Such remarkable solidarity in that Republican Party: all 39 Senators in the super-minority voted NO, we don't even want to discuss health care reform legislation. To hell with the President, to hell with the Democrats (and independents), to hell with the majority of the American people, we' [...]
It's tomorrow in New York already, so that means it's time for Frank Rich's latest drama review: The Pit Bull in the China Shop.
He actually says he read the book, if you can believe that craziness.
"The book's most frequently dropped names, predictably enough, are" [...]
Ray Madoff notes that one of "the values on which the country was founded" was "that hard work should be rewarded and power should not be conferred by birth." Anybody want to argue that point?
Plenty of Republicans do when they light up about the estate tax (or [...]
One of my cousins forwarded a copy of Joe and Janice Hagan's call for a day of fasting and praying for America, with someone else's "go and be viral" instruction: "please send" [...]
You had to connect the dots yourself with two stories in today's paper: one about Canyon County paying the ACLU $190,000, and the other about the the County shipping some of its inmates off to other jails, now including Gem, Payette, Elmore, and Washington Counties and [...]
Verlyn Klinkenborg observes individualism, identity and bicycles on the Stanford campus, a location which the headline writer quixotically equated to "northern California." Not exactly.
"There is a deeply pleasing randomness about the campus cyclists, as though" [...]
He may not sell as many copies as she-who-must-not-be-named, but having now seen Andre Agassi talk about his book in three interviews (with very little overlap, on 60 Minutes, the Tennis Channel, and for the New York Times Sunday Book [...]
I don't blame the Republicans for not coming up with alternate legislation. It's a lot of work to draft a bill, and there's no secret it would be dead on arrival. But I do wish they could come up with more' [...]
KTRV-TV picked up the AP story from the Lewiston Tribune (with a footer applied, saying "Copyright 2009," "All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed," go figure; you can also get the story attribution-free from KXLY) that the Idaho Transportation Department is [...]
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.): My Near Death Panel Experience.
"When the most extreme elements peddling false information can cow senior members of Congress into embracing their claims, it does not bode well for either policymaking or for the Republican Party."
But there is some good news [...]
We don't know whether 2C drivers are really less capable than those who buy their license plates elsewhere, but we do know that meme is sticky, and can produce entertaining lore as it reinforces the stereotype.
It is not open' [...]
NYT's Digital Domain poses the question "Apple wouldnt risk its cool over a gimmick, would it?"
In the best of all possible worlds, the patent application would be successful, Apple would use its exclusive right to make sure that no one else comes up with [...]
I think I read The Tipping Point once upon a time. Yes, I even said nice things about it, there, down the page. I don't think I'll be reading Outliers or What the Dog Saw after Steven Pinker's' [...]
Those remarkably similar expressions in the Congressional Record have a straightforward explanation: they're all working off the same script.
"Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the worlds largest biotechnology companies."
' [...]
A million bucks in hush money for Iraqi officials after Blackwater killed 17 and wounded 20 more in Nisour Square in 2007.
"Blackwater continued to operate in Iraq for a full two years after the Iraqis announced the company would be banned--a fact that has baffled and" [...]
In Bizarro World, Karl Rove is a pundit offering commentary on elections as if he had never been in politics, saying things about his President's "record of bipartisanship," and "sound leadership in the wake of 9/11" (as we raced to war in Iraq).
"Voters have a" [...]
The Statesman ran Steven Thomma's meta-news piece yesterday, under the headline "Did White House bungle Gitmo plan?" It remains to be seen whether "initially having too few people on board to handle the workload" or "misreading Congress" will push the closure of the Bush/Cheney prison beyond the [...]
This just in, from the Friday Letter out of Moscow: Music and Drama à la Carte: Opera and Musical Theatre Scenes, this coming Thursday, Nov. 19. For $5 (or less!), you can pile in the Admin Auditorium for scenes from opera and Broadway. Sounds like fun to [...]
Richard Kim and Betsy Reed are looking to ride Sarah Palin's bestseller coattails with their "companion book" of collected punditry to go with the semi-autobiography: Going Rouge: Sarah Palin – An American Nightmare.
Maya Schenwar interviews [...]
Apparently the McCain campaign stuck Sarah Palin with the bill for their vetting her. The $500,000 doesn't seem to have been particularly well-spent.
The details leaking out of her (and Lynn Vincent's) forthcoming book show that she still has plenty to whine about beyond getting stuck [...]
