Thursday’s Mini-Report

November 30, 2006

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The Bush administration tried to shortchange victims of Hurricane Katrina, and force them to jump through ridiculous hoops in order to get benefits to which they were entitled. Fortunately, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon put a stop to the nonsense. “It is unfortunate, if not incredible, that FEMA and its counsel could not devise a sufficient notice system to spare these beleaguered evacuees the added burden of federal litigation to vindicate their constitutional rights,” Leon wrote in a 19-page opinion. “Free these evacuees from the ‘Kafkaesque’ application process they have had to endure.”

* If the country is really lucky, the rumors will be true and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) won’t even be on the Senate Intelligence Committee anymore.

* The relationship between Tony Blair’s government and the Bush administration is “totally one-sided,” and U.S. officials “typically ignore them and take no notice.” You don’t say.

* It’s simply astounding that one in every 32 American adults was either behind bars, on probation, or on parole by the end of last year.

* Remember that pre-election assault on blogger Mike Stark by George Allen supporters? It turns out, local law enforcement officials have decided not to file charges.

* When administration officials aren’t trying to mislead the public about climate change, they’re trying to mislead the Supreme Court.

* Speaking of climate change, Al Gore was very funny on the Tonight Show yesterday, helping promote the DVD release of An Inconvenient Truth. Jay Leno asked Gore about special features the DVD might have, and Gore joked that it included an uncensored version called “Global Warming Gone Wild” — including “hot glacier on glacier action.”

* And speaking of Gore, the former VP got in a great dig at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia last night. In reference to high court arguments yesterday in a major climate change case, Gore explained, “In the arguments, Justice Scalia said, ‘I’m not a scientist, I don’t want to deal with global warming.’ I just wish he felt that way about presidential elections.”

* I have a hard time imaging how Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) could win the Dem presidential nomination, but it certainly won’t help matters when he tells GOP audiences, “I don’t find a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats right now.”

* Howard Dean did a very nice job in Canada last night. He even spoke French, fairly well, and said, “Won’t Fox News hate this!”

* No More Mister Nice Blog explains why Dick Cheney would have some trouble on the new exam for immigrants hoping to become citizens.

* In the name of science, I’m supposed to link to this blog post.

* More than 20 citizen groups have asked incoming congressional Dems to consider a proposal that would deny pensions to lawmakers convicted of felonies. That’s probably a pretty good idea.

* Republicans across Capitol Hill “have been forced to confront the unwelcome presence of Democrats touring their offices to map out arrangements for the coming Congress.” I can almost hear Nelson Muntz saying, “Ha, ha.”

* Congrats to the Huffington Post for moving forward with plans to do more original reporting, including plans to cover Congress and campaigns. And the line between blogging and traditional reporting blurs a little more….

If none of these particular items are of interest, consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

From the linked article on Mike Stark:
“Allen was approached by Mike Stark, a liberal blogger and activist who was attempting to get close to Allen and scream questions at the senator about his first wife.”

Amazing. He was attempting to get close to Allen and scream questions to him. It just seems like such a strange construction. I mean, what was wrong with ask or even shout? I’m surprised he wasn’t trying to get close to Allen to shrilly bleat questions at him.

  • I think California’s prisons have gone up from about 1980 to ten times the level they were then.

    Idiocy.

  • It’s simply astounding that one in every 32 American adults was either behind bars, on probation, or on parole by the end of last year.

    And yet Public Enemies Nos. 1 – 5 are still at large and running the country.

    Gore cracked two funnies? That will make ReThugs crap their pants. “Egads, he’s not acting all stiff and distant, stop him!”

    Hooray for Judge Leon, the newest Activist Judge in the US. What are we up to now? 24, 25?

  • Prisoners of the Drug Wars. I hear that some police department with their SWAT tactics of invasion killed a 90 year old women in her house instead of the drug dealers they were after.

  • Your “name of science” link doesn’t appear to have a particularly good grasp on the concept of a “meme,” (which is NOT an entire blog post!), or of Daniel Dennett’s work (“skyhooks” are Dennett’s term for supernatural interventions that allow natural evolution to jump gaps that it otherwise could not– as opposed to “cranes,” there are no skyhooks in Dennett’s materialistic worldview).

  • * It’s simply astounding that one in every 32 American adults was either behind bars, on probation, or on parole by the end of last year.

    Wait until we get Newt’s new, improved-for-the-GWOT First Amendment going; with all the political offenders it’ll haul in, I’m sure we can make that ratio look positively lax. Maybe CB and all us commenters can share a cell.

  • jimBOB

    think you are onto something. What a boast to construction spending-and not just in Ca but national think of the competition among the state and locals for those jails. Makes the World War 11 internment look like child’s play

  • James Dillion, I used the word “meme” in the colloquial sense—the transmission of a material from blog to blog.

    As for the Dennett, note that I borrow the term from his “rebuttal of punctuated equilibrium,” and build on this definition:

    The skyhook concept is perhaps a descendant of the deus ex machina of ancient Greek dramaturgy: when second-rate play-wrights found their heroes into inescapable difficulties, they were often tempted to crank down a god onto the scene, like Superman, to save the situation supernaturally (74).

