman editorial out today and say "Go!" And that's still true. But we had to make a small comment- it's astounding, at points in this new essay it almost sounds like he's channelling Jesse Jackson or something. The downside: this week's is a real only-if-you-already-agree-with-me piece for him.

Posted by alex at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We thought the New Yorkers who regularly read Planetarium might enjoy reading this particular tract by cartoonist Ted Rall. A sample:

The Republican delegates here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, they will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown in their direction. Children will call them obscene names. They will not be greeted as liberators.

Posted by alex at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Man, Atrios was on fire today. Here's one more lovely back-and-forth he unearthed:

Scott McCellan: "I do think that Senator Kerry losing his cool should not be an excuse for him to lash out at the President" [White House Press Briefing, Crawford Middle School, Crawford, Texas8/20/04]

Marc Racicot: "I think they have comepletely unhinged. Senator Kerry, Tad, although I've certainly had time to get to know him, he looks to me to be wild-eyed." [CNN, Inside Politics, 8/20/04]

...from Kerry communications director Cutter:

"Mr. McClellan needs to understand that John Kerry is not the type of leader who will sit and read `My Pet Goat' to a group of second graders while America is under attack."

Posted by alex at 08:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a tip brought to our attention by Eschaton:

Kerry press release (Excerpt): Bush Campaign Busted Passing Out “Swift Boat Veterans for Bush” Flyer Washington, DC - Despite constant denials, the Bush-Cheney campaign today was busted coordinating with the “Swift Boat Veterans for Bush” in their smear campaign against John Kerry. The following press release was issued this afternoon by the Florida Democratic Party. The evidence is attached.

“Bush Campaign Caught Promoting "Swift Boat Vets for Truth"

While National Campaign Denies Coordination, Campaign in Florida Promotes Rally

Tallahassee -- On the same day that the Bush-Cheney campaign repeatedly denied coordinating attacks with the anti-Kerry group "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the Bush-Cheney campaign in Florida was caught promoting a rally in Gainesville for the group.

How about a big round of applause for the Republican machine, which managed to get the stupid, lumbering Democratic machine to take the bait and have THIS be the story in the media for the past two weeks. As John Stewart suggested the other day, "perhaps the democrats could use some..............nutsack?"

Posted by alex at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're not sure about all our readers, but where Planetarium lives there's a raging debate about whether or not to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. We're a little ambivalent about it, kind of like we are on how to fix schools. On a purely personal level, we're very glad if it passes; less smokey grossness at bars. But we've also heard good arguments about the strain on small bars (hiring an extra person just to deal with all the people out on the sidewalk smoking, and so forth). But we've also heard the weird "secondhand smoke isn't bad for you" argument, put forth by very intelligent people who assure Planetarium there is NO evidence to support ill effects of 2nd-hand nicotine. We weren't sure, so we did a little research in our free time, and it just so happens that today, the Pioneer Press posted stats remarkably similar to what we've found. Which IS:

- 400,000 annual deaths from smoking in the U.S.
- $2.6 billion annual cost of tobacco-related illnesses to Minnesota in medical bills and lost productivity.
- 38,000 annual U.S. deaths from secondhand smoke exposure.
- 35,000 heart disease deaths of nonsmoking Americans each year attributed to secondhand smoke.
- 3,000 lung cancer deaths of nonsmoking Americans each year attributed to secondhand smoke.
- 90% of Americans exposed to secondhand smoke regularly.
- #3 would be the rank of secondhand smoke as the cause of preventable death in the United States.

So. There you have it. The National Institute of Health apparently contests the claim that secondhand smoke is relatively harmless. Whoops.

Posted by alex at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Once again, good ol' Steve Perry has the right stuff when it comes to an accurate analysis of the current anti-Kerry attacks. He not only points out the obvious, i.e. Bush and co. are the "greatest recruitment tool Osama's got", but chides the Kerry campaign for very stupidly not hammering home this "loss of safety interntaionally" theme with the media quietly for the past few months, instead letting themselves get hit with things like this with no retort. Planetarium was one of the first to call bullshit when the press tried to portray the Kerry campaign as "anemic" in the past when thhey were actually energized, but now the charge is sounding a little more appropo.

Planetarium is happy to take it one step further than Mr. Perry and point out a logical step for all of us: time for some letters to the editor saying exactly this talking point. The old saw one letter = ten people still holds, and more than a few papers of note have taken cues in the pst from a bevy of letter writers. So get to it. You're already online; it takes mere minutes.

Posted by alex at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course, it would be a Democratic governor who comes out as gay. Those Republicans are so darn good at hiding in the closet. We're curious to see how the right-wingers spin this. What do you think- will they justify their homophobia, or will they tie it to a Clinton-esque sexual cover-up mentality amongst Dems, or what? It's like a game: how fucked-up can we paint this poor guy, and how can we offend queers at the same time?

Posted by alex at 09:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, the New York Times is even slapping Bush in the face in its cover story today. "In the face of paltry numbers on job growth, President Bush's new slogan, 'we've turned the corner', sounds premature at best."

Posted by alex at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Damn, we sure do love Steve Perry here at Planetarium. He's one of the most astute pundits in the country, with a prediction-comes-true ratio that outstrips just about anyone we can think of. Over at Bush Wars, he further elucidates the "we win if we're right, we win if we're wrong" tactics of the Bush administration's terror-mongering.

Posted by alex at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TCB today offers us a lovely bit of info on Team Bush's racial fears.

Also, it appears that both of our local papers are less than completely confident about the motives behind the Democrat mayor's endorsement of George W. Bush. Can't imagine why. Pretty scathing for a coupla usually weak-ass papers of note, however.

Firefly: The Movie has an up-and-running website. yee-ha!

Posted by alex at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Darn it, Paul Krugman, you're scaring everyone again. We especially wish your scary argument wasn't so compelling, and didn't yet again reinforce our worry that no matter what way the votes go, Republicans will find a way to steal the election again.

Posted by alex at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

TCB pointed out that The New Yorker has all the sordid details of what actually went on in the little disagreement between Dick Cheney and Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor.

Posted by alex at 01:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pretty great one, too. He literally comes out and says that George Bush is the best thing that ever happened to Al Qaeda.