Our former Attorney General, David Leroy, is Blake Hall's defense attorney, so take his opinion with a grain of salt, but as Amy and Seth would say, really?! Leroy doubts the Idaho State Bar will discipline Blake Hall after his conviction for stalking. He's guessing the Bar won't' [...]
Except the KTVB "News" headline says they're selling "stock" in the athletic program. Without the quotes. (Except for some "air quotes" in Justin Corr's standup.)
"We need to appeal to the passion of Bronco Nation," said Athletic Director Gene Bleymaier. Bleymaier says "this will'" [...]
The BBC's piece on today's events leads with President Obama's pledge to our veterans, but includes a report of the first German chancellor to join Armistice Day commemorations in Paris. Angela Merkel joined French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, at the foot of [...]
What provides more of the U.S.'s electricity than hydropower, solar, biomass, wind and geothermal combined? Russia's old nuclear weapons!
"[F]ormer bomb material from Russia accounts for 45 percent of the fuel in American nuclear reactors, while another 5 percent" [...]
Blake Hall is substantially more than "well-known" in SE Idaho, and throughout the state. He had a long list of important jobs, at least one of which was "full time," Deputy Prosecutor for Bonneville County, since 1983. He used to be on the State Board of Education, and general [...]
The big intrastate football game is coming up this week, woot. Two "related" emails rolled in to my inbox right next to each other just now: The U of I wanted me to know about the Beat BSU Canned Food Drive (if we [...]
Unemployment up into double digits for October (or maybe way higher, or maybe it didn't either, depending on how you count), getting close to the peak for the 60 years the government's been compiling such data (or maybe twice that long), 27 years' [...]
Remembering the Berlin Wall, 20 years after it fell. Part of Vera Pavlova's poem, translated from Russian:
It was a weird wall.
Like the Möbius strip,
It had only one side,
the other one was unseen:
the far side of the Moon.
Christoph Niemann's [...]
With one Republican joining the winning side, the House passed a health care reform bill with a 220-215 vote, adjourning just a half hour before midnight.
Stupak got his anti-abortion amendment in, 240-194. Boehner didn't get his, 176-258. Cantor's attempt' [...]
Commentary from Dean Takahashi and a generous length interview by John Battelle, from the Web 2.0 Summit brings us up to date on Carly Fiorina at the start of her campaign for the U.S. Senate. Takahashi says she's a changed person since she was at HP, and [...]
It's just her side of the story (the Defendants and their spokespeople won't comment about a case now in litigation), but we appreciate the richness in the description from Pam Lowe about why she's moved from a tort claim to a wrongful termination suit, alleging sexual discrimination' [...]
I know, it's a rhetorical question (especially since I still don't have a comment facility here, sigh). Using Outlook2003, I want to send an email message to Firstname Lastname who I'm pretty sure is in my Contacts. I type
Firstname Lastname
' [...]
Michael Geist: "[T]here is no bigger [intellectual property] issue today than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated behind closed doors this week in Korea."
Cory Doctorow at boingboing distills it to talking points of the very worst of it, including:
“That the whole world [...]
Ok, is Facebook really this funny? Maybe I should be signing up after all. (H/t PG&B)
Question: does the NSA use Facebook? Discuss.
[...]Idaho CD-01 Representative Walt Minnick defends his position on financial reform in a Statesman Reader's View that ran in yesterday's paper, after being lambasted for voting against a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. He makes a good argument.
"To create two regulators for every bank" [...]
Well, what can you expect up there in the home of the Vandals? Disturbed theists (or perhaps just kids with too much time on their hands) defaced the Humanists' billboard again. We don't know how God [...]
It's official: Carly Fiorina announces her bid for the US Senate, hoping to unseat Barbara Boxer. Her campaign slogan will presumably not be "Let me do to the country what I did to HP," but I have no doubt she will put a positive spin on every [...]
The considerable marketing power of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, The Club for Growth, The Weekly Standard, and entertainers Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Steve Forbes, Dick Armey, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann and Fred Thompson were able to (almost) chase away the Republican candidate... and [...]
NOVA's Becoming Human series started tonight, with a fascinating look at our family history. We're all in the big book of Who's Who, making for a more compelling story than anything the evolution-deniers (now available in multiple flavors!) have come up with. Apparently hitching their wagons' [...]
The UK's National Health Service has a fascinating presentation of the causes of, and risk factors for death in their population, with controls to examine subsets of the data, by gender, age, region.
