IN THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT! “A woman stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife following an argument that began when she accused him of opening a Christmas present early, authorities said Friday.”
Archive for 2007
December 22, 2007
SUDDEN DIVORCE SYNDROME.
“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.
Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.
In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.
“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.
If you’re gonna pander that shamelessly, you’ve got to be able to read the crowd.
UPDATE: Huckabee hears a who. “I hope he does not read ‘The Butter Battle Book.'”
REMEMBER, IT’S THE OTHER ROGER SIMON: More Doubts Raised About The Politico’s Thompson Article. An interview with the fire chief, plus an editor who says “no comment.”
UPDATE: The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of going out and interviewing people mentioned in questionable media accounts. And the less I think some “journalists” will be pleased with the results.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader says that The Politico missed the real story — Thompson’s refusal to pander:
AKD: What will you do for the farmers of Bremer County?
FT: (laughs)
AKD: You knew this was coming, right?
FT: I would continue to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I’ve been looking all over Iowa for a bad steak and I can’t find it. Been trying my best. It’s not a matter of what I would do for the farmers. Farmers are not looking for a president to hand them something. Farmers want fair treatment and a chance to prosper in a free economy and that’s what I would help ensure. There’s a lot of programs we’ve got out there, some of which are good programs, some of which are not. And I think that we need to work our way through that and make sure we’re doing what’s good for the country, not just the farmers, not just the people of Iowa, not just the people of Tennessee. But good for the country. A sound policy that makes sense. I think there’s a lot more that we could do for the working farmer in terms of ecological programs and environmental programs – land conservation, soil conservation – that would be fair and it would be beneficial to the nation and to Iowa and to our country. We’re going to have to phase out the corporate welfare system we’ve got, however. There are extremely rich people living in skyscrapers in Manhattan that are receiving subsidy payments. I think that’s wrong. I’d put a stop to that if it was within my power. That still continues in this latest Farm Bill and it’s not right. There ought to be a cutoff at some level and it’s not right ot have millionaires receiving farm subsidies.
Non-pandering in Iowa? There’s a man-bites dog story. This seems like it should have been bigger news.
WHEN DID THE FRENCH BECOME a bunch of prudes? I blame Chirac. Plus, a surprise appearance by Cruella de Ville.
SINUS PROBLEMS? Wash them away! Can it really be that simple? (Via NewsAlert).
UPDATE: Maybe it is. I’ve gotten a lot of emails like this one from Evan Maxwell:
I doubted, then I tried and damn, it works.
I’ve had sinus infections at least once a year for more than a decade. I started the first of three surgeries to correct the problem but quit after one, once I learned the process was marginally successful for most folks and often needed to be repeated every three or four years. So I treated with antibiotics and had a low-grade problem most of the time.
Then my old college roommate, a vet, prescribed NeilMed, which is kind of a Neti pot on steroids, using a plastic bottle to boost the pressure. I haven’t had a sinus outbreak in almost two years and my breathing generally is better.
Once a day seems to work but I think you can use the system more often if you want.
Yogis are no fools, even if they dress funny sometimes.
That’s true.
MORE: An email from a “longtime reader who is an ENT doc.” Click “read more” to read it.
HARRY REID FLIPFLOPS ON THE SURGE. A failure? No, it’s helped!
December 21, 2007
HDTV ON SATELLITE VS. CABLE: Some thoughts and a request for your experiences.
HEH: Radio stations want Congress to look into major label recording contracts. They’re just five years behind Ken Layne. “What happens when an industry mistreats its customers and its suppliers? When 8,999 of 9,000 audits show shoddy accounting practices?”
PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS for professors? Some would say it’s about time . . . .
QUESTIONS ABOUT blogs and privacy.
QUESTION-PLANTING in Canada? “Those are the questions that the CBC wants us to ask tomorrow.”
UPDATE: More planting in America?
SOME THOUGHTS ON dashboard design from Mike Allen.
ABU MUQAWAMA ON the exodus of the captains: “There is so much that is absolutely %$#@ed in the way the U.S. Army is handling its young officers that it might take decades to fix this.” Somebody should start.