Posted by alex at 09:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Allow Planetarium a small moment of rebuttal in the midst of the mass leftist Anti-Bush bonanza that's now the currency of trade in American politics: isn't the Don Quixote-esque tradition of fighting a straw man a lot more effective for the right when we're actually fighting a real bad guy (Bush et. al)? The current battle continually evinces nostalgia in almost all of us for the days of Clinton, now perpetually affixed with rose-tinted glasses. Yet, the very real damage that Clinton did, from welfare reform to the civil rights rollbacks of the '96 anti-terrorism omnibus bill to the bombing of pharmaceutical factories, gets erased in a haze of Lewinsky-scandal fun when confronted with the overtly fascist tendencies of the new regime's blatant torture, among other offenses.

In other words, the "get Bush out" campaign ends up reinforcing the position of the reactionary political forces in this country, because once Bush is out (if that even occurs), the "left" will relish the return of the malaise it was allowed to laze about in during the 90's. We are quite alright with repression and the subjugation of democracy to free-market capitalism, it seems to say: Just please do it with a friendly smile, in the guise of a liberal, and don't be quite so over-the-top about it.

Sleep tight.

Posted by alex at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Gone for the weekend, but back with a totally shocking and simultaneously unsurprising story for you all. The New Republic broke this story on the Bush team and their playing politics with terrorism for political gain. You KNEW it wasn't true, you just didn't want it to be. We now present some of the highlights:

This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on
Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri,
or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding
in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan.

This public pressure would be appropriate, even laudable, had it not been
accompanied by an unseemly private insistence that the Pakistanis deliver
these high-value targets (HVTs) before Americans go to the polls in
November. The Bush administration denies it has geared the war on terrorism
to the electoral calendar.


But The New Republic has learned that Pakistani security officials have been
told they must produce HVTs by the election. According to one source in
Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), 'The Pakistani
government is really desperate and wants to flush out bin Laden and his
associates after the latest pressures from the U.S. administration to
deliver before the [upcoming] U.S. elections.' Introducing target dates for
Al Qaeda captures is a new twist in U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism
relations--according to a recently departed intelligence official, 'no
timetable[s]' were discussed in 2002 or 2003--but the November election is
apparently bringing a new deadline pressure to the hunt.


A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant
General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed TNR that the Pakistanis 'have been told at
every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is
[an] absolute must.' What's more, this source claims that Bush
administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a
date in mind for announcing this achievement: 'The last ten days of July
deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during
[ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington.'

But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last
spring that 'it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were
announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first
three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

God bless America.

Posted by alex at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Matt Drudge is really hitting new vistas of weirdness. Planetrium doesn't usually direct people to check out the Drudge Report, but he's implying that Kerry and Edwards are gay. There's a bunch of pictures, it's humorously bizarre, and pretty fun to watch his continued mental slide. Look quick, though, because odds are he'll come to his senses soon and take it down.

Posted by alex at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Michael Moore is now a blogger. Go take a looksie.

Posted by alex at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Snap to it, it's good for you. Remember when Planetarium used to HATE this guy? We suppose that once Bush is out of office, and he goes back to writing about how awesome neoliberal free trade policies are for everyone, we'll stop liking him again.

Posted by alex at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. Still four months left until the election and already the media is spinning poll results as "Bush down but not out". Good news for us, bad news for him. At least until a month before the election, when they either capture Osama bin Laden and/or there's another terrorist attack. We're fairly certain that Al Qaeda thinks that George Bush is the best thing that ever happened to them.

SO as we all gather 'round outdoor grills and fireworks this weekend to celebrate what little is left of our independence, let's remember all the hardworking men and women who are busting their butts working this weekend while we relax. That's right: I'm talking about the people promoting next week's release of Anchorman, starring Will Farrell. Planetarium will be there opening night- will you?

Posted by alex at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go!!!!

Posted by alex at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the bold new launch of the exciting new liberal talk radio network, Air America, the new venture that's conquering America by way of...um.....New York, California, uh....oooh! Boston, too! heh-heh.....did we mention it's new?

Seriously, though, they better get their act off the ground and into the heartland, because, damn, let's go. Pretty good article about it here. They don't even list the online site for it, however, which is annoying, because we were looking forward to hearing the lovely voice of Jeanene Garafalo tonight. Sigh. Someday....

Posted by alex at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Everyone's getting good and p.o.'d regarding the White House's latest character assassination attempt- and the good news is, this time it just doesn't seem to be sticking. From Paul Krugman's latest piece, to Bush Wars, to our good buddy Atrios, it seems that the administration finally bumped up against a strong enough contender that they can't just make up lies about him and make it stick. It helps that the guy's squeaky-clean enough that he's actually decided to fight back and lead the charge against Bush and Co., calling for all his classified documents to be opened up to the light of day, so that everyone can se just how right he is. The White House can't be too pumped about that fact. Go, Richard Clarke, go! We might even buy your book!

Posted by alex at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Usually, Fridays are a disaster, both for Planetarium and the nation, as the White House dumps all the really fucked-up things they did into the Friday news cycle so nobody will be talking about it at the watercooler the next day. But today, we've got a balanced bag of goodies from the getting-less-impressive-every-day New York Times:

1. Dems are finally getting some guts to block the judicial nominees. After rolling rolling over for all but 3 of the 100+ totally evil guys Bush has been stacking benches with, the recent weakening of the Bush corp. over the press corp. is emboldening them a wee bit. They're refusing to confirm any nominees unless Bush promises he won't name a bunch more while Congress is in recess.

2. Kerry's recovered from his 2 weeks incognito. After forgetting the fact that saying the same thing over and over drops you from the headlines quicker than an endorsement from Rupert Murdoch, Kerry has come back with a nice piece of fluff that gets a good headline: Kerry plan to deal with jobs moving overseas. Yes, Virginia, there IS an election decided by the economy.

3. new Krugman. Yay!

Posted by alex at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go!!!!

Posted by alex at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're fans of this rather amusing piece. Bush campaign gear was made in Burma. His campaign store sells a pullover from nation whose products he has banned from being sold in the U.S.

BY LAUREN WEBER
STAFF WRITER, NEWSDAY.COM

March 18, 2004, 9:49 PM EST

The official merchandise Web site for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign has sold clothing made in Burma, whose goods were banned by Bush from the U.S. last year to punish its military dictatorship.