[...]
I wasn't sure if the city was using its "regular" polling places, so I followed the Statesman link (which they didn't put into ink... what, so they can suck some ad views on one page load?), to the [...]
There's not enough political excitement to keep everyone busy in the off year, so we're flogging what we can. (As Jon Stewart put it: "because we're bored.")
Saw the snippet of "Conservative Party" candidate Doug Hoffman on the Newshour, telling us what we're seeing here today,' [...]
Linked and stumbled to one of them anti-government types ("small l libertarian") up north, the Politics, Guns & Beer blog, with such as a jolly account of a local GOP event featuring Republican CD-01 primary contender Ken Roberts and a spokesman for his competition, Vaughan Ward. She [...]
All over the Treasure Valley, with a pot pourri of things and people to vote for or against. The Statesman list includes "two seats on the Boise City Council," which is a little odd, given that three seats are being contested (and at least someone on the staff [...]
One piece of our left-over Hallowe'en candy brings this question to mind. (Apparently I haven't been.) We had a bumper crop of Trick or Treaters in our neighborhood, 29 in total, pretty much all as cute as can be. I made it an exercise program by watching something on [...]
Thanks to the Balloon Juice blog for a link to the Watertown Daily News in upstate New York and its hostage notes from the 23rd Congressional District, taken by managing editor Bob Gorman.
For its part, the paper's editorial board has responded to Scozzafava's abandoning the [...]
Frank Rich: the G.O.P. Stalinists invade update New York.
"[P]reposterous as it sounds, the real action migrated to New Yorks 23rd, a rural Congressional district abutting Canada. That this pastoral setting could become a G.O.P. killing field, attracting an all-star cast of combatants led by Sarah Palin," [...]
That's Nicholas Kristof's calculation of the tradeoff between military escalation and a different way forward in Afghanistan.
"[T]here is still vast scope for greater investment in education, health and agriculture in Afghanistan. These" [...]
Thanks to a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (and the Obama administration's refusal to appeal the court's order to release it), we can now enjoy the the (redacted) transcript of Richard B. "Dick" Cheney's May, 2004 fireside chat with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald [...]
She may be dead, but she's still in the vanguard, selling hundreds of thousands of her books, as well as creating a secondary market, including Anne Heller's biography, ably reviewed by Adam [...]
I was perhaps too elliptical about Spitzer's piece about the Angelides commission, which was announced last July by Congressional Democrats, with a charter to investigate the roots of the financial crisis. Here's more. Spitzer's proposed 5 avenues of inquiry are:
What did corporate boards know about the [...]From someone with significant experience as an investigator as well as an investigatee: Eliot Spitzer, on Commission Impossible:
"If the Angelides commission issues subpoenas to investigate these five questions and promises to set these documents before the public, we will know it is for real and will" [...]
I didn't get invited to our junior Senator's E-town hall, but from Idaho Conservative Blogger's report, I guess I didn't miss much. The Democrats' plans are crazy and mind-boggling, 'nuff said?
The most recent communication I had [...]
Family matters to attend to, a trip to New Mexico over the weekend, for my Uncle Bill's funeral, catching up with his big family after their move from Midwest to Southwest, 40' [...]
Check out your horoscope from Bob Wire and see what's lining up for you. (This is either non-fiction, or he's worked to establish an elaborate ruse with Moon Cat. Me, I've got a sudden urge to dig out the peppermint soap and read some label. But' [...]
I've now seen two "Windows 7" TV ads; the first one was a Mac ad, showing the "news" that lots of PC owners were... taking advantage of the "since we have to move all our stuff anyway, we figured we'd get a Mac" opportunity. The second was Microsoft's, with' [...]
The (third) billboard that the American Humanist Association paid for up in Moscow (Idaho) said "Millions are good without God." The vandal with spray paint covered "without," making it either a sentence that doesn't make any sense, or else a three-word message from God (that probably falls short of' [...]
Gavin Dahl reports the history of Idaho's branch of ACORN, which ran out of funding support a couple years before the recent successful attack by the right-wing against the idea of helping the disadvantaged (and especially of helping them register to vote). The general demonization of ACORN [...]
Once upon a time it was 62% in favor of reform including a public option for healthcare insurance. It dropped to 50% in the heat of the summer and "town hall meeting" disrupters, before rebounding, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. If the question is [...]
