Friday’s Mini-Report

March 21, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* New details on the State Department’s snooping on presidential candidates: “The Associated Press has learned that the two contractors fired for snooping into Barack Obama’s passport records worked for a Virginia-based company called Stanley Inc. Earlier this week, the 3,500-person company won a five-year, $570-million contract to support passport services at the State Department.”

* This is overdue: “Something about HUD chief Alphonso Jackson’s reputation as the most cronyfied Bush administration official of all makes Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Patty Murray (D-WA) think he might not be the best man for the job. In a letter to President Bush today (which you can read in full below), the two, who chair on the two key oversight committees for HUD, say it’s time for Bush to pull the rug out from under his most loyal cabinet member.”

* The Chinese aren’t going to be happy: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with the Dalai Lama and offered words of support for Tibetan protesters and criticism of China’s crackdown during a visit Friday to Dharamsala, India, the headquarters of Tibetan exiles. ‘If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in Tibet we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world,’ Pelosi said.”

* Want to know what would make matters in Iraq worse? “The success of the US “surge” strategy in Iraq may be under threat as Sunni militia employed by the US to fight al-Qaida are warning of a national strike because they are not being paid regularly. Leading members of the 80,000-strong Sahwa, or awakening, councils have said they will stop fighting unless payment of their $10 a day wage is resumed. The fighters are accusing the US military of using them to clear al-Qaida militants from dangerous areas and then abandoning them.”

* Speaking of Iraq: “At least two Iraqi families of victims killed by Blackwater security guards in September tell ABC News they have refused compensation offered by the company.” Blackwater offered $20,000 for each victim. “Several of the Iraqi families have already filed lawsuits against Blackwater in U.S. courts, alleging the security guards were guilty of ‘war crimes.'”

* It appears, based on Bill O’Reilly’s standards, that Fox News is running a hate site on par with the KKK and the Nazis.

* Good point: “Last week the McCain campaign included an op-ed slamming Obama and the Rev. Wright in its morning clip package to reporters — then later in the day had an aide say they regretted doing so. This week, the campaign suspended an aide for Twittering the appalling ‘Is Obama Wright?’ video. I’m starting to believe that the Senator’s campaign isn’t entirely serious when it emphasizes its commitment to avoiding any and all ugly personal attacks in this race. Either that or senior aides are having a hell of a time communicating that seriousness.”

* It was quite a lively episode of “Fox and Friends” this morning. Not only did Chris Wallace take the conservative trio of hosts to task, but Brian Kilmeade literally walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy.

* The Clinton campaign’s financial troubles are so serious, it may be “in the red.” Not a good sign.

* Lawrence Lessig’s new project: “Change Congress.”

* Remember the girl in Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad? She’s a young woman now, and she’s made an ad of her own.

* Bizarre Right-Wing Ugliness of the Day, Part I: “Discussing his opposition to the Uniting American Families Act — ‘which would allow gay Americans the same right straight Americans have to sponsor a foreign partner for citizenship’ — Family Research Council Vice President Peter Sprigg recently offered rhetorical support for exporting gay men and women from America. ‘I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society,’ said Sprigg.”

* Bizarre Right-Wing Ugliness of the Day, Part II: “A Texas local Fox News affiliate reports that ‘Mustang Ridge City Council member Charles Laws referred to a proposed immigrant detention center as a ‘holding pen for wetbacks’ on the March 12 meeting agenda.’ Asked about his comments, Laws explained: ‘I’m 74 years old, and that’s what we called them when I was growing up. I don’t care about political crap.’ But Laws later back-tracked, saying ‘I wasn’t thinking.’”

* And finally, a beautiful reminder of why I don’t watch television news.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

“Standards” and “bill o’liely” in the same sentence? surely you have made an error.

  • We’re spending $12 billion a month in Iraq and we’re stiffing the Sunni tribes that are fighting al Qaeda for us for $10 a day? Unreal.

  • petorado, pretty easy to see which side the criminal cabal behind this administration and the military-industrial complex is banking on, isn’t it.