The merchandise sold on www.georgewbushstore.com includes a $49.95 fleece pullover, embroidered with the Bush-Cheney '04 logo and bearing a label stating it was made in Burma, now Myanmar. The jacket was sent to Newsday as part of an order that included a shirt made in Mexico and a hat not bearing a
country-of-origin label.

Continue reading "Our Favorite News of the Day" »

Posted by alex at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John McCain still confuses the hell out of us here at Planetarium. Every once in a while, he goes and does something like this (standing up for John Kerry). Yet for all the supposed brains the man shows, we can't possibly understand how it isn't rending his soul in two by following it up with supporting this administration on nearly evrything they do. Clearly, either a very smart politician or very soulless. Oops- no need to repeat ourselves, we suppose.

Posted by alex at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pretty nice little update by Steve Perry here at Bush Wars. Again, let us sound our clarion call of support for this man, who, for Planetarium's money, churns out some of the most astute (and frighteningly accurate) political analysis in the country. And he's all ours, Twin Cities. Perry is like Planetarium, only better and not being quite so cynical. In fact, one could do worse for the great balance of cynicism and faith than to go back and read his now-classic essay on why we should give up on the Democratic Party. And coming from someone who has said he's voting for Kerry, you just know it gets it right.

Posted by alex at 06:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's pretty funny that we're chiding Mr. Ex-Haiti leader for this. As TCB puts it, "So Bush and company overthrow a democratically elected president and then chastise him for claiming he's in charge? Isn't that what they did to Gore?"

Actually, Planetarium is somewhat conflicted about this. On the one hand, if the U.S. really did force the guy out, that's pretty screwed-up. On the other hand, a rebellion that's supported by over 80% of your country sounds pretty darn democratic to us. Yeah, there's some bad guys in the armed forces. But there's also some pretty bad guys in the armed forces, if you get our point.

Posted by alex at 06:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Perhaps we're all just pessimists, or maybe you caught Planetarium in a particularly cynical moment, but does anyone really think for a moment that George Bush will not be President again come November? That he and his vast right-wing conspiracy will allow John Kerry to become President in the fall? That they won't do whatever it takes, up to and including fixing the capture of Osama bin Laden, passing a new round of tax cuts, or tampering with ballot machines in order to do whatever is necessary to win the election? Sure, there may be some harping on illegal election activities, or denying tens of thousands of African-Americans the right to vote again, but unless there is some actual proof of these actions, nothing will change, and Dubya will again preside over four more years of destroying this country. Or, given the sadder alternative, the right will decide it's in theirbest interest to let Kerry preside over the next four years of inflation, unemployment, and unless the National Democratic Committee grows a heart or soul (neither very likely), the Republicans will coast to an easy 2008 win and demonstrate once again that they're much better at taking the reins than some mopey, weak-willed centrists. If you have an argument against these scenarios, please bring it up, because frankly, we're all out of ideas over here.

Posted by alex at 02:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Gosh, shocking, John Kerry is the nominee. What the Democratic party needs is its own, smarter version of a Karl Rove. Because right now, all they have is the DLC, which, let's face it, is absolutely dreadful at anything resembling serious campaigning. They're extremely good at preserving their own jobs, and keeping major corporate donors contributing, but that's about as far as it goes, and that will help you win....approximately zero states. Remember the smart fellas who ran the Clinton White House? Stephenopoulous et al? Where's a deiabolical political op when you need one?

Posted by alex at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

And the reason that mainstream media doesn't give a voice to guys like this is...??

Posted by alex at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Go!!!

Posted by alex at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whoo-ee. As The CJR points out, this really is one of the more pathetic attempts by an associated press journalist to sneak in his right-wing beliefs on a totally unrelated story. Pretty lame.

Although, Planetarium supports doing this kind of thing in Associated Press news stories more often: "...It was a long day on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue today, as President Bush signed more than 70 routine bills into law. The President, notably rubbing his cramping right hand- possibly thinking back to 1973 when he would do insane amounts of cocaine and his whole body woud cramp up- agreed in response to reporter's..."

Posted by alex at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our favorite political analyst, Steve Perry from the Minneapolis City Pages, has got some great things to say about the presidential race:

"I watched Bush's speech tonight, and while I like to think I'm pretty good at casting a dispassionate eye toward political elocution, I could see nothing in it to excite anyone's imagination--not even the traditional GOP base, much less the fence-sitters. The big line near the end was, "We'll defend America, whatever it takes." I'm telling you, people don't want to hear that shit anymore."

Posted by alex at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Times:

Rapes Reported by Servicewomen in the Persian Gulf and Elsewhere

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — The United States military is facing the gravest accusations of sexual misconduct in years, with dozens of servicewomen in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere saying they were sexually assaulted or raped by fellow troops, lawmakers and victims advocates said on Wednesday.

An "ugly-truth" kind of person might argue that, in the same way that the Catholic Church engenders child molestation, this kind of thing is embedded in the very makeup of the Army. Planetarium will leave that to an "ugly-truth" person who actually served.

Posted by alex at 11:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ralph, oh Ralph......

All right. Enough of this fucking around. Planetarium is out for blood from all comers, because Ralph Nader has incited some of the stupidest ideas from otherwise sensible people over the past three-plus years, including himself. So let's put it all out on the table here, shall we?

First of all: The new campaign. What a dumb-ass idea. Ralph is clearly no longer making as much sense as he once used to. HOWEVER- that being said, it's really not that big a deal. See, anyone silly enough to vote for Ralph THIS time around is clearly NOT someone who would be voting for Kerry (presumed nominee) anyways, because you either HATE democrats too much for words or have your head up a certain body cavity. Read: He won't exactly be stealing many votes this November. So, in a nutshell, whatever.

