House Votes to Rebuke Bush

Posted on by TL

Well, at last. And the Senate is capping off the House vote Saturday with a “rare weekend session,” according to ThePittsburghChannel.com.

Leave it to the Democrats to actually make Congress start to work.

The NYTimes reports that 17 Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Democrats in the House, and the Democrats in the House were virtually unanimous. The Republicans echoed the same-old, same-old that cost them Congress in the first place, the NYTimes reports:

And one Republican after another rose in opposition, accusing the Democrats of rushing to judgment without giving the president’s new security plan a chance to work and warning that a vote for the resolution would embolden America’s enemies and damage the morale of its fighting men and women.

The non-binding resolution passed by a healthy 246 to 182 vote.

Hurry it up, Blue, and get a clue, Red. 3,133 American soldiers dead in Iraq as of this writing, along with 56,468 to 62,189 Iraqi civilians.

Two Women

Posted on by lolits

Two well-known women have died recently. Somehow the attention given their deaths has been disproportionate. True that Anna Nicole Smith was, because of a strangely tragic life (and lifestyle), a well-known subject for the tabloids.? The loss of? Molly Ivins however,? barely rated a mention on the national news. It’s only in the last few years that I became aware of this brash, outspoken, often profane, delightfully funny Texas woman. She has been given credit? for coining my favorite nicknames for the president: Shrub and Dubya.

Anyone who hasn’t yet read her books is in for a treat. Her colorful language was too much for the New York Times where she reportedly ran around the newsroom in her stocking feet accompanied by her dog to? whom she had given a vulgar name. After realizing the Times was a bad fit, she eventually returned to Texas where, when she? wrote “beer gut” it wasn’t changed by copy editors to “protuberant abdomen.” Her first book title was “Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?” Well, she could and she did and she continued to.

Molly Ivins died of breast cancer at the age of 62. She didn’t keep her diagnosis secret. When she told her “beloved” readers in her column of her diagnosis, she finished by telling women to “Get. The.? Damn. Mammogram.” With all my heart I wish she had done so earlier.

Molly’s use of “beloved” is a real clue to her character. No matter how thoroughly she skewered her victims, she had respect and love for her readers. From the many tributes to her posted on the net, she was also gifted with great friends. One of them was the late Ann Richards, former Governor of Texas who was defeated by “Shrub.” Hopefully they are sharing a good laugh and maybe a beer in some celestial dimension at this very moment.

So, because there will be no more Molly on NPR, and perhaps no more scathingly funny books, I’m going to go back and reread “Bushwhacked” in her memory. Go with God! Molly, we hardly knew ya!

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

? ” et.

Burn These Republican Words Into Your Mind

Posted on by TL

From AlterNet, posted by Evan Derkacz:

On January 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower said goodbye to public office with an address that concluded with the words below [strangely, the Eisenhower Library’s version and the audio in the video to the right, differ slightly. Brackets represent the text in the Library version omitted from the audio file…].

You’re familiar with the warnings in this speech against the “military-industrial complex,” but the subtler parts of the speech are every bit as powerful and refreshing…

As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Read the rest here. Watch the video. Take time to reflect.

Why I Dropped The Star Newspaper

Posted on by TL

There are many reasons to stay away from our local media in the south Chicagoland area. The newspapers have become the editor’s blog, opinion masquerading as news. Yes, we know Fox “News” is just a well-financed blog. But the local media drifts that way as well.

Welcome the absurd.

The Star Newspaper, published February 1, 2007, carries this for a front-page headline, complete with this bizarre image:

Chicago Bears and Non-science

A hex on Rex?

Star’s Starology columnist Marybeth Beechen tells us what she sees

What is a “Starologist”? And why is this front page news? Why is this news at all?

Yes, there’s a Superbowl on Sunday. Yes, the Chicago Bears are playing in the Superbowl. But The Star editors thought it necessary to put a “Starologist” on page one? This story sits in the print edition above a story, covered more fully at eNews Park Forest, about the arrest of a murder suspect. Park Forest sees less than one murder a year, so the arrest of a murder suspect within days of a man’s shooting death is news.

But The Star defers to the “Starologist”.

The article itself is even more distressing:

The Chicago Bears are returning to the Super Bowl for the first time in 21 years.

While the ’85 Bears “shuffling crew” were led by peripatetic coach Mike Ditka, today’s 2006 NFC champions follow a kinder, gentler fellow called “Lovie.”

Can sweet Lovie Smith bring the coveted Super Bowl trophy home to Chicago once again? Does his lean, mean and angry team have what it takes?

Perhaps the answer lies in their stars.

The article then goes on to give the details on key members of the Chicago Bears, starting with the coach:

Lovie Smith

Born May 8, 1958 in Gladewater, Texas, Coach Smith is thoroughly Taurus. Taurus is a fixed earth sign, grounded and strong.

Slow, steady and loyal are some key words used to describe the sign of the Bull. Is Smith slow? Listen to his considered speech when talking with reporters. Steady? No camera has yet to catch a frantic Lovie pacing on the sidelines.

Now there’s journalism for you! There’s scientific analysis! There’s front-page news in Chicagoland!