  • We’re spending $12 billion a month in Iraq and we’re stiffing the Sunni tribes that are fighting al Qaeda for us for $10 a day? Unreal.

    Hey, $10 here, $10 there next thing you know we’re talking about real money we can funnel to Halliburton and KBR instead.

  • Want to know what would make matters in Iraq worse?

    And this can’t help.

    Crooks and Liars: “They hear news accounts that the U.S. military is taking credit for the surge and they are angered. They feel that they are doing the dirty work that Americans should be doing and they feel they’re being used as propaganda to sway the U.S. presidential elections. Senator John McCain has staked his entire presidential campaign on Iraq and the success of the surge. I hope that he, along with all Americans, has the chance to watch this video and see the real surge.”

  • Doh! Now you post the mini-report. I just posted the following on the original passportgate post:

    MSNBC is now reporting that Arlington, VA -based Stanley, Inc. employed two of the peekers. The last sentence of the article:

    “According to federal campaign records, Stanley’s CEO, Philip Nolan, has made political contributions to prominent Republican candidates and also gave $1,000 to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Feb. 20, 2008.”

  • If anyone needs a smile and hasn’t seen the ad by Casey Knowles (the 3 AM girl, now grown) CB noted, be sure to follow his link to the video.

  • I posted this in an earlier thread but am reposting it here. I am posting this in full. It might open eyes.

    Meet The (White) Man Who Inspired Wright’s Controversial Sermon

    Meet the man who inspired Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s now famous tirade about America’s foreign policy inciting the terrorist attacks of September 11.

    His name is Ambassador Edward Peck. And he is a retired, white, career U.S. diplomat who served 32-years in the U.S. Foreign Service and was chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq under Jimmy Carter — hardly the black-rage image with which Wright has been stigmatized.

    In fact, when Wright took the pulpit to give his post-9/11 address — which has since become boiled down to a five second sound bite about “America’s chickens coming home to roost” — he prefaced his remarks as a “faith footnote,” an indication that he was deviating from his sermon.

    “I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday,” Wright declared. “He was on Fox News. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true: America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

    Wright then went on to list more than a few U.S. foreign policy endeavors that, by the tone of his voice and manner of his expression, he viewed as more or less deplorable. This included, as has been demonstrated in the endless loop of clips from his sermon, bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and nuking “far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.”

    “Violence begets violence,” Wright said, “hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism.”

    And then he concluded by putting the comments on Peck’s shoulders: “A white ambassador said that yall, not a black militant, not a reverend who preaches about racism, an ambassador whose eyes are wide open and is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice… the ambassador said that the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have, but they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them… let me stop my faith footnote right there.”

    o it seems that while Wright did believe American held some responsibility for 9/11, his views, which have been described as radically outside the political mainstream, were actually influenced by a career foreign policy official.

    Who is Peck? The ambassador, who has offered controversial criticism of Israeli policy in the West Bank but also warned against the Iraq War, was lecturing on a cruise ship and was unavailable for comment. But officials at Peck’s former organization, the Council for the National Interest, a non-profit group that advocates reducing Israel’s influence on U.S. Middle East policy, offered descriptions of the man.

    “Peck is very outspoken,” said Eugene Bird, who now heads CNI. “He is also very good at making phrases that have a resonance with the American people. When he came off of that Fox News, a few days later he said they would never invite me back again.”

    And what, exactly, did Peck say in that Fox News interview that inspired Wright’s words?

    Here are some quotes from an appearance the Ambassador made on the network on October 11, 2001, which may or may not have been the segment Wright was referring to. On the show, Peck said he thought it was illogical to tie Saddam Hussein to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and that while the then-Iraqi leader had “some very sound and logical reasons not to like [the United States],” he and Osama bin Laden had no other ties.

