COMING SOON: Mothers Against Drunk Deriving?
UPDATE: Plus, Bikini Calculus. I kept forgetting to pay attention to what they were saying, though.
Archive for 2007
February 6, 2007
IS MARRIAGE JUST FOR PROCREATION? Some people are putting that to the test:
Proponents of same-sex marriage have introduced a ballot measure that would require heterosexual couples to have a child within three years or have their marriages annulled. . . .
The measure would require couples to prove they can have children to get a marriage license. Couples who do not have children within three years could have their marriages annulled.
All other marriages would be defined as “unrecognized,” making those couples ineligible for marriage benefits.
It’s a stunt, of course, but an amusing one.
JOE KLEIN RESPONDS TO ARIANNA, and Arianna responds right back.
THE SURGE has started in Baghdad.
WILLIAM ARKIN RESPONDS TO HIS CRITICS with a criticism of “demonization.”
THE DANGERS of letting “the peace process” become an end in itself.
NICK KRISTOF, tear down this wall!
WANT TO PUT THE PAJAMAS MEDIA STRAW POLL ON YOUR SITE, and have votes from your readers counted as a precinct? Just go here.
SO I FINISHED JOHN BIRMINGHAM’S Final Impact, the latest in the “Axis of Time” alt-history series. Like its predecessor books, it’s fast-paced and entertaining, with action revolving around the USS Hillary Clinton (motto: “It takes a carrier!”). If you liked the earlier books, you’ll like this one. If you haven’t, you should start with the first book, Weapons of Choice.
UPDATE: I should mention that Birmingham has a blog, too.
SOME THOUGHTS ON SEX, TRUST, AND CORPORATE BOARDS, from Joan Heminway, whom we interviewed about Martha Stewart a while back.
NIFONG UPDATE: Grand jurors speak.
GETTING IT BACKWARDS: MEDIA MISCHARACTERIZES SENATE RESOLUTION VOTE. Yes, cloture is about cutting off debate, and that’s what the Democrats were trying.
As a commenter notes, filibusters were essential to democracy when they were used against a Republican majority, but now that Democrats are in the majority they’re back to being bad efforts to shut down debate. . . .
UPDATE: Reader Charlie Banks emails:
Regarding the filibuster of the Biden-Hagel and Levin-Warner resolutions:
One thing that I almost never read or hear is that all 49 of the Senate Republicans are maintaining the filibuster and keeping debate open. That includes Sens. Hagel and Warner, essentially aiding in the blocking of votes on their own resolutions.
It certainly says something about the vaunted “bipartisanship” of the resolutions when the Democrats manage to drive off even token Republican support when they move past the committee stage.
Yes, the Senate has become nearly as partisan as the press . . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: A historical look at how the press has treated these issues depending on which party was in the majority.
MORE: Stephen Spruiell says look past the headlines.
J.D. JOHANNES’ INDEPENDENT GRUNTS’-EYE-VIEW DOCUMENTARY FROM IRAQ gets a strongly positive review at Hot Air: “Every member of Congress should see it.”
ALPHECCA LOOKS AT guns and politics in 2008, with special attention to Bill Richardson.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani on guns. I think he needs to refine his message a bit. More here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More on Rudy: “Gun control is a landmine for Rudy Giuliani. When it comes to guns, Rudy’s got a terrible track record to deal with. So far, his message sucks. Based on Rudy’s messaging on guns, I’ll guarantee you most gun owners are still actively shopping around. If Rudy doesn’t get some solid advice on guns and start listening to it, gun control could be the issue that sinks his candidacy.”
ARNOLD KLING: “Why be a conservative libertarian?”
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: The Examiner editorializes:
Official Washington is playing three-card monte with taxpayers on earmark reform. Among those shuffling the cards are Republicans and Democrats, elected and appointed officials and career bureaucrats. The aim of this con game is to keep taxpayers from seeing what is really happening on earmarks — those spending measures anonymously inserted into bills and legislative reports by members of Congress to benefit friends, families and special interests without a public vote on the merits.
Having realized that the demands for reform are genuine, their first effort will be to produce reform that is fake. Only if their feet are held to the fire will they make real changes.
AND THEY DO IT WITH VIGOR: “Our job is to bash the President.”
MICKEY KAUS notes a pundit flipflop.
February 5, 2007
A BLOGROLLING CONTROVERSY! We haven’t had one of those in a while.
That’s led to this cri de coeur: “fresh on the injury of being dumped off of eschaton’s blogroll, this humble site has now experienced the injury of being cut from the daily kos roll.”
Don’t worry, Skippy: There’s still a place for you on my blogroll, just like always. Home is a place where, when you go there, they have to blogroll you. Er, or something.
CUTTING OFF DEBATE: The AP gets it backward. There’s a pattern to these errors, it seems.
MICHELLE MALKIN, CENSORED AT HOT AIR.
As I said before, he chose poorly.
EMBEDDED CARTOONIST: DAY BY DAY’S CHRIS MUIR is embedded in Iraq.
UPDATE: A reader notes that while big-media journalists are thin on the ground in Iraq, the blogosphere has sent so many people that it’s worked its way around to cartoonists . . . .
THE KEITH HENSON CASE HAS MADE SLASHDOT.
UPDATE: Here’s a 2003 interview with Keith, where he talks about his problems with the rather thuggish Scientology folks. Of course, it’s hard to see why they’d go after Keith, when he can’t possibly do as much damage to them as Tom Cruise already has. . . .
THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE: “You can argue that troops have done too many tours in Iraq, or you can argue that the troops are untrained – but you really can’t argue both at once . . . . Unless you’re a reporter for a major American newspaper.”