SO NOW IT'S TIME TO CALL OUT YOU DAMN DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE BEEN SPEWING THE KIND OF GARBAGE PLANETARIUM USUALLY KEEPS TIED UP IN LARGE BAGS IN THE DUMPSTER FOR THREE FUCKING YEARS:

See, it's way past the due date for the National Democratic Party to get a clue: Let's explain this slowly, since many of you who blame stupid Ralphie-boy seem to be a few tacos short of a fiesta. Planetarium (who voted Nader in 2000 and regrets nothing) knows far too many people who STILL, three years later, attack us and blame Nader and his campaign supporters for the "loss" to Bush and Co. Let's ignore the obvious retort for a moment ("Hey dumbshit- your candidate won"), and look at that ugly little creature called the facts. Maybe a teeny bit of blame should, you know, think about being directed towards the TWENTY PERCENT of registered Democrats who voted for G.W. in that race. Including over 300,000 in Florida alone- more than enough to counter all the hanging chads, governors, and disenfranchised black voters you should be taking note of.

Here's a cute excerpt from a recent letter to The Nation:

"Bush is such an unprecendented disaster that I'm willing to do almost anything to end his horrendous reign. However, there's only so much abuse I'm willing to take from Democrats. If they continue to attack progressives or resort to Texas Republican tactics by redistricting Greens out of legislative seats, then they'll just doom themselves. By further alienating some of the most active, motivated, caring and ethical people the country has to offer, they'll nail their own coffins in 2004."

Go ahead and blame us Nader-voters, idiots, because your inability to see the real enemy- both in the Dem leadership and your stubborn refusal to see anything other than a patsy to pin your stupid, badly-run campaign on- is what's making the national Democratic Party a pathetic shadow of its former self.

Posted by alex at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

From the Times front-page today:

Scientists Accuse White House of Distorting Facts

You think?

......seriously, sometimes it's just enough to make you long for some good ol' fashioned Fascist-enforced education programs. Yes, the Greenhouse effect is bad. Yes, pollution causes it. Yes, destroying natural resources is bad. Planetarium assumes that at least fifteen times a day, you, gentle reader, also tend to feel like Will Farrell's character in Zoolander: "Don't any of you see this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!"

Posted by alex at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So everybody and their mother wants Dean to drop out, eh? Planetarium is somewhat bummed by the overwhelming dominance of Kerry in the primaries, but at the same time, wildly unconvinced by the assertions of pro-Edwards, pro-Clark (although a little late for them now), and pro-Dean people. Everyone seems to have decided who is the most likable or electable, but frankly, put bags over their heads, and nobody would be able to pick them out in a line-up. For every flaw of Kerry, the other guys have weaknesses just as vast- how about the fact that Edwards was also prompted to run by the fact that it was looking very much like he was going to lose his re-election run for his own Senate seat? How about Clark's big fun anti-war speeches at Socialist-sponsored rallies? How about Dean's, well, do we even need to say it? The fact is, none of these guys are show ponies, they're just a warm body with as few skeletons in their past as possible, so that the Dems can try and unseat Bush. That is, if the DNC actually cares to make an effort to win this time around- they don't have a great track record with this kind of thing, you know. Caring, that is.

Posted by alex at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Does Planetarium even need to remind you any more that it's Friday, and therefore the day of yet another excellent piece by Krugman in the Times? He really has inherited that magical gift of being able to say- usually in the most coherent, plain-spoken way- why we're right and they're wrong. Planetarium is dreadfully envious. Of course, perhaps if our job consisted of sitting around thinking up witty one-offs and finding statistical evidence for them all day long, perhaps we'd be right there with him.

On the other side of the political spectrum.......I just don't know what to say. I know the right-wing loves Karl Rove and all, but really.....this is just disturbing. Heed our warning: this site is not for the faint of heart.

But hey, we wouldn't leave you without some good news: It looks like 50 First Dates is gonna be pretty great. Those of us who loved the Sandler/Barrymore pairing in The Wedding Singer are going to be treated to what the New York Times, of all places, is calling one of the "most daring and funny romantic comedies". So check it out. Of course, if that's not your cup of tea, well, we have good news for you other folks as well: The new version of Dawn of the Dead has gotten the official geek seal of approval. Which, given how much they were planning to hate upon it, must mean it's damn good. How could it not be- Sarah Polley! Mu-ah!

Posted by alex at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Okay, so Planetarium has to eat a little crow today by accepting that Kerry won New Hampshire, which we predicted Dean would take. Oh well- those nutty Hampshirians always defy expectation. Of course, they defy it especially when you've got thousands of Republicans voting in the primary for the candidates they think have the least shot. Does this include Kerry? We're not sure.

What we DO know for sure is that Planetarium has just moved, and is still waiting for Comcast (did you know they have a monopoly? We're not allowed any other cable internet provider) to install the information superhighway at our world headquarters. Hence the pause between posts, which will most certainly be made up for as soon as we're back to full strength.

Posted by alex at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Planetarium loves being right. And clearly, we were never more right than when we predicted, WAAAAAYYYY back in October, that John Kerry was a bigger contender than anybody thought at the time. That he was pretty electable, despite being generally fairly crappy as a progressive of any sort. That he would take at least a primary or two.

Damn, we're good.

Of course, having now said that, Planetarium is going to continue it's contrarian winning streak by pointing out that, right as everybody is jumping on the kerry-or-edwards bandwagon, Dean and Clark are going to start making some very powerful showings. Why? We're glad you asked:

First, a sound tweak of the nose is in order for all of those blind-to-reality Dean supporters, who think he's God's gift to the Democratic party, or at least some sort of progressive, which is kind of a joke. But more importantly, a sense of shock at the johnny-come-latelys who all switched their tunes about Dean in the last four days, as it looked like he might not win, because he was- gasp!- a little unpredictable and volatile. Some of Planetarium's very good friends, people who were very excited about Dean, who even gave him money, are suddenly saying they don't think he's electable. That's Democrats for you: as soon as something rocks their boat the teensiest bit, they run for the safest, boringest, most stolid thing they can grab on to. Read: Kerry or Edwards.

SO- let Planetarium explain something (you'll forgive the unusual, slightly arrogant tone in our voice today, we're still flush with satisfaction at being right): Dean is still a contender. In a BIG way. Why? He has the most money. Clark is second in that respect, which is why he too is a contender. Everyone seems to forget that usually, the one with the most money wins. Mark our words: Kerry will lose New Hampshire. And when he does, watch all the change-with-the-winds folks start talking about how maybe Dean has a chance after all.