    From there, Peck went on to ascribe motives for what prompted the 9/11 attacks. “Stopping the economic embargo and bombings of Iraq,” he said, “things to which Osama bin Laden has alluded as the kinds of things he doesn’t like. He doesn’t think it’s appropriate for the United States to be doing, from his perspective, all the terrible things that he sees us as having been doing, the same way Saddam Hussein feels. So from that perspective, they have a commonality of interests. But they also have a deeply divergent view of the role of Islam in government, which would be a problem.”

    Video at the link above.

  • Jackson shouldn’t just be fired, he should be prosecuted. The Philly Housing Authority threats he and his aides made is absolute bullshit.

  • CB: The Chinese aren’t going to be happy…

    it’s time,
    as a nation to decide,
    do we value self-determination for a people,
    or cheap crap made in china?

  • I love how everyone starts to laugh when Stewart asks if the 24 hour news networks can start the dialogue

  • ‘If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in Tibet we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world,’ Pelosi said.”

    This is the worlds merchant of death calling the blood red. Has Nancy OD’ed on Kool-Aid? Has she forgotten about about the US occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  • Greg – the headline you refer to proclaims:

    Obama’s minister’s remarks won’t fade
    Reporters, talk-show hosts, keep asking about relationship to pastor

    And yet the same media (and source) didn’t even question chimpy’s relationship with an admitted homosexual prostitute that was given fake press credentials and allowed to come and go as he pleased at the White House – at all hours of the night.

    Are you making a point about the lying liars of the mainstream media or are you just flanning these flames for your own political purpose. Yes – we all know you can find irresponsible headlines and articles at msnbc, cnn, faux news, nyt and the usual gang that “catapults the propaganda”.

    The real question is why do you choose to join them?

  • Has Nancy OD’ed on Kool-Aid? Has she forgotten about about the US occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Or how about the treasonous, criminal cabal that sits in the white house – you know, the ones that stole 2 elections and wipe their butts with the US Constitution?

    Talking high and mighty about democracy abroad is easy if you’ve taken IMPEACHMENT off the table here at home. Sorry, Nancy, you are a now a partner in crime and have no integrity to tell anyone else what to do.

    Take care of YOUR SWORN OATH OF OFFICE before you start trying to save the rest of the world.

  • * The Chinese aren’t going to be happy — CB

    Sure they will be; Bush is going to the Olympic games — no matter the situation with the Tibetans — and will lend them all the prestige they need, while Nancy P — who is she? It’s really amusing to think that, had she done her job and got both Cheney and Bush out on their ear (there; ain’t I ladylike?), she’d have been the first female president of the US attending — or not, in protest — the same Olympic games. And that the Chinese would have been paying much more attention to what she said.

    * The Clinton campaign’s financial troubles are so serious, it may be “in the red.” — CB

    Yeah, well… She has a “funny” attitude when it comes to money… She pays her staffers not just way more than say Obama does, but way more than they’re worth. And then, when they prove to be useless sacks (like Penn), what does she do? Instead of firing him, she hires another one. It’s like the Repubs and their tax cuts; if a little tax cut lifts economy, surely, a larger one will lift it higher. Any relationship to reality is irrelevant.

    Of course, the last time she ran short (when she had to lend herself 5mil), the consttuents came through like troopers, so who knows what’ll happen this time. All the same… The amounts of money involved in the entire electoral process are truly obscene. Since when is 3mil a beggar’s dole? I wouldn’t mind having 3mil in hand…

  • Here’s how to stand for Tibet, and deal a blow to China:

    Stop buying Chinese goods.

    No, this doesn’t mean that you have to boycott your favorite Chinese restaurant, it’s an American business, employs American citizens and residents, provides an in-country service and product to American communities, and supports those American communities through jobs, commerce, and taxes.

    No, this doesn’t mean that if you don’t have the money to shop at high-end stores, you have to do without. Even Wal-Mart has lots and lots of stuff that isn’t made in China. You can find a pair of jeans made in China on one rack, and another pair of jeans on another rack that was made in Guatemala—or Lebanon—or Bangladesh.