In this era of pseudo-science, this is bizarre and disappointing. So, that was the last straw for me. I called, canceled my subscription, and bid them adieu.

I’ll get my news from other sources.

“Hi! I’m Art Buchwald, and I just died.”

Posted on by TL
Art Buchwald

I remember reading the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when I was in grade school and high school. After returning from delivering the paper in the morning, I’d sit down at the dining room table with a bowl of cereal and read Art. He was incredible. He took me through the Nixon years, the Ford years. He explained national and world events more clearly than the front page ever did. The world is insane, and that’s all there is to it. Art was just stating the obvious, while the rest of the reporters played, “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” and took the world all too seriously.

“I never made the Enemies list, and it’s my biggest hurt to this day,” he said in his online obituary with the New York Times. Incredible. He credits Richard Nixon with making him rich. “I am not a crook made me rich,” he said.

He introduced me to satire, and I was captivated.

Somewhere in college I got too serious. I lost touch with Art. I “grew up” and tried to understand it all. I studied philosophy and flirted with the idea of becoming a Catholic priest. I wrote a very serious Master’s thesis on the Psalms of Lamentation. I left the seminary and started teaching. Theology.

And I started laughing again.

But I never caught up with Art, again. We had lost touch. Chicago papers don’t carry Art. They’re too serious. They’re obsessed with bad politicians and Silver Shovels and roped off elevators. And I never even bothered to look him up online. Turns out he was still at it:

Zeroing In on a Trillion (By Art Buchwald, January 2, 2007, Page C02)

So Many Cards, So Little Thought (By Art Buchwald, December 28, 2006, Page C08)

I’ll miss my old friend. He helped shape who I am like no teacher ever did. He first taught me to laugh at this crazy world. He made me feel good in spite of it all. The Professor of Satire is gone.

Lamentation?! Save me, Art!

He wrote this column for The Washington Post, with the intention that it be published after his death. He closed it thus:

I know it’s very egocentric to believe that someone is put on Earth for a reason. In my case, I like to think I was. And after this column appears in the paper following my passing, I would like to think it will either wind up on a cereal box top or be repeated every Thanksgiving Day.

So, “What’s it all about, Alfie?” is my way of saying goodbye.

Farewell, my friend.

The Real Cost of War

Posted on by TL

In an article by New York Times reporter David Leonhardt, we learn the true cost of the war in Iraq. This analysis puts the real cost of the war at $300 BILLION a day.

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.

These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.

But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.

The analysis from there only gets more troubling:

The war has also guaranteed some big future expenses. Replacing the hardware used in Iraq and otherwise getting the United States military back into its prewar fighting shape could cost $100 billion. And if this war’s veterans receive disability payments and medical care at the same rate as veterans of the first gulf war, their health costs will add up to $250 billion. If the disability rate matches Vietnam’s, the number climbs higher. Either way, Ms. Bilmes says, “It’s like a miniature Medicare.”

In economic terms, you can think of these medical costs as the difference between how productive the soldiers would have been as, say, computer programmers or firefighters and how productive they will be as wounded veterans. In human terms, you can think of soldiers like Jason Poole, a young corporal profiled in The New York Times last year. Before the war, he had planned to be a teacher. After being hit by a roadside bomb in 2004, he spent hundreds of hours learning to walk and talk again, and he now splits his time between a community college and a hospital in Northern California.

Read the entire article here.

Is 2007 the year for Stem Cell Research?

Posted on by TL

Matthew Nesbit, Ph.D. reports at the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CISCOP) that 2007 will be an interesting year for the “Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act” which authorizes federal funding for research using embryonic stem cells donated from in vitro fertilization clinics regardless of when the cell lines were created. According to Nesbit:

The bill is really a “left-over” initiative from this past summer when Congressional Democrats joined with a substantial minority of Republicans to pass legislation, only to have the President veto the law. Supporters at the time were unable to muster the required two-thirds of votes in the House and the Senate to override the veto.

In 2007, however, things are likely to be different. Democrats will hold a 233-202 advantage in the House and will control the Senate by a 51-49 margin. Michael Werner and Jonathan Moreno at the Center for American Progress predict that the reintroduced stem cell legislation would be likely to gain 66 votes in the Senate, teetering just one vote shy of overturning a Bush veto.

Nesbit’s in-depth analysis is valuable not only for his take on the future of stem cell research, but also his numbers on other issues congress is likely to be confronted with during the current legislative year.

CISCOP is always good reading. This article is well worth reading.

Taking the Oath on Jefferson’s Quran

Posted on by TL

The Associated Press reports Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, will use a Qur’an once owned by Thomas Jefferson during his ceremonial swearing-in Thursday. This has apparently infuriated the right-wing, some of whom say the oath should only be taken using the Bible. While Muslims do accept the Bible, their interpretation is different from that of Christians. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus — all are honored as prophets by Muslims. Muhammed (PBUH), of course, is revered as the greatest of the prophets.

Those objecting just sound absurd:

Last month, Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode R-Va., warned that unless immigration is tightened, “many more Muslims” will be elected and follow Ellison’s lead. Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college.

That’s right, Keith Ellison was born in Detroit. There’s no clear record as to when he immigrated to America. Maybe Rep. Goode can help us with that one.