Posted by alex at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So, Planetarium watched some good ol' fashioned Fox News last night, and it discovered something somewhat interesting: The Right Wing, for some bizarre reason, seems absolutely terrified of Howard Dean. God knows why, IMHO. Perhaps Dean has some sort of secret magic powers that Planetarium's not aware of. But to hear Fox News tell it, Dean is an agent of Al-Qaeda who needs to be taken out by any of the other candidates, who may not be smart or good, but are at least "honest Americans".

Daily kos has some interesting analysis of the weird breakaway into a four-way race in Iowa. Particularly, he notes that Edwards has spiked in popularity right about the time he stopped doing his southern-boy routine and started mimicking Dean's whole "I want to empower you" shtick. It's odd that they've decided to pull this "anyone's game" routine at this point, but it's clear why the media's pushing it so hard:

It gives them the power to anoint the candidate.

Posted by alex at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I think most of the finalists for the "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign by MoveOn.org are pretty awesome. I was too intimated to check it out when there were still thousands of entries, but now they've whittled it down to a very manageable fifteen. GO vote on your favorite.

Oh, and btw, it's getting pretty nasty already. Salon has a great piece about what the Republicans strategy will be: Paint Dems as soft on Saddam and Osama, and accuse them of using dirty smear tactics that you yourself are actually employing. Well, duh.

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

Suddenly, I don't hate Howard Dean. No, I still don't think he's the best candidate, and no, I still don't think he'd win, but allow for a brief statement: Howard Dean can talk, um, real good. And he knows stuff, too. But mostly, it's just the fact that the fuckin' DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) hates him so much that they're putting out anti-Dean commercials at the early point in the game. That's pathetic, and a perfect example of why the national Democratic Party is such a frekin' mess right now. Planetarium can hardly believe it's eyes. The DLC is so deep-money entrenched, so middle-of-the-road, so much more concerned with fundraising than with winning, that they can't even see a loyalty-inspiring media-grabber when it's looking them in the face. And maybe that's Dean's biggest problem. The DLC is too stupid to give him the backing he'd need to win, and hence, he'll lose.

But hey- Christmas is almost here! Go buy everyone in our family a copy of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Or maybe the new Michael Moore. Whatever, just spread the word, you know? Ho ho ho.

Posted by alex at 09:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, whoop-de-doo.

Yeah, you heard me: Whoop-de-doo. And I'll say it again, too. Followed by a rhyme, through and through. Don't think this thing we won't do. It's true.

In all honesty, though, is Planetarium supposed to be impressed by the fact that we finally found Mr. Iraqi bad guy hiding in the floor joists eating moldy bread? Did anyone really think he was doing anything else? Perhaps writing the next Harry Potter novel? Planetarium's a little dumbfounded, once again, at the stupidity of the universe. Why is why this post is actually to inform you that if you want to clear your head from all the CRAP that's going to be foisted on you by the national media about this story for the next three weeks straight, Planetarium wants to direct your attention to a much more enlightening essay on terrorism, Osama bin Laden, the Matrix, and McGriddles. Even with some dubious politics, it's funny enough to merit a reading by all of you. It'll cheer you up, we promise.

Posted by alex at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Am I the only one unimpressed by Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean?

Big whoop.

Sorry, the dude still has a lot to prove to me before I think about saying he's got a shot in the general election. Don't tell me some East Coast intellectual is gonna destroy Bush without a second thought. Whatever, on one hand, right? I mean come on, like most lefties, I think defeating George Bush is extremely important, so I'll vote for whoever the candidate is (excluding Joe Lieberman, of course). But I need some more evidence before I say that Mr. balanced Massachusetts budget, middle-of-the-road, talk like a firebrand Dean is our savior for the next election. Someone please give me a grounded explanation of why he can win, because I haven't seen it yet. And sorry, but "firing up the college-age activists" doesn't count.

Posted by alex at 01:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It seems that the government is really itching to kill anyone they can lay their hot little hands on. Even the dudes they really can't prove a damn thing about. As The New York Times points out, (with perhaps a little too much non-reportorial relish, Planetarium might add) Ashcroft et. al have really launched into a full-blown "kill 'em all" mantra, consistent, I suppose, if not very inspiring. I guess the lesson for the kids here is, "If you can't beat 'em, kill 'em".

Posted by alex at 07:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. So the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill passed. What a fuckin' boondoggle. Even the uber-Libertarian Cato Institute is decrying this bill as a giant giveaway to pharmaceutical companies. Basically, it steals money from the Medicare system, gives it to private HMOs, without lowering the cost of drugs at all. Pretty awesome.

Posted by alex at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another Monday, another great New York Times article by Paul Krugman. He seems to get more accessible and and smart with each subsequent posting. This new one's a succinct, and eminently logical, piece on how the Bush administration likes to close its eyes and pretend bad things will go away. The sad part is, as far as the media's reporting on them is concerned, they may be right.

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

Today's creepy Pentagon news come courtesy of Atrios:

In Iraq and Afghanistan, important buildings in the capitals bristle with gun-toting Americans in sunglasses. They favor khaki photographers' vests and a few military accoutrements, but lack the name tags and identifying patches of a soldier.

Ask who they work for and one often hears "no comment" or "I can't tell you that."

Contractors' deaths aren't counted among the tally of more than 350 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. No one is sure how many private workers have been killed, or, indeed, even how many are toiling in Iraq for the U.S. government. Estimates range from under 10,000 to more than 20,000 - which could make private contractors the largest U.S. coalition partner ahead of Britain's 11,000 troops.

Global Risks Strategies, a security firm with about 1,100 workers on the ground - mainly armed former Nepalese and Fijian soldiers - is among security companies that have more personnel in Iraq than some other countries taking part in the occupation, Singer said.

To the consternation of U.S. lawmakers, there is little or no Congressional oversight of contractors hired by the executive branch of government - whether through the State Department, Pentagon or the CIA.

Posted by alex at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Much like any other member of his administration, every now and then George Bush steps out from behind the smile-and-wave pulpit he usually inhabits to remind everyone that he can be just as evil as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the Axis of Evil.

As this latest New York Times piece proves, Bush can be equally, if not more, adept at thwarting democracy and public justice than his lackeys. Apparently, denying the public the documents detailing what Bush knew in the days before 9/11 would compromise our ability to be lied to effectively.