    You can teach your children that those nice, shiny toys come from a country that’s not very careful about how toys are made, and that a lot of the toys coming from that country are made with things that can make children very, very sick. There are hundreds of sources on the Internet for “kit toys” made from wood; they can buy a kit and build their own toy. They can paint it, too—with paints that you buy for them; paints that don’t contain lead.

    Not “all” toys come from China. Start asking the stores what they’ve got in the shelves that isn’t made in China—if they get enough requests, they’ll start to get the message. Stores run on a bottom line.

    In a grocery store, a can of mandarin orange slices from a national brand can say “product of China” in tiny letters, while the off-brand that you think would come from China is actually from Thailand. Learn to read the fine print on the labels. If the big national companies discover that the word “China” is hurting their bottom line, they’ll search for another source.

    It isn’t a thing that can happen overnight, and it’s a thing that the government of China believes will go away if they can wait us out. Patience and persistence in America, however, are the two things that China’s authoritarian regime cannot conquer with tanks, soldiers with automatic weapons, riot police armed with clubs and tear gas, ad hoc public confession committees, and an obscene excuse for an Internet.

    And if our pathetic excuse for a government cannot stand up and lead its People in a financial boycott of the Beijing regime, then it is time for the People to lead themselves—and leave its “government” to explain why it can’t enable the atrocities of China any longer.

    This is the key to defeating China….

  • LIbra, let’s not be greedy…I think we’d both take a few hundred thou. 😉

    Can’t wait to see those tax returns. Gonna make me wish I was a whore, uhm, I mean Polly Tichen.

  • I stopped shopping at WalMart when they opted to devise a ponzi scheme to not have to pay their share of taxes to the states they do business in. Fuck WalMart. CostCo is an eco friendly, good to their employees company.

    I agree with Steve’s approach but too few people have a clue to even think about reading a label. When you consider that most can’t understand a nutrition label on food, even the basics of it, it’s unlikely that people will look for stuff they won’t understand.

    We have become a nation of the dumbest people.

    As for kids, I don’t remember when it happened to me, but this memory is from as far back as I can remember – single digits, to be sure. I was watching cartoons on Saturday morning and remember thinking that they were lying about something. And it bugged me. And that sort of snowballed mentally to where it got to when I would watch a commercial I would think that whatever they were saying was just the opposite. I was never moved by the commercialization of Saturday morning cartoons. I still am mostly not and I still look at most commercials thinking, yeah right.

    Gosh, I wish I could remember the impetus to that line of thinking. I could make a mint teaching parents how to get their kids to “take the red pill” (as it were. Sorry, The Matrix is still one of my all time fav movies.) when it comes to their Saturday morning (or any time) indoctrinations.

  • Just like those diddling priests who prefer boys: “Do as I say, not as I do!”

  • Sorry, I didn’t reference the above post. This is to Bill’o, over at FAUX Noise.

  • Uhm, ROTFL…

    working on my second beer here and tinkled

    Beer going thru ya, eh? 😉 (snicker. sorry, couldn’t resist)

  • ‘If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China’s oppression in Tibet we have lost all moral authority to speak on human rights anywhere in the world,’ Pelosi said.”

    Damn straight. The Chinese government was founded by one of the biggest monsters and mass-murderers in history, Mao-Tse-tung – a man whose 150 million victims make the bloody murderer Stalin look like a piker with only 100 million victims and Hitler like a Sunday schooler with his mere 6 million – and they have yet to forego the criminal conspiracy this monster created and called a “Communist” Party. The “government” of China is composed of thieves, crooks and back-alley assassins. They have no concept of “the rule of law,” and only recognize power when one of them goes down dead. They obey none of the rules of the international community they claim to want to join, whether it is letting their children run factories where the intellectual property of the rest of the world is pirated with impunity, or massacring any workers who dare to ask whether this “worker’s state” will do anything but oppress them.

    If it wasn’t for American corporations who export our jobs and pay obeisance to these scum, and protect them here, it’s likely the Chinese people would rise up and overthow these criminals. Unfortunately – due to 30 years of Republican voodoo economics, we are not in a position to oppose them without them bringing down the Republican house of cards we all huddle in.