The Nampa Classical Academy's latest board get-together, as reported in the Idaho Press-Tribune, with links to an audio recording for some? all? of a non-meeting that ran 4 hours or more. With 2 resignations of voting Board members after a special meeting on October 8, they no longer' [...]
Among the 30 Senators voting against the Franken amendment, and so against punishing government contractors for restricting their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court, there were 11 states that had BOTH of their U.S. Senators voting no.
Not quite sure [...]
...the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses
Oh, won't you stay
Well put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses
The brilliant fall day called me to the scenic route, and [...]
Through a combination of curiosity and occasional good intentions, I'm on a variety of partisan lists that send out fundraising emails with robotic frequency. They usually have interesting subject lines, at least, sometimes some information, always a pitch to send money at the end. That's almost never going to [...]
Mark Danner gave a succinct justification for awarding Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, on Bill Moyers Journal tonight:
"...one of the reasons behind the Nobel Prize was a recognition that the rest of the world is so grateful he's in place. And that he is" [...]
Our DSL connection had been getting flaky of late, coming and going, occasionally requiring a power cycle to get its attention. Last night it was just gone, all the lights on the Qwest-branded 2Wire 2701HG-D modem/router were out. Power-cycling brought most of them back on, steady, useless. [...]
The comments in the GOP blog post asking Why Are You A Republican? Frank Buckles answers:
"I guess I'm a Republican because I grew up with President George W. Bush. He was a great President, a real conservative, and someone I wish I could vote for again.'" [...]
No, not always. Inflation was "negative" last year, which is to say we didn't have inflation, we had a little deflation. Perhaps you lost your job, or part of a job, or part of your pay for your job, or perhaps you're doing 25% more work at your job [...]
Wow. Frank Deford loves the Boise Cinderella story (and instructs the world on the "correct" pronounciation due our fair 'burb. The soft (some might even say sissified) 'S'? I've heard that said, but never bought into it. I like the Z sound myself. I was quick to [...]
Prius owners know it as "stealth mode," when the gasoline engine is off. That leaves the whirring of the electric motors and their planetary gear set, and tire noise to alert pedestrians or cyclists with their backs to you that "car," as we used to say when playing in [...]
It's been a while, or forever since you noticed the cute footnote on this site's splash page (old enough that it predates the deprecation of such things, I might add), and the statement "almost no advertising" at the end. It's "almost" because I made a decision a decade [...]
I did enjoy reading much of the World Book Encyclopedia as a child, and while we do keep a good dictionary around the house, I'm more about looking things up than reading straight through anymore. John Cole's Balloon Juice Lexicon does however, provide some direct, end-to-end entertainment.' [...]
The coincidental juxtaposition of Frank Rich's latest column and the summer movie we just got around to seeing, Woodstock, Now and Then were still bubbling around in my head when I read McClatchy's treatment of current military strategy this morning. [As is often the case, [...]
What was it that the Bush administration said it wasn't going to do any more of in most of its last year? Oh yeah, regulation. But apparently unregulation, and trying to sell off some choice goodies were still OK, right up until the last minute.
Upon' [...]
Sometimes, it's the little things that get your attention, and for no good reason, really. As Ada County Highway District Commissioner Sara Baker wound up into her dudgeon about being left off the plaque for the new E. Park Center Bridge, she said "mirra BILE DISS-too, wonder to" [...]
The Statesman ran a nice piece about the Snake River Alliance's 30th Anniversary today, with more photos on the web than they printed. (Looks like they're finally getting the hang of that web thingie?)
Living in Norway gives one a different perspective OK, but with the first year of his Presidential term still underway, the Nobel Peace Prize?! I mean, there's already backpedaling on closing Gitmo, and more talk about escalation than ending the war in Afghanistan.
The prizes [...]
I'd read about this guy crashing his boat on Flathead Lake before I saw the picture in The Flathead Beacon.
Oh that kind of boat crash. The kind where you drive it clear up out of the water onto a 30° bedrock bank. I guess driving' [...]
Paul Krugman: The Politics of Spite.
"How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?"
[...]Avast ye mateys, that there be a French Navy ship! Arrrr!
"Once they realised they were facing a ship that was responding and was heading towards them, they stopped shooting and attempted to flee."
[...]Better to not have the art be a 17-year-old episode of The Simpsons. That was brought to mind (in the comments) by the $90,000 P.R. contract for the Boise Trolley that almost, but not quite got rubber-stamped through the City Council's consent agenda.