Posted by alex at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Planetarium here, coming to you from Savannah, Georgia: home of the only city Sherman didn't burn to the ground during the civil war, because he found it so beautiful. Also apparently home to the only plus-sized cockroaches not burned to the ground during the civil war, possibly because Sherman was scared they'd retaliate.

Anyways, Kate is still scheduled for at least one or two more postings here, but it seemed necessary to insert a small memorial tribute to American democracy, what with it being dead and all now, thanks to the successful drive to recall a democratically elected candidate. Let the destruction of ALL democratic officeholders by right-wing recall efforts begin, while we gently play "Taps" in the background. In the words of the great Russian political commentator Yakov Smirnov: "America- What a country!"

Posted by alex at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official: Up is down, front is back, and the Bush Administration are not crooks.

Allbaugh was part of the president's so-called 'Iron Triangle' -- the other two being Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. And now Allbaugh's running an outfit that helps your company get the sweetest contracts in Iraq? That sound right to you? Think he'll have any special pull?

We live in a banana republic.

Posted by alex at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once again emphasizing my point that Clark is just not the candidate we need, today's Drudge Report offers this rather unpleasant quote from Wesley Clark just two years ago:

During extended remarks delivered at the Pulaski County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 11, 2001, General Clark declared: "And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."

Oops. That'll look good on the evening news.

Posted by alex at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's outrage comes courtesy of Atrios:

Speaking of contracting out, an administration move to privatize air traffic control at 69 airports has sparked opposition from labor groups, which contend it would compromise safety.

The administration had proposed 71 airports, but House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska), who supports the effort, got someone to strike the two Alaska airports on the list.

Posted by alex at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I guess it's fair to say that everyoe has an achilles' heel. Something, be it long lines at the supermarket, or a President who;s a big liar, that sets them off ranting near-incoherently. I guess that's my charitable way of introducing the sad fact that otherwise respectable progressives still begin foaming at the mouth and sounding like screaming nine-year-olds when it comes to good old Ralph Nader. The newest normally sane person to fall victim to this bizarre addiction is Eric Alterman (sorry, just lost the link), who begins shrieking hysterically at the fact that Nader is still going to be involved in political issues.

News flash, Eric: Your boy Gore WON THE ELECTION. It was stolen by Bush, not Nader. Next time tell your candidate to demand that all the votes be counted. Oh, and by the way, a small suggestion: Next time you choose a candidate, think about finding one that possesses at least one-twentieth of a percent more credible progressive beliefs, and maybe a few of those Greenies will actually vote for your sad excuse for a Democrat. I.e. one who doesn't keep Africans dying of AIDS from getting drugs so that the Pharmaceutical industry can keep posting record profits; one who doesn't shill for the WTO every chance he gets; one who doesn't stand to the right of Clinton on most economic issues; in other words, a Democrat.

Posted by alex at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know I can't be the only one to have pointed this out already, but I'm getting rather tired of these right-wingers who are falling over themselves to endorse Arnold, when these self-same idiots spent the past four months bad-mouthing every single actor in Hollywood who spoke out against the war in Iraq. Remember all the statements like "They have no business talking politics, they don't know anything about it", as though only people conceived in the Lincon Memorial and birthed on top of the Liberty Bell should get to talk politics? Me too. Notice how they're saying "Arnold's got really great ideas, I think he'd bring real passion to the governorship"? Yeah, their heads should, by all rights, explode in the face of such obvious contradictions.

Posted by alex at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On the eve of what is likely Wesley Clark's announcement that he's throwing his NATO-encrusted hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination, perhaps it's worthwhile to reflect on the following:
They're going to tear him a new rear end.
Why, you ask? Well, it's simple: he's going to be raked over the coals for giving anti-war speeches at rallies organized by ANSWER, also known as the international Socialist Brotherhood. That's the kind of thing Joe Schmo in Ohio just isn't going to stand for, no matter how decorated the dude's military career is. Mark my words: If Clark runs, he'll be completely discredited by the mainstream media by the time of the Iowa caucas. Which is too bad, because I honestly think he'd make a pretty great prez. I don't need to provide any links- every major news outlet will have this as page 1 tomorrow.

Posted by alex at 06:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Calpundit points out in this post, the Dems should really get off their stupid intra-party-squabbling butts and start hammering home, again and again, that Bush is A LIAR. A non-stop, 24/7, lying liar who lies. And Dick Cheney, too, as his recent hilarity-inducing appearance on Meet the Press only proves. Real "pants on fire"-degree lies. If they would just start saying this, over and over, and hold up the proof, the press would have to start conceding the point. In fact, they already are. I'll see if I can't find the link to the story, but Tucker Carlson, not exactly a Democrat, spoke to Salon about the fact that Bush and Co. will simply "lie, knowing that you know that THEY know they're lying, and they'll lie anyways."
We live in a Banana Republic.

Posted by alex at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Alright, it's official. Can I please vote for Paul Krugman for President? This new piece just seals the deal for me. Krugman has the biggest platform in the country for saying these kinds of things, and God bless him for using his bully pulpit to the fullest extent of his abilities.

Posted by alex at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm starting to think there's something extremely masochistic about being a leftist in this country. You have to reallly appreciate irony, horrifying facts, and occasionally, like today, completely bizarro lack of intelligence:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 — Invoking the memories of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush prodded Congress today to "untie the hands" of law enforcement and enact broader search-and-seizure powers and wider use of the death penalty to combat terrorism.

"The House and Senate have a responsibility to act quickly," Mr. Bush said at the F.B.I. Training Academy in Quantico, Va. "Untie the hands of our law enforcement officials so they can win the war."

Anyone who can explain how wider use of the death penalty helps one "win a war", you win a trip to Bushland, where the sky is yellow, and clouds are made of potato chips. If you want more free-associative thinking, read it here.

Posted by alex at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bush "war on terror" proposal - $87 Billion

Funding of Homeland Security Department - $41.3 Billion

Health and Human Services Dept. - $66.2 Billion

Education Dept. (includes all K-12 funding) - $53.1 Billion

State Dept. and Foreign Aid - $27.4 Billion

Bush Tax Cuts - $107.8 Billion

(source: White House Fiscal Year 2004 Budget)

Posted by alex at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just when you thought William Safire couldn't get any stupider, along comes a piece like this to remind you that Safire will always manage to find a new bottom to the bottom of the barrel. Today he's building one of the most ludicrous straw men I've ever seen. Read the essay and tell me if these concerns sound ANYTHING remotely like actual opposition to the administration that you know of. My favorite quote:

In what is called here "the Daily Schadenfreude," the impression is being marketed that the rebuilding of Iraq is a colossal flop. That Arabs are culturally incapable of self-government.

Is there any way possible within the realm of sanity outside of Safire's head that the second sentence logically follows the previous?

Posted by alex at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Molly Ivin's latest awesome offering:

• "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -- Bush, March 17, 2003.

• "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly." -- Fleischer, March 21, 2003.

Lastly comes this gem from Bill O'Reilly of Fox News: "And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clear he had nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." -- March 18, 2003.

Posted by alex at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the polling-company-of-note, Zogby, comes good news:

A majority (52%) said it’s time for someone new in the White House, while just two in five (40%) said the president deserves to be re-elected. Last month, 45% said re-election was in order, and 48% said it was time for someone new.

A like number (52%) said the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 40% said it is the right direction.

It's currently listing Dean in first place, but in a boost of support to Planetarium's theories, Kerry's nipping at his heels in second. I'm not claiming the guy's a winner, but he's got a lot more of a chance than a lot of lefties seem to think. Again, they mistakenly place too much emphasis on how well a candidate can debate. Lest we forget, Gore ran circles around Bush in those debates. Our current Prez couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag. Perhaps there's other things the American people like....? (Of course, that doesn't necessarily speak well about us Americans.)

Posted by alex at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today's New York Times has a front page story, entitled "Democrats Split On Pushing the Personal or Political." It talks about how Gephardt and Edwards are taalking a lot about their hard-working parents, sharing down-home life anecdotes, whereas Dean is instead choosing to focus on the President, and red-meat issues. Gee, I wonder which one seems to be succeeding more with the public? I know that as a voter I'd much rather hear stories of how Pa Kettle used to fix the old boiler with bubble gum than hear about how we're going to improve the economy.

Posted by alex at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mad props go out to my man Atrios for providing this story about how the US is setting new standards of tact and diplomacy:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States sneered at plans by four European countries to create an autonomous European military command headquarters near Brussels separate from NATO, referring to the idea's proponents as "chocolate makers." In unusually blunt language that drew surprised gasps from reporters, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher scoffed at Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for continuing to support the proposal that they first introduced at a mini-summit in April.

As Atrios himself points out, "This would all be funny if these buffoons weren't killing our soldiers and trying to usher in the rapture by screwing up North Korea."

Posted by alex at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another chink in the armor of the supposedly unquenchable American lust for the Death Penalty. The New York Times today reports that over 100 sentences have been overturned in Western states, once again prompting John Ashcroft to choke on his breakfast croissanwich.

Not only that, but Arnie reports smokin' doobies and having group sex back in the day. Could all of this point to signs that perhaps Dean really could win? This website is still a little dubious, but hope springs eternal....

Posted by alex at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another week, another fabulous Paul Krugman editorial, this time about the bang-up job the White House has done of screwing over New York City:

Why was crucial information withheld from the public? The report mentions "the desire to reopen Wall Street and national security concerns." Maybe — though the national security benefits of failing to remove toxic dust escape me. I suspect that there was another reason: budget politics.

Best of all, the article flips-flops the old theory about those snobby big-city liberals, and instead points out the fact that, in so many words, "some people from America's 'red states' just hate big-city folk." Nice to know the venom flows in both directions.

Posted by alex at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seems like everyone in the blogosphere today is giggling over Fox News' latest "let's-look-as-stupid-as-possible" gambit. Their briefing instructing the news programs to no longer make references to Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies when referencing his campaign "because it mocks the seriousness of it" is absurd, to be sure (my favorite so far was the picture of Arnold with the words "Running Man" below it)- after all, the man himself announced his candidacy on "The Tonight Show"- but it masks a far more absurd issue: the fact that Fox News is still given the standing of "News" at all. Anybody with half an ounce of sense should strip the channel of that word whenever they reference it, and instead call it what it what it is- "the Fox right-wing opinions channel".

Posted by alex at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I had a realization today: It occurred while I was reading Lewis Lapham's latest essay in Harper's, in which he points out that Bush has actually done exactly what he said he would upon taking office- i.e. that he would run the government the way he would run a business.

Now, obvious analogies to the less-than-stellar results of his former business ventures aside, this brings up a rather interesting parallel. Clearly, in this respect, we are all "shareholders" in the business of the American government, with a huge amount invested in the stock of how successful it is. And, if Lapham is right, and "the corporation of which he deems himself chairman and chief executive officer not unlike the ones formerly owned and operated by his friends, fund-raisers, and fellow bandits at Enron and Arthur Anderson", then we're all being royally screwed out of our futures. Our economic stability, our pension, the coming years, are all being radically oversold to us in the hopes that we will be suckered just as effectively as the millions whose golden years' security was dependent upon WorldCom and Enron.

Our stock in our own society, in our economic future and cultural progress, is being short-sheeted by Bush's top-down management. Bear witness to the projected ten-year $5.6 trillion surplus turning into a $4 trillion deficit, and you begin to see more clearly the explicit connection here. And Bush is being rewarded, the same way Sun Systems "Hacksaw" CEO was reimbursed millions every time he cast off another ten thousand employees.

All I can say is, I hope Thomas Frank was right, that a change is coming, and that "this time, it won't just be a bunch of kids flipping us the bird and smoking pot when we told them not to."

Posted by alex at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey, something new to get excited about: Another step in the gradual but effective gutting of the Clean Air act:

The exemption would allow industrial plants to continue to emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants and could save the companies millions if not billions of dollars in pollution equipment costs, even if they increase the amounts of pollutants they emit.

I sure hope we get more "candid" shots of Bush standing in front of endangered parks in the next campaign. Those'll go over well. At a certain point, lying just becomes so obvious and blatant, and the people who support the liars, just don't care, and the rest of us can only throw up our hands, and wait for Nuclear winter.