    I have to applaud Pelosi for what she said today and I also applaud McCain for his public statement. I await the words of The Empress of the Wall Street Wing of the Democratic Party, and Senator Obama, on this. That George W. Bush still plans to go kiss the ass of these murderers this summer at their “Olympics” (an Olympics that destroys every bit of the Olympic Ideal by its location) merely shows that he knows who his true masters – the ones who hold his credit card for Iraq and all his other bullshit – really are.

  • Well said, Steve @18.

    We too often forget how much power we actually have. Granted, we don’t have the power to go back and not make China our most favored nation…but we do have the power to make decisions that negate our government’s choices.

    Given the choice between products made in two different countries, one being China…i always choose the other product. I really don’t have anything against China; in fact, i like Chinese [breaking into an old Monty Python song]. But to me, “made in China” generally symbolizes corporations run amok. And i often wonder what the Chinese workers think while they assemble all the crap that we consume…

    And i’m with you MsJoanne. I’ve actually only ever made one purchase at WalMart (a headlight at 1am at the start of a 400 mile drive…no choice) And i’ve only been in one, the same one, three times…they weird me out…the consumer equivalent of hippie crack – NO2. Fuck ’em. I’ll make my first serious trip to WalMart when society collapses, to strip the place of what i need to build a shanty.

    No one’s stood up for the Tibetans until now…we’re going to pay them lip service and let them die. Too bad they don’t have any oil, then we might “liberate” their country for them.

  • I’d like to point out that the top story on Goddard’s political wire says what i’ve been saying about Clinton and NAFTA on several threads lately. Not in order to toot my own horn, but to highlight that what she’s said is both “true” and a lie at the same time…as well as the context that allows for her statements to be both truthful and misleading.

  • Lex (and everyone else),

    I’ve actually taken to shopping at Wal-Mart a bit more often. I can go to a mall, or to a plaza, or to a stand-alone department store—and the labels all say “made in China.” It’s a lot easier to find things that aren’t made in China by going to Wal-Mart. I found a pair of shoes there about a month ago for my daughter; they were made in Portugal—and less than half the price of a comparable pair of shoes at Penney’s that were “made in China.”

    The Portugal shoes have real leather; the China shoes were “100% manmade materials” (Most flexible plastics and polymers contain white lead and arsenic).

    The Portugal shoes are stitched; the China shoes were slapped together with some really bizarre-looking greenish-brown, foam-based glue. (Foam-based glues tend to contain cyanide.)

    The buckles on the Portugal shoes are metal; the China shoes, plastic. (Plastic parts that have gloss-color throughout the plastic are a symptom of lead in the extrusion/color-compounding process.)

    Do I like some of the things that Wal-Mart has pulled over the years—and is still pulling? Hell, NO—but if they’re the best path to boycotting China, then so be it. I want my household as close to “China-free” as possible

  • Fuck WalMart. CostCo is an eco friendly, good to their employees company. — MsJoanne, @20

    I heart ya, MsJ, I really do. And Lex too. But… Sigh… You latte-sipping, med-skipping eleeetists really have no clue how the other — rural and semi-rural — half lives, do you? There’s NO CostCo (or Target) within a 50mile radius of me. None. I haven’t checked beyond that but, even if there is one of those, say 65 miles away, am I going to go shopping there? With the price of gas as it is and the knowledge that every gallon of it burned adds to the cloud above my head? Not effing likely. Not with a friendly WalMart 6 miles away, door-to-door. Worse comest to worst, I could *walk* there and still salvage half of the day.

    I do almost all of my grocery shopping in more “local” (though still “chain” and still with some suspect practices vis their employees’ rights) stores, even though it costs extra. And I’ve been doing what Steve recommends — ie avoiding Chinese products — as much as I can, for quite a while (even as I wonder whether I’m depriving some poor bastard of his daily bowl of rice by doing that).