UPDATE: A lengthy email from reader Patrick Walsh. Click “read more” to read it.
LATER: A couple of responses to Walsh, also after the jump.
SASQUATCHES AND SKUNK APES: Monster-spotting in North America.
POLITICO: Witnesses recall Romney-MLK march.
Well, fine. But my dad marched with Martin Luther King, too — not that he was famous enough for anyone to notice — but I didn’t see it, and I never claimed I did. Romney seems to have suffered from politicians’ disease, where it’s not enough to report that something happened, you have to report it in a way that puts you in the story. Trouble is, he wasn’t in the story. Is that a big deal? Not really, I guess. But it was an unforced error at a crucial time and it underscores the feeling a lot of people have that Romney’s just a bit too airbrushed to be true.
“SAFE” VS. PROMISCUOUS web browsers.
ANOTHER SURGE, this time in consumer spending.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A PorkBusters letter to President Bush on the Omnibus Bill and earmarks:
This past week, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that will soon be presented for your signature. While it is consistent with the total budget targets your administration has set, the 3,417 pages of the bill and associated reports are bloated by more than 9,000 earmarks which were subjected to little or no review during the scant 24 hours between the publishing of the bill text and the House voting to pass it. When combined with the more than 2,000 earmarks in the Defense Appropriations Bill this Congress has churned out over 11,000 earmarks this year. The vast majority of these earmarks do not even appear in the legislative text, but rather are buried in the committee reports that accompany the bill, further removing them from proper review and scrutiny. While the total number of earmarks is down compared to record highs and there is increased transparency, there are still far too many to be effectively vetted.
The rushed way in which Congress passed the omnibus – one of the largest pieces of legislation ever considered – made a mockery of our legislative process, and Congress itself bears the responsibility and shame for that. But you have the power to send a message both to Congress and the American people that the waste and corrupting influence of earmarks will not be tolerated. A December 18 legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service concluded that “because the language of committee reports do not meet the procedural requirements of Article I of the Constitution — specifically, bicameralism and presentment – they are not laws and, therefore, are not legally binding on executive agencies… Given both the implied legal and constitutional authority as well as the long-standing accepted process of Presidents, it appears that a President can, if he so chooses, issue an executive order with respect to earmarks contained solely in committee reports and not in any way incorporated into the legislative text.”
On December 20, you stated that you were “instructing the budget director to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill.” We applaud you for this leadership, and ask that you follow through by issuing an executive order formally directing all Federal agencies to ignore non-legislative earmarks tucked into committee reports and statements of managers. Such an action is within your Constitutional powers, and would strike a blow for fiscal responsibility now while setting a valuable precedent for the future.
Lots of signatories at the link.
UPDATE: Coverage in The Wall Street Journal!
SOME THOUGHTS ON RELIGION IN PUBLIC LIFE that Mike Huckabee might have profited from.
OKAY, I’M A BIG FAN OF COMPACT FLUORESCENT BULBS — and the Kossacks are still way behind the Insta-readers.
But the gradual ban on incandescent bulbs in the new energy bill is just asinine: “Incandescent light bulbs will begin to be phased out in 2012, with a complete ban finalized in 2014. Manufacturers will be forced to switch to compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs, which can cost more than six times as much as the common incandescent bulb.”
Let’s show we’re serious about energy conservation, by forcing members of Congress to fly commercial instead of on government executive jets. . . .
ROMNEY: Looking pretty lame on the MLK front.
VIDEO: Fred Thompson responds to The Politico on the hat story. “Just remember…we don’t raise our hands when we’re told to, and we don’t wear any hats, unless they’re our own.” Bob Owens observes that Thompson’s video is funny, but The Politico‘s stonewalling is not. The story’s also leaking out into the journalism press.
BACK TO THE FUTURE IN EUROPE: “In fact, the planned ratification of the Lisbon Treaty smacks of old Europe – when the ruling elite got its way regardless of the wishes of the people over whom it ruled.” Yes, much of the E.U. project has seemed to me like an effort to bring back the transnational aristocracy that ran Europe before World War I. And that certainly worked out well . . . .