Posted by alex at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay. As a Minnesotan, I finally have the first inkling of hope that Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign will NOT be a repeat of what Jesse Ventura pulled off in my state. And that hope was offered to me by none other than everybody's favorite bastard, Paul Krugman. His new column in Today's Times basically rips Mr. Muscles a new one, for what is looking to be an attempt to bluff his way through an entire campaign.
See, Ventura was pretty clear from the get-go about what he hoped to accomplish, what he would do, and how he would do it. He gave blunt responses to specific questions about the budget, taxes, and social issues up and down the line. While some of his views may have been bizarre, you certainly didn't want for a lack of detail. Shwarzenegger is turning out to be the exact OPPOSITE. Which is good news for California progressives, and thus good news for the rest of us.

Posted by alex at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, now come on. With all this evidence, it's just so obvious that the free ride Bush gets from the media goes deeper than his mere "personable nature" and "likability", as apologists would have you believe. When an unpopular President is consistently treated as immensely popular with the public, in the face of logic and clear evidence to the contrary, hell, whenever anything false is portrayed as true, you know there's money behind it. Lots. The Republican money-machine has it. The rest of us don't.
But, again, as I'm so fond of pointing out, how many more times to we need to be reassured of what we already know?

Posted by alex at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Paul Krugman has become SUCH a badass. No other economist in America with such a powerful voice and platform is daring to say half the things this man says before breakfast. And you know he's for real- he's a free-market dork.

But cheer up-
Humor, thou hast found a name, and it is Homestar Runner.

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

Okay, we already know that Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley-Braun's respective campaigns are basically just covers for get-out-the-vote drives and nudging the Dems further left. But what to make of Bob Graham and Dennis Kucinich, who apparently seem to think they have a snowball's chance in hell? Don't get me wrong, I understand the all-important hubris that drives a person to do this in the first place- but these guys should at least have people surrounding them who know better. I like Kucinich, but come on, let's be real. A Department of Peace? Sorry, but the sixties pretty much permanently ruined that word for the rest of us. And don't even get me started on Gephardt. The man makes Gore look like a real fire-and-brimstone contender. I can't even bring myself to give you the real link to Lieberman's site- go to this one instead.

So let's see: That leaves us with Dean, Kerry, and Edwards as the possibilities. Sorry, Gen. Clark, but you just waited a little too long, my friend. There you have it. Pay 'em a visit. The Sharpton site is particularly entertaining. But I wish the other Dems would stop kidding themselves, and start choosing sides. Ah well, but maybe that's because I just want the damn thing over with already. I usually have more of a stomach for these kinds of horse races, but really, isn't the only real issue here the fact that we all hate Bush?

Posted by alex at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Huh. Major blackouts taking out the power grids of New York City, Detroit, and OTTOWA?!?! Are these Canadian terrorists? Or are just really poorly informed ones? Someone should tell them that Ottowa has lost a little bit of its international power since the days of the intrepid explorer La Salle.

Posted by alex at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why is it not bigger news that, for what may be the first time ever, Fox News is officially admitting that it is totally a right-wing biased network? I realize that saying this is sort of like pointing out that Wesley Snipes is black, but still, to have an actual statement of purpose that your news network exists primarily to skew the news in a right-wing manner is a rather bold revelation for them. And certainly, I would think, throws a bit of a crimp in their "Fair and Balanced" lawsuit against Al Franken. Who, I might add, deserves praise if only for dragging this piece of evidence out of the mouths of Fox News representatives. GO pre-order his new book right now.

Read about the latest in the Fox-Franken brouhaha here.

Posted by alex at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Progressive Gold they've decided to start handing out the fruitcake award to the political act that most befits what a fruitcake would do. The first winner:

During a House of Representatives committee meeting, Bill Thomas called the cops to evict the Democratic members from a sideroom where they were discussing the bill that was under consideration in the meeting. While the Democrats where tangling with the cops, who wisely decided they had no jurisdiction, the Republicans on the committee had already voted to pass the bill, even though the Democratic members were not present and had not even seen the last version of the bill!

More at his site.

Posted by alex at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was alerted to this by Steve Perry over at his Bush Wars blog. It's an excerpt from Fox News' analysis of Al Gore's speech the other day- I think I'll let it speak for itself:

WILLIAMS: Well, I think it’s true when [Gore] says that President Bush led us to believe that somehow Saddam Hussein might have had connections to Al Qaeda—

[At this point, Fred Barnes cut Williams off. Try to believe that this fake, phony man has reached the point where he’ll actually say this on television:]

BARNES (continuing directly): I think Bush said exactly the opposite, consistently! Exactly the opposite!

Pissed? Want more? You know Eschaton's got the scoop.

Posted by alex at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How do you know that the people running your country are nuts? When they manage, in just three short years, to turn a free-market hyper-capitalist economist into a raging, flaming liberal:

"...in the past environmental crises were local: agriculture might collapse in Sumer, but in Egypt, where the annual flooding of the Nile replenished the soil, civilization went on. Today, problems like the thinning of the ozone layer and the accumulation of greenhouse gases affect the planet as a whole."

I think it's safe to say Paul Krugman's officially on the home team now. Read the rest of his conversion to tree-hugger here.

Posted by alex at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's official- Kindergarten Cop wants to be the next governor of California. Danny Devito's twin brother made his announcement tonight on the Jay Leno show, which drew wild applause from the audience, and the sounds of projectile vomiting from intelligent people across the country.
The scariest part is that, as a Minnesotan, I know where this road leads- it leads straight to Ah-nuld's victory. Mr. Jingle-All-the-Way dissed his opponent: "He can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can't run a state," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "In the end, it is my duty to jump into the race and to bring hope to the people." So apparently he's even going to talk like Conan the Barbarian during his campaign. Read the disaster here.

Posted by alex at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Atrios over at Eschaton has basically spent the past couple of days completely discrediting the current smear campaign against the soon-to-be-Episcopal bishop Robinson. I am SHOCKED, shocked and APPALLED to find out that a media campaign of lies and disinformation is being funded by an extremist right-wing group of millionaires. How could this happen in America?

The only thing more shocking: Ben Affleck getting totally busted. Couldn't happen to a bigger doof.

Finally! An explanation on why I haven't found any weapons of mass destruction yet.

Posted by alex at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)