    But I do get all my (generic, which is all my health plan will spring for) medication — prescription and not — there; not only does it not say where it’s coming from, but the most “reputable” pharma companies outsource the production (just as they “offshore” the profits, to protect themselves from taxation).

    Every time… every time I hear people say “boycott this; boycott that”… Every time I wonder where they’re coming from, with their lack of understanding and imagination. Bushland?

  • Libra, I hear you and it makes me that much madder.

    Walmart moves into rural communities and forces small and local businesses out. They become one of the few employers and treat their employees like shit. Their wages suck. Their benefits suck. And there’s little else.

    They created a pyramid scheme where they pay rent for their facilities – to their own companies – and deduct that rent from their taxes. The state of WI was fucked out of $25 million dollars all of which would have gone into state and local services. WI (and NC) sued them.

    That’s when I broke my habit. I am a reformed Walmaraholic.

    And what they have done to local communities makes me hate them that much more.

    I can’t and won’t say you should boycott them, for people in more rural communities are sort of stuck with them. WI has Fleet and Farm (or Farm and Fleet, depending upon which brother you care to shop at) which is a Walmart on a much smaller scale but geared more towards the rural communities they serve.

    It’s a shame that more communities don’t have that choice.

    I tell you this, I would bet (hope) that Sam Walton is spinning in his grave.

  • Steve,

    Understood. While i don’t shop at WalMart, i don’t expect others to do as i do. Honestly, i’m a little surprised by your experience…then again, i haven’t spent enough time in WalMart to know. I think that the important point is to not confuse the means with the end; you are certainly not doing that, and i applaud you for it.

    Which brings me to…

    libra,

    Understood. I don’t live in a terribly developed area either, though we do have a Target and a Kohl’s (as well as the only escalator for something like 200 miles…the big shitty, if you will, among a sea of trees). I won’t come down on you for doing what you need to do, and we all have to make choices. Is it better to go six miles to WalMart, and try to shop well while there, or drive thirty miles to use a different store? That depends on perspective.

    I escape a lot of these issues by simply not consuming very much at all. I can make a shelf or simple piece of furniture rather than buying one. I can get most of my clothing from second hand stores with a little work. (and while they might have been originally made in China…i’m divorced from that choice) Larger items like coats and shoes – which are important if you work outside – are easier to buy well because i’m willing to spend extra…quality lasts longer anyhow.

    And as some of you here know already, i approach food much differently than most. And i’m blessed to know a few amazing farmers…as well as living in a place where wild food is abundant.

    Speaking of food, i have tomato plants that need pollinating before the lights turn off…

    Good night and good luck…’cause we’re all gonna need it.

  • Hmmm
    [“I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” Clinton said. “And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

    McPeak learned of the remarks while at an Obama rally in Salem, Ore. Afterward, he called Clinton’s statement horrible and compared it to McCarthy, the Republican senator from Wisconsin who held hearings on suspected Communist sympathizers in the 1950s.

    “It sounds more like McCarthy,” McPeak said. “I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I’ve had enough of it.”]

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080322/ap_on_el_pr/obama_patriotism;_ylt=AuIUMisIAXzAs6VDweP53zyyFz4D

    Why did McPeak think Bill was refering to Obama? I’d think McSame right off.

  • Swanning it… 🙂

    Re the passport files breech, this from TPM:
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/obama_still_many_unanswered_qu.php
    Which suggests that Biden had been investigated by the “curious contractors” also
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Walmart moves into rural communities and forces small and local businesses out. They become one of the few employers and treat their employees like shit. Their wages suck. Their benefits suck. And there’s little else. –MsJoanne, @31

    Actually… What’s even worse, IMO, is that other businesses — local or not — see what they can get away with and copy the “model”, thus poisoning the entire locality. Our University didn’t *like* unions but managed to get along with them until WalMart and their sub-standards hit the town; now, its position is much more adversarial. Local Kroger had very good “perks” (benefits) system. It still does, but… It has learnt that, if it employs people on a 39hrs per week schedule, it doesn’t have to pay those bennies. At the same time, it makes it almost impossible for people to get a *true* (15-20 hr) part-time schedule (just like WalMart), which means that the employees cannot get a second job, even if they could find one/have enough energy/time to contemplate it (many employees of both are mothers, who also need to take care of their families). It goes on, and on, and on; the ripples of mischief spread wider and wider.