    Just because skyhooks don’t exist in nature doesn’t mean they don’t exist in the blogosphere. (In fact, the data I’ve collected so far points to the idea that skyhooks—in the form of high-traffic blogs—are responsible for the dissemination of ideas across the blogosphere.)

  • 90 year old women in her house instead of the drug dealers they were after.

    In or near Atlanta and it appears there was no drug dealer in the place. The latest is the police were acting on a tip from an informant and the informant is now saying they police asked him to lie after the shootings.

    Of such things are riots made.

  • Hey CB thanks for fixing it so that you don’t have to type Orange before you preview.

    Thanks for the inof Taio. It seems like “intelligence” is incredibly unreliable be it police work or national security.

    PS Belated thanks to Former Dan for his previous two song parodies. I read them, sang them, laughed and forgot to comment. Good work.

  • At WashingtonPost.com, Michael Abramowitz and Ann Scott Tyson wrote

    “Bush has a track record of changing policies on a dime, such as when he ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld only days after saying he would stay until the end of his term…

    Sloppy wording, I’d say. One, changing a person is not changing a policy, as Bush has proven since he ousted Rummy. Two, Bush didn’t change policy or person during those days, he just lied about keeping Rummy.

  • I just watched the lates Olbermann special response to Newt. I don’t have a link, but it will be a good thing to watch again.

  • Ramki @11 – the power of the lifetime appointment can do marvelous things to people who would otherwise be beholden to the elected officials that appointed them.

  • CB:
    *It’s simply astounding that one in every 32 American adults was either behind bars, on probation, or on parole by the end of last year.

    And here I thought I knew more than 32 people in the US…

    * Remember that pre-election assault on blogger Mike Stark by George Allen supporters? It turns out, local law enforcement officials have decided not to file charges.

    I would hope *Mike Stark* files them now… All he ever did was try to get close enough to Allen to ask a question (so, OK, so it was an impertinent one ). And got the floor mopped with his face as well as the window banged with his noggin…

    * And speaking of Gore, the former VP got in a great dig at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia last night. In reference to high court arguments yesterday in a major climate change case, Gore explained, “In the arguments, Justice Scalia said, ‘I’m not a scientist, I don’t want to deal with global warming.’ I just wish he felt that way about presidential elections.”

    Gore? Stiff? Just let’s hope he continues to keep those “advisers” at a — stiff — arm’s length 🙂

    * No More Mister Nice Blog explains why Dick Cheney would have some trouble on the new exam for immigrants hoping to become citizens.

    I don’t think Cheney believes that the other two branches of the govt are to be crushed underfoot. I think he believes they’re skis, on which he can slide over the will of the people. But, as I remember from my own attempts at skiing, there’s always the risk of the skis going apart, in a V. It was very painful for me and I’d expect it to be even more painful for a male. BTW. I don’t think the new queestion is in any way fair — the answer to it cannot be picked up from one’s everyday experience.

    * More than 20 citizen groups have asked incoming congressional Dems to consider a proposal that would deny pensions to lawmakers convicted of felonies. That’s probably a pretty good idea.

    It’s an *excellent* idea, and long overdue, since most of those felonies are comitted in the exectution of their job. Which is that of law*maker*, not law*breaker*

    * Republicans across Capitol Hill “have been forced to confront the unwelcome presence of Democrats touring their offices to map out arrangements for the coming Congress.”

    I must admit to a deep fault in my character… it continues to cheer me up to think of Nancy (et al) going ’round and redesigning not just the soft furnishings (like draperies) but delivering the “notices to vacate premises” to all those pigs 🙂

  • and force them to jump through ridiculous hoops in

    That’s the GOP nowadays. It’s like a crazy-out-of-control friend who expects you to do a bunch of stupid stuff just to talk to you. You could ruin your reputation for life for someone who will lose interest in you in little more than two weeks. It’s not worth that for anybody.

  • Scott,

    Obviously you can define “meme” however you like, but since the term is rather vague even when used in the stricter sense introduced by Dawkins, I’m not sure that your diluted definition is particularly meaningful, or that it refers to anything that might objectively be said to “exist.”

    As to the skyhook issue– if we’re sticking to Dennett’s use of those terms, then, so long as you view the blogosphere as part of nature (as Dennett surely would; Dawkins would likely call it an extended phenotype or perhaps a meme-pool, though Dawkins doesn’t seem too enthralled with the concept of memetics lately), there cannot be any skyhooks in the blogosphere either. The high-traffic websites you refer to resemble more what Dennett would refer to as a “crane,” a device that can be explained in purely materialistic terms that facilitates rapid evolution (or in this case, rapid transmission of information over the Internet– though I’m not sure about that analogy, either). Unless you’re suggesting that high-traffic websites somehow defy the laws of nature, they are not skyhooks as Dennett used that term.

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