[...]20 years ago this month, Jeanette was "at home" in our 3rd floor apartment in the Hoskins "high rise" (an 8 story building) on the Stanford campus, and I was in class on the 5th floor of the lively Terman building that the chairman of the Civil [...]
If you sell your life insurance policy, expect someone to give a jingle and ask that question periodically. Is that creepier than turning your medical records over to someone who wants you dead? Take your pick.
So called "life settlements" have been around almost a century, I learned [...]
Matt Bivens takes a look at some of the economic tradeoffs we've been making, trying to make the incomprehensible comprehensible:
"Even now, at one of our darkest economic hours, we could be performing miracles with the spare change left behind the national couch cushions....
"If you' [...]
The "estate" of a long dead writer (a.k.a. his heirs) has to pony up a quarter $million for attorneys' fees, after hounding a biographer, and intimidating her publisher into deleting the basis for her conclusions. That led to snarky reviews about her "wish fulfillment," and "speculations, surmises'" [...]
Contrasting with the ease of tipping millions of people into for-profit Medicare substitutes is how little it might take to save thousands of lives by making organ donation the rule, rather than the exception.
"In the world of traditional economics, it shouldn't matter whether you use'" [...]
Saddest/funniest comment from dejected Chicagoan, Beth Nielsen: "We'll be O.K.; we have the Cubs, remember. We've been through things before." As seen in the NYT.
[...]
In the child's primer of health insurance, D is for Donut hole in your Drug benefit, that curious feature of the last "reform" of Medicare this century. I have no idea how many people have been helped by Part D (or been sunk [...]
Gives me a little nudge of nostalgia when I hear a midwestern accent, such as Russ Feingold's, talking about the "gemultakite" event he just went to... (you might have come across the fine German word that combines a range of good qualities and feelings, geniality, comfort, coziness, as Gemütlichkeit,' [...]
Before the double whammy cold front that put frost on uncovered tomatoes last night, we had a mouse come up to the patio door, looking for a way in, to a warm spot... to raise her next family? Oddly [...]
Looks like Sarah Palin found work she's actually interested in: talking about herself to "collaborator" Lynn Vincent. Way more interesting than that chief executive thing, which got stale over the summer.
[...]The caption quote from State Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota is precious: "All I'm trying to do is protect the individuals right to make health care decisions. I just dont want the government getting between my decisions with my doctors."
And toward that end, he's hoping to amend' [...]
This Money Mule thing has scam written on it five ways to Sunday, but in the current economy, the right combination of credulity and desperation are probably available in profusion. It's more subtle than the Nigerian Finance Minister email, but it amounts to pretty much the same' [...]
Like father, like daughter, so maybe we will have a President Cheney someday? Be still my heart. And shut up about the stupid "ticking time bomb" already, will you? Jack Bauer can always torture what he needs out of just the right terrorist, but the non-fiction world [...]
Looks like there are two possibilities: either the Defund ACORN Act is to be taken on its face, and it's going to lead to defunding of many, many more organizations that include miscreants (and miscreant organizations); or, it's unconstitutional. (Or what the heck, why not [...]
We're a long way from Pittsburgh, and the snippet on last night's Newshour of the protestors at the G-20 summit (following the conversation with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva) was mildly comedic, ahead of the civil disobedience.
PROTESTOR: I mean, I could throw out' [...]
Just who are these people, anyway? We don't know the whole gaggle of elites meeting in Pittsburgh by name, but we can at least list the 20 32 countries represented. (The European Union, with 27 member countries, is one [...]
Unitarian Universalist minister, author, son of Frank and Bethine Church, passed away at age 61 yesterday. In memoriam, from the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, Jill Kuraitis on NewWest.net, and the Idaho Statesman.
"After the initial diagnosis [of esophageal cancer in October 2006]," [...]
Boise's Watershed is a fascinating little side trip in our neighborhood, a sort of Exploratorium meets sewage treatment plant. A little weird, but wonderful, actually. Still, Boise's approach has nothing on New York City's, as depicted by the inimitable Maira Kalman in her latest blog entry, For' [...]
Now that we've just about buried ACORN (as evidenced by RNC chair Michael Steele gleefully jumping on the bandwagon, and Idaho GOP Chairman Norm Semanko piping up with "me too!"), perhaps it's time to do some more thorough housecleaning, and defund Blackwater as well. The so-called