    I actually *like* people (even as “voluntary dimwits” tend to annoy me), so I chat — with the check-out folk, with the broom pushers, with other housewives pondering the “museum prices” of chicken, with the guys filling up my car (local, no-chain gas station). I was caught clueless once — at 19 — and swore never to be caught that way again. And of course, being a libra… I always tend to see two sides to everything 🙂

  • Is it better to go six miles to WalMart, and try to shop well while there, or drive thirty miles to use a different store? — Lex, @32

    Lex, you don’t understand… It’s not “drive 30 miles”; it’s “drive 130 miles”; there’s no (konkurencja, konkurencja, what’s the English… *competition*! Hah!) within a 50mile *radius*, with me the centre… As for escalators… We don’t have those and we don’t have elevators, either; my — then 2yr old — son, on visiting his Grandma in Norfolk, wanted to spend *all* of his time riding up and down in one of those (she lived on 6th floor), just as he wanted — aged 4yrs — to spend all of his time riding elevators, escalators, trams, buses and trolley-buses in Warsaw; it was *all* such an exotic, new, experience for him… Just crossing the street and minding the lights was a novelty 🙂

  • Why did McPeak think Bill was refering to Obama? I’d think McSame right off.

    Nell, from the coverage, it seems Clinton was specifically speculating about a Hillary-McCain general election matchup when he made that comment, though they’ve tried to backtrack from the implication.

    http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/21/794670.aspx

    From NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann (see update)
    CHARLOTTE, NC — At a small VFW hall in Charlotte, NC, today, former president Bill Clinton contemplated a McCain/Clinton general election matchup, saying that it would one between “two people who loved this country” without “all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

    “I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” said the former president. “And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

    In the wake of controversy over comments made by Barack Obama’s former minister, Clinton’s comments could be seen as an effort to draw attention to the issue of patriotism in a state with a high population of veterans.

    The former president made the comments to less than 80 audience members at an invite-only event focused on veterans issues. The audience was subdued as Clinton gravely outlined a message of patriotism and honor for military service, The small sea of navy-blue VFW caps nodded along in agreement.

    Take away ten of the cameras and fifty degrees Farenheit, and this could have been a John McCain event in Waterloo, Iowa, in November 2007.

    The message was different, but the mood was much the same.

    Update: Bill Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna clarifies the former president’s comment: “Actually, as is indicated by the quote itself, President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues, rather than falsely questioning any candidate’s patriotism.

    He was lamenting that these kind of distractions ‘always seems to intrude’ on political campaigns. This consistent with his criticism of the ‘politics of personal destruction,’ which dates back 16 years.”

  • Tonight I came home to find the DirecTV people had put a little treasure on my Tivo. A 7 minute films from those peerless independent film makers: Shell Oil (thunk). “Clearing the Air” is the story of “A bright young Shell scientist [who] embarks on a mission to reduce city air pollution. Can he overcome all the setbacks and win his friend Sarah’s approval?”

    It’s a smarmy munge of Lorenzo’s Oil and No Reservations. Check it out at http://realenergy.shell.com/?lang=en&page=ClearingTheAir&site_version=html.

    Gosh, I hope we’re not all the morons they take us for.

    bb

  • The first polls are rolling in about Obama’s race speech:

    CBS Poll Has Mostly Good News For Obama On Race Speech
    By Eric Kleefeld – March 21, 2008, 8:24PM

    A new CBS poll shows Barack Obama receiving high marks for his speech on race relations.

    The poll shows 69% of registered voters saying Obama did a good job of addressing race relations, and 71% said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. The poll also showed 63% saying they agree with Obama on race relations.

    Among voters who have followed the Wright controversy, only 14% said they were less likely to vote for Obama as a result — with an equal 14% saying they were more likely to vote for him, and 70% saying it would make no difference.

    One bit of lasting damage appears to be on whether voters believe Obama can unite the country, a theme that has been one of the cornerstones of his candidacy. On that question he is at 52% Yes to 35% No, a decline from his score of 67%-25% last month.

    http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/cbs_poll_has_mostly_good_news.php

  • MsJoanne @#20: “Gosh, I wish I could remember the impetus to that line of thinking.”

    The hippies in the ’60s had the shortest answer to what to teach kids (and adults) to be discriminating when it comes to ads or (gasp!) even politicians and news media: Always question authority. It’s as good a practice today as it ever was.

  • Virginia, @39.

    “Always question authority”… Definitely 🙂

    I’ve always thought that growing up in Poland — where everyone *assumed* that the government lied, always, no matter *which* government it was (Germany, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia being in charge of various bits 1795-1918, followed by a mess 1918-1939, followed by the Nazis 1939-1945, followed by the communists 1945-1989, followed by another mess, 1989 to present…) has inured me to some of the outrage that Americans have experienced in the past 7 years… My (more idealistic) husband may have managed to lull my suspicions for a few years, but they woke up smartly in November of ’00. Everything I learnt in kindergarten is applicable, again, now 🙂

    And what I had learnt in Poland regarding TV advertising — if it needs to be advertised, it’s not worth buying — looks more and more like something that will be applicable here soon too 🙂

  • Regarding Peter Pig, I mean Sprigg’s comments: Imagine if the head of a prominent gay group said that he would rather “export” anti-gay Christians than have them coming to this country. The FRC and the Religious Right in general would be up in arms, and quite rightly so.

    Note also Sprigg’s curious word choice. He uses the word “export,” (usually meant to indicate product, as in “exporting goods”) instead of “deport” (as in “deporting people”). Sprigg wouldn’t be trying to dehumanize homosexuals now, would he? Nah (or I could be giving this jerk too much credit in the intelligence department, and he honestly does not know the difference between “deport” and “export.” Actually, this very well be correct, since Sprigg comes across here with his “preference” more as a hayseed redneck than as an coat-and-tie-wearing educated individual).

    Think FRC will fire this clown? Doubt it. Think Sprigg will at least apologize? Not a chance.

  • 33. Nell said: Why did McPeak think Bill was refering to Obama? I’d think McSame right off.

    It’s a McCarthy-like and disgusting thing to say regardless of who he was talking about. Kerry? Gore? himself? If he isn’t slapping Obama around (and you know damn well that’s what he meant) then he is suggesting that past candidates didn’t meet some nebulous love-their-country test. Suggesting that anyone would ever run for President of a country they didn’t love is ignorant and stupid. It’s also a tactic the Limbaughs of the world have been using for the last few decades, frequently against Bill Clinton, so one might think he would have the empathy not to use it fraudulently himself. One would be wrong.

  • With all the problems in this country, middle class disappearing. enconomy in the tank, healthcare unaffordable, loss of jobs, China loaning money to the United States. Barack wants a black on white war. What happened to uniting the county, and change we can believe in?

  • Barack wants a black on white war. What happened to uniting the county, and change we can believe in?

    What are you saying? That is the exact opposite of what he’s said.

    This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

    But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. …

    In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

    You might try actually watching the speech or reading it before you spout off such absolute stupidity.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU
    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/18/text-of-obamas-speech-a-more-perfect-union/?mod=googlenews_wsj

  • lots of great comments — would love to meet many of you in an irish pub for a few pints and a jawl.

    we don’t need a uniter, we need an inspirer, someone who will take our minds off of each others’ differences and focus on common goals like weaning ourselves off of foreign oil & overconsumption, chinese crap, and corporate/factory foods that are killing us and the planet. we need someone willing to challenge us to sacrifice, not someone who panders to our base desires and entropies. that’s why this election presents such a unique opportunity